Enviroactivism junk science

The American Association for the Advancement of Science says biotechnology is safe. The French Academy of Science agrees: "All criticism against GMOs can largely be rejected on strictly scientific criteria." The national science academies of Germany, Brazil, India, China as well as Britain’s Royal Society share the same view. And the World Health Organization (WHO) States: "No effects of human health problems have been shown as a result of the consumption of GM foods..."

why is free trade a collective action problem ie benefit/many people => small benefit per person

Because free trade increases GDP through comparative advantage and specialization but the effect is so diffuse over a large population that to each individual the benefit seems quaint. Consider countries do better with free trade by doing what they do best and exporting any surplus to trade.  Hence no one has a big bone to pick except when the free trade affects them directly. When this happens, lobby groups are formed and there is little opposition because the benefits are so diffusely spread over a massive population. The govt often caves into the lobby hurting the more massive population. An example would be Bush caving into Ohio steel workers, who in the end costs the economy more jobs due to higher steel prices. Three quarters of people directly hurt by free trade often find new employment equal to or above their pre-free trade employment. In economics, comparative advantage refers to the ability of a party to produce a particular good or service at a lower marginal and opportunity cost over another.
     Economist Ha-Joon Chang criticized the comparative advantage principle, contending that it may have helped developed countries maintain relatively advanced technology and industry compared to developing countries. In his book Kicking Away the Ladder, Chang argued that all major developed countries, including the United States and United Kingdom, used interventionist, protectionist economic policies in order to get rich and then tried to forbid other countries from doing the same. For example, according to the comparative advantage principle, developing countries with a comparative advantage in agriculture should continue to specialize in agriculture and import high-technology widgets from developed countries with a comparative advantage in high technology. In the long run, developing countries would lag behind developed countries, and polarization of wealth would set in. Chang asserts that premature free trade has been one of the fundamental obstacles to the alleviation of poverty in the developing world. Recently, Asian countries such as South Korea, Japan and China have utilized protectionist economic policies in their economic development.^[15]

1. 
   
2. As I say, we could spend a lot of time on these three issues.
3. But you should be aware of them.
4. And they pose unfair competitive problems to agricultural producers in
5. developing countries.
6. should be familiar with.
7. First of all, agricultural products are subsidized.
8. That is to say they are given money from governments in the United States,
9. in Europe, in Korea, in Japan, so as to help foster farms.
10. That's a form of unfair competition, giving subsidies.
11. Second of all, agricultural products in many countries are protected.
12. That is to say it is difficult to export from one country into another
13. country because there are tariffs 
14. and restrictions on agricultural products.
15. This also is unfair to developing countries.
16. And third of all, some developed countries, that is to say some rich
17. countries, subsidize agricultural exports, which also is unfair
18. competition against the agricultural products in developing countries.
19. As I say, we could spend a lot of time on these three issues.
20. But you should be aware of them.
21. And they pose unfair competitive problems to agricultural producers in
22. developing countries.

Based on the reading and Professor Moran’s lecture, the economic benefits the U.S. and most developed countries receive from globalization are estimated to be how many times the costs?

Please select the best option.

Benefits are 2 times the costsBenefits are 4 times the costsBenefits are 10 times the costsBenefits are 20 times the costsStatus: correct

 

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What is the primary reason foreign investors in manufacturing are attracted to developing countries?

What is the primary reason foreign investors in manufacturing are attracted to developing countries?

Please select the best option.

1)loose working regulations

2)abundantlow wage workers

3)equipment and facilities are cheap

4)middle and high skilled is available

answer 4)

EXPLANATIOn

Flows of foreign direct investment in manufacturing going to middle-skill and higher-skilled activities is 14 times great than flows to lowest skill activities. That is, by far the greatest amounts of foreign direct investment in manufacturing go to create auto parts and auto assembly, electronics, chemical and petrochemicals, medical devices rather than simply to create garments, footwear, and toys. Moreover, the proportion of FDI flows to middle and higher skill operations is speeding up over time. Workers in these plants earn 2 to 4 times the wages in lower skill plants, and supervisors, engineers and managers may earn more than 10 times as much – even though such wage levels may still be substantially cheaper than industrial wages in the US, UK, Japan, or Germany.

what is the function between taxes and prosperity?

As Nobel Laureate Robert Mundell explained in his 2000 article, “A Reconsideration of the Twentieth Century” published by the prestigious academic journal, American Economic Review:

“Monetary deflation was transformed into depression by fiscal shocks.  The Smoot-Hawley tariff, which led to retaliation abroad, was the first:  between 1929 and 1933, imports fell by 30 percent and, significantly, exports fell even more, by almost 40 percent.  On June 6, 1932, the Democratic Congress passed, and President Herbert Hoover signed, in a fit of balanced-budget mania, one of its most ill-advised acts, the Revenue Act of 1932, a bill which provided the largest percentage tax increase ever enacted in American peacetime history.  Unemployment rose to a high of 25.9 percent of the labor force in 1933, and GDP fell by 57 percent at current prices and 22 percent in real terms.”