Tag: World Trade Organization

[2020] Republicans blasting China forget that the GOP enabled Beijing’s rise

Tina Marie (Ms. Cat)

As a deadly pandemic wreaks havoc in an election year, Republicans are leveling relentless attacks against China. To be sure, Beijing’s initial response to the coronavirus outbreak was littered with errors, egregious injustices and conspiracy-mongering.

Republicans blasting China forget that the GOP enabled Beijing’s rise

Related:

What Republicans did 15 years ago to help create Donald Trump today

Urged on by their presidential standard-bearer, Texas Gov. George W. Bush, and by nearly all of the business lobbyists who represented the core of the party’s donor class, three-quarters of House Republicans voted to extend the status of permanent normal trade relations to China. They were more than enough, when added to a minority of Democrats, to secure passage of a bill that would sail through the Senate and be signed into law by President Bill Clinton.

[2005] The Tulip Revolution takes root

Tina Marie (Ms. Cat)

It all went down at the speed of light. In only a few hours on Thursday in Kyrgyzstan’s capital Bishkek, the palace was stormed, the tyrant fled and a new order was starting to take shape. Or was it?

The Tulip Revolution takes root

Related:

[2005] GEORGIAN ADVISORS STEPPING FORWARD IN BISHKEK

Although Kyrgyzstan’s Tulip Revolution has already turned out to be far more violent than similar uprisings in Georgia and Ukraine, the scenarios have a striking similarity. They suggest the presence of a strong network of human, material, and financial resources in the post-Soviet space, which is able to fight successfully with the authoritarian and mostly Russia-leaning regimes.

U.S. Wars and Hostile Actions (WW2 – 2014)

Euromaidan 2014 – Orange Revolution – War in Donbass

Inside the Trilateral Commission: Power elites grapple with China’s rise

Tina Marie (Ms. Cat)

Inside the Trilateral Commission: Power elites grapple with China’s rise (original)

Each new candidate for Commission membership is carefully scrutinized before being allowed entry. As a rule, members who take up positions in their national governments — which is uncannily common — give up their Trilateral Commission membership while in public service. Those include U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken, Jake Sullivan, the U.S. national security adviser, Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen and Indian External Affairs Minister Subrahmanyam Jaishankar.

This revolving door between the commission and senior government ranks has always been fodder for conspiracy theorists. Its first director in 1973, Zbigniew Brzezinski, later became U.S. President Jimmy Carter’s national security adviser. The very existence of the commission, meanwhile, seems predicated on the question of whether governing should be left to the people. It is a question the commission itself has tackled head-on since 1975: Is democracy functioning? Or does someone need to guide it?

That year, three scholars — Michel Crozier, Samuel Huntington and Joji Watanuki — wrote a report for The Trilateral Commission titled “The Crisis of Democracy.” In it, Huntington wrote that some of the problems of governance in the U.S. stem from an “excess of democracy.”

Related:

The Crisis of Democracy – Trilateral Commission – 1975

The Euro Without German Industry

Tina Marie (Ms. Cat)

By Michael Hudson

The reaction to the sabotage of three of the four Nord Stream 1 and 2 pipelines in four places on Monday, September 26, has focused on speculations about who did it and whether NATO will make a serious attempt to discover the answer. Yet instead of panic, there has been a great sigh of diplomatic relief, even calm. Disabling these pipelines ends the uncertainty and worries on the part of US/NATO diplomats that nearly reached a crisis proportion the previous week, when large demonstrations took place in Germany calling for the sanctions to end and to commission Nord Stream 2 to resolve the energy shortage.

The Euro Without German Industry

Policies Matter: Volkswagen, Mercedes, & Hyundai React To Inflation Reduction Act

Tina Marie (Ms. Cat)1 Comment

Policies Matter: Volkswagen, Mercedes, & Hyundai React To Inflation Reduction Act

In June, Johan DeNysschen, the COO of Volkswagen of America, told Bloomberg his company is considering the construction of a battery manufacturing facility in North America. That would satisfy the requirement in the Inflation Reduction Act that batteries are manufactured in the US or other countries that are approved trading partners. According to the current North American free trade agreement, American trade officials consider anything made in Canada or Mexico to be domestically produced.

But manufacturing is one thing, The IRA goes further and requires the materials used to manufacture products also be sourced from approved trading partners. Canada is certainly one of them.

…

Then the roof fell in. The IRA only applies to vehicles built in the US, and that Georgia factory was not scheduled to be up and running until 2025. Two weeks ago, Hyundai and Kia vehicles imported from South Korea were eligible for the federal EV tax credit of up to $7,500. After the IRA was signed into law, they are eligible for nothing. The South Korean government is considering bringing the matter to the World Trade Council, but according to Reuters, Hyundai will now speed up construction of its new Georgia factory.

…

In the final analysis, that may be a good thing for America. Globalization left many countries like the US vulnerable to the machinations of crooks, thieves, and lunatics. The cheapest solution is often not the best solution.

Interesting that South Korea isn’t an “approved trading partner”. Then again, they’re not part of the USMCA. I suppose this is good for bringing some jobs to America.

Bill Gates Failed Effort to Feed Africa:Was he even trying to help in the first place?

Tina Marie (Ms. Cat)1 Comment

Healthcare administration students in the United States have no choice but to learn about private vs public interests, and the power that private interests have in crafting the Nation’s healthcare policy. Essentials of Health Policy and Law is a fairly standard healthcare administration textbook that budding health policy experts are given to study in American universities. The text uses health policy decisions made in recent years by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation as an example of the way private interests control public health policy. According to the book, the Bill and Melinda Gates foundation “provides grants to develop crops that are high in essential vitamins and minerals to improve the nutrition of people in developing countries” (Wilensky, 2023). A very uncritical examination of the way investors like Gates use their wealth to make important decisions that affect millions.

Bill Gates Failed Effort to Feed Africa:Was he even trying to help in the first place?

Resources:

Gates-funded ‘green revolution’ in Africa has failed, critics say

Bill Gates: ‘We’re in a Worse Place Than I Expected’

Irish Potato Famine: How Belief In Overpopulation Leads To Human Evil

Serve the people: The eradication of extreme poverty in China.

Africa taken for ‘neo-colonial’ ride

Tina Marie (Ms. Cat)

By Anis Chowdhury and Jomo Kwame Sundaram – Jul 26, 2022

SYDNEY and KUALA LUMPUR, Jul 26 2022 (IPS) – Like so many others, Africans have long been misled. Alleged progress under imperialism has long been used to legitimize exploitation. Meanwhile, Western colonial powers have been replaced by neo-colonial governments and international institutions serving their interests.

Africa taken for ‘neo-colonial’ ride

OPEC chief says there’s ‘no capacity in the world’ that could replace Russia’s 7 million barrels a day in oil supply + More

Tina Marie (Ms. Cat)

OPEC chief says there’s ‘no capacity in the world’ that could replace Russia’s 7 million barrels a day in oil supply (Archived)

Related:

The House voted to ban the import of Russian oil even though Biden already banned it by executive order

Bank of America predicts that a ban on Russian oil exports could push prices as high as $200 a barrel – and breaks down why this could trigger a global recession or stock market crash

But the strategists noted that the status of the United States as an energy independent country – meaning it produces as much energy as it consumes – could mitigate the impact of this. US-listed oil stocks Exxon Mobil and Chevron were both up by just under 1% Monday.