ANZ: Making a Killing in Iraq: GPJA Press Release

"the iraqi shoemaker is unemployed, cannot buy shoes, cannot buy a hat, cannot buy chocolate.."

Wrong, he's not unemployed for long, because there is new demand in the hat and chocolate industries. Or the multinational shoe company employs him.

What you are saying by disagreeing with me is that everyone in Iraq should pay double the price for their shoes, just to keep this one shoemaker in his job. That's crazy.

"he could get as job as a prison guard in a new prison,"

He doesn't need to but whatever floats your boat.

"or perhaps commit a crime to feed his family and end up as a prison inmate, along with most of his ex shoe making mates..."

No, that's what Iraqis had to do under Saddam when he starved them and spent the money on palaces. But why would he need to do that now? As explained, the availability of outside goods does not increase unemployment levels, actually, new jobs are created because people have more cash to spend, so create new businesses. So he's employed, and now his mates are as well, and has better access to cheap shopping than before. This is bad why?

"and that's not even getting to the bit about the poor asian sweatshop worker who's slavery is now endorsed by a 'free' market in Iraq."

"Whose", not "who's". The asian is working in the sweatshop because the "sweatshop" has better pay and conditions than his previous job in the boggy rice field.

"not to mention the extra resources needed to tranpsort the shoes from asia to iraq."

Remember how the "asian" shoes were the same quality, but half the price? The cost of a product is the price of the resources used to make and ship that product. If one company can produce the same product cheaper than another company, then the "cheaper" company must be using fewer resources to make it. It is in a company's interest to use as few resources as possible to make their product, because then they can sell them cheaper and be more competitive.

Another example that might be clearer: It is very expensive for Iceland to grow fruit and vegetables, because it is cold. It is easy and cheap for Brazil, because it is nice and warm. So a month's supply of fruit and vegetables in Iceland costs $1000, and a month's supply of fruit and vegies in Brazil costs $100.

Imagine you were an icelander. Would you buy Iceland fruit and vegies? Or would you get some sent from Brazil and pay $50 for shipping? OF COURSE you would get them from Brazil. A few Iceland farmers have to do a different job, but jobs are so easy to find now that Icelanders have so much spare cash that the economy is growing very fast. Ah but all that diesel burnt by the container ship carrying the food causes more pollution you say. Wrong.

Because you can grow food 10 times as fast in Brazil, then you only need to use the farm machinery (and everything else) a tenth as much per unit of food, so only a tenth of the fuel is used. So fuel is saved overall. Even the farm uses manual labour instead of machinery, an Iceland farm needs 10 times the workers per unit of food, who use more than 10 times the heating, ten times the housing, etc etc, all of which creates far more waste and pollution than the container ship will burn.

Geddit?

GPJA's fact-checker is the same Clair's fact-checker that posted on the "anti-war auckland" post. You should check out the grotesque capitalist assertions and the mental beating doled out by others responding to the baseless profit motivated propaganda.. It was a laugh

man, i didnt realise a simple press release was going to cause so much problem. it's a pretty simple statement, i'm not quite sure what the confusion is. multinational corporations and the us are using their muscle power to push iraqi people and workers out of the job. they also tried to make the minimum wage about 25$US a month until strike action by oil workers changed that. i suppose you're going to say that this is economics and they are just not clever enough to know how to play the 'free market' game?

"it's a pretty simple statement, i'm not quite sure what the confusion is."

Your statement is based on economic fallacies, that's the problem. Have you even read the thread?

Don't engage in a battle of wits with fact-checker. It is unethical to battle the unarmed.

Capitalist theories are not sensible. "The wealth will trickle down"; come on, even you can't really believe that. "Technology will fix the environment", Buuuulllllshit. "Market forces weed out the bad corporations", still waiting..

Anarchist ideals are not theories, they are social norms, like freedom, equality and democracy; and we are living lives in full contradiction of them.

www.anarchistfaq.org

check it out..

"The Iraqi assets the US moved the corporatise and now is urging to be privatised have resulted in Iraq's terrible unemployment problem being increased."

Wrong, unemployment is Iraq has dropped since the invasion and is still dropping. Pre-war it was around 60%, now it is estimated to be between 30-40%. Iraq's economy is booming.

Have a look at the unemployment section of this report for more info:

http://www.brookings.edu/dybdocroot/fp/saban/iraq/index.pdf

"Rogernomics caused huge inequalities and unemployment in NZ but at least we had not been suffering war for over 20 years."

Absolute bollocks. Unemployment was at high levels before Rogernomics, despite a whole bunch of stupid make-work schemes. Rogernomics actually reduced unemployment, and massively improved freedom and prosperity.

Read this: http://www.denisdutton.com/cis_report.htm

"The US has also changed Iraq's intellectual property laws so now Iraqi farmers are not allowed to save seed for year to year. They instead must by it every year."

Wrong. Another myth. The law only applies to protected seed. There is not a single Iraqi farmer affected, because there is not a single protected plant being sold in Iraq.

Again, you have not checked the facts, just fallen for more unfounded anti-American conspiracy theories. You believe it simply because it fits your pre-conceived bigotry. You are yet another irrational fundy like Brian Tamaki.

> Turnover does not equal profit! If Iraqi shoemakers sell $10m shoes a year,
> they only actually make something like $1m (if they're lucky). So even if the Iraqi
> shoemakers can't find another job (which they would). Iraqis would have 4 million bucks
> extra to spend overall.

So where does the other $9m paid to the shoemakers go? Tools, raw materials, rent. And the people who supplied those things will now all lose their source of income. The $10m lost profit is indeed spread out much more widely than just the shoemakers, but that's irrelevant; the net effect is still the loss of $10m in spending power, only half of which is compensated for by cheaper shoes.

Are you seriously trying to tell me that people have more to spend overall if shoes are more expensive?

"So where does the other $9m paid to the shoemakers go? Tools, raw materials, rent. And the people who supplied those things will now all lose their source of income."

Wrong. No they won't. The toolmakers, raw material manufacturers, and renters will simply find a new buyer (possibly the "outside" shoe company). In fact, the old shoemaker might even keep his old tools and materials and manufacture a different style or better quality shoe.

"The $10m lost profit is indeed spread out much more widely than just the shoemakers, but that's irrelevant; the net effect is still the loss of $10m in spending power, only half of which is compensated for by cheaper shoes."

Wrong. There is no loss of spending power! The shoe buyers still spend the same $10 million, it's just that now they only spend half of it on shoes, and the other half on other things.

You are sadly mistaken. I'm a nice sort of person. Seriously, if you admit you're wrong, I won't gloat.