Chilean Factory Workers Celebrate Free Trade
The Chilean Free Market, Free Trade, frickin'...Freedom - how to express that love? In an explosive display of glee Aricans took up the lead by losing 900 jobs.
That's like a tenth of the population of Chile! Quite a gesture.
Actually the Aricans didn't really have much choice in the matter but I'm sure they were happy to oblige in any way when celebrating their GM plant shutting down. (Anyway factory work is so passé - Chile is a nation of entrepreneurs). You see these unemployed Aricans know they have a rasca country but nevertheless they are proud because Chile is on the up. Just ask them. I didn't.
That's like a tenth of the population of Chile! Quite a gesture.
Actually the Aricans didn't really have much choice in the matter but I'm sure they were happy to oblige in any way when celebrating their GM plant shutting down. (Anyway factory work is so passé - Chile is a nation of entrepreneurs). You see these unemployed Aricans know they have a rasca country but nevertheless they are proud because Chile is on the up. Just ask them. I didn't.
Julie T. Beamer, managing director of the company in Chile, said...Chile's 'reduction of tariffs with automobile-producing countries has increased competitiveness of foreign providers,' she added in a communique issued by the company. 'As a result, it is no longer economically possible to assemble vehicles in Chile.'Late July? We might as well be in South America it takes you so long to get around to it. True patriots will walk off earlier and soon be putting the final nails in their kiosks, right about the time their welfare-state, freedom-hating lunchpale union thug compatriots are done scraping every last red cent out the free market that gave them so much, but no matter how much it gives, they just want more. No, true patriots will wisely state out that magical 6th kiosk position per block, fulfilling the Market's screaming demand for more chewing gum, forging the entrepreneurial destiny that would make this country so damn great.
Around 900 jobs will be lost as the plant closes in late July in Arica, a region that already has one of the highest unemployment rates in Chile, around 12 percent.
posted by Chileno @ 12:22 PM
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17 Comments:
So, are you trying to hint that companies' main goal is to give jobs? I thought it was the other way around: companies make money, and to do that, they create jobs. When they don't make money, they pack up and go. Chile's lose will be someone else's gain.
If companies existed just to give jobs, nobody would have bothered to create machinery and technology. We would still be living like in the pre-industrial years... and we would all have jobs.
Note that when other companies start operations in Chile, Lefties remain mysteriously silent. I wonder why
Aahh, Lefties! During Frei Ruiz Tagle years, they said that if Intel opened in Chile, they would raise taxes, you know, let's tax the bastards. Costa Rica decided to cut taxes for Intel (how stupid). Just to start operations, Intel hired 3,000 engineers.
Thanks to Concertación voters and Lefties in general for keeping us safe from the evils of free market.
So, are you trying to hint that companies' main goal is to give jobs?
I'm hinting at no such thing, Chile neoliberal. Out of common courtesy to the rest of us, would it be too much to ask that you learn how to read?
Chile's 'reduction of tariffs with automobile-producing countries has increased competitiveness of foreign providers,' she added in a communique issued by the company. 'As a result, it is no longer economically possible to assemble vehicles in Chile.'
I'm commenting on government trade policy, not hinting that companies should be motivated by job creation. I'm not talking about companies at all! It's the government's job to insure that their business policy benefits the people. Call me crazy but I think low unemployment is good for the economy.
The Lagos-Bachelet FTA's just killed 900 jobs in a zone with 12% unemployment. You think Yahoo! will pick them up?
"it is no longer economically possible to assemble vehicles in Chile"
Don't believe that smoke screen for a second.
The reality is that GM is losing money at a shocking rate, and is staring down the barrel of Chapter 11 bankruptcy back home in Detroit. They'll sacrifice the far-flung stuff like Chile in an effort to save the main operations in North America. This is akin to chopping off a foot, but unfortunately for GM the gangrene is more in the head than their toes.
This is an easy way to avoid bad press in the US, and not scare the UAW too much. The Union members in Detroit could honestly care less about their brothers in Arica. I bet 99.999% of them couldn't find Chile on a map, much less Arica.
Sad, but true.
--chuck
>>>I bet 99.999% of them couldn't find Chile on a map, much less Arica.
Hillary Clinton supporters.
Anyway I still think Barack should oust Bachelet and save Arica from NAFTA.
I also think it's not that simple, as Chuck says. The 'reduction of tariffs' means then that the opposite, an increase of tariffs, would boost the economy? It doesn't add up here.
Oh, and talking about Obama, read the article below and explain it to me because I'm illiterate:
The dangerous protectionism of Barack Obama
Why they just don't scrap the minimum wage and let peruvians and Bolivians in the north to work for less than the chileans? Wouldn't that government policy help GM? Or pehaps we need Obama's protectionist policies.
Now, Chileno, note that the NAFTA, is a 'free trade agreement' of 10 thousand pages. You don't need agreements to have free trade.
Calling Chile rasca while living there as an illegal alien... You have some nerve, Mister.
Why don't you go to, say, Iran, and do the same? Would love to see how that'd go.
Then you wonder why are Americans hated throughout the world? They think they have some God-given right to be rude wherever they go.
Your defense: I didn't call Chile 'rasca.' It was them! The Aricans!
Yeah, right. A otro perro con ese hueso.
Hehe, I'm sorry but it was Pato, a proud Chilean, who first said that:
If you ask any Chilean, they will tell you that we have a "rasca" country but we are still proud. Please try to mention a couple of good things about Chile or just go back home and forget about our little country that we really love.
Now, you can say I fabricated Pato, but it's getting old. Throw that bone to another dog, as I believe someone said once. You're an insane nutcase and I've been blogging for years. I've got street cred, you've got a mental disorder.
Furthermore, I don't invent people who comment on my blog. You do.
Anyway, if you want to set the bar as low as Iran, then more power to you. That ain't too flattering to Chile, though. (Talk about rude).
In fact, yes. Let's talk about rude. Europeans constantly trash the USA and that's fine by me. Chileans trash the USA, fine by me. I criticize policies that hurt Chileans, and you defend Chile's failures to its own citizens. With friends like you, Chile hardly needs enemies.
It's fine to talk trash about Chile... outside of Chile, unless you are a Chilean citizen.
Could be a cultural thing, though. Maybe we Latins understand 'rudeness' differently from Anglo-Saxons.
>>>It's fine to talk trash about Chile... outside of Chile, unless you are a Chilean citizen.
Your criteria are so absurd it hardly warrants mentioning but I couldn't resist. You're insane.
Could be a cultural thing, though. Maybe we Latins understand 'rudeness' differently from Anglo-Saxons.
You're damn right. The way Latins casually characterize others - blackie, fatty, chink - would destroy the sensibilities of most self-righteous Anglos. I don't give a flying fuck either way but to sit here and say "North Americans are hated all over the world because we're rude" is absurd. It's not because we're "rude", no ruder than Australians or brits or Dutch or Argentines - whoeverthefuck. It's because of US foreign policy. Even then, when I went to Palestine I remember telling a Palestinean we were American and he sounded off for about 60 seconds and then a normal conversation ensued. Not a big fucking deal. Fuck passing as a Canadian.
good to see things haven't changed much.
Hey Anonymous, get a name, like everybody else...no one will go after you.
Do you think Don Guill is wrong about calling Chile rasca?
That is the question at hand, isn't it?
I'm interested in why you think it is a rasca country, or isn't a rasca country.
Welcome to the global free market of ideas...blogs are like Pinochet and his lowering of taxes in the 80's to incentivize foreign investment...
Only recently, though has Chile been able to apply "free market principles" to ideas...
Maybe its suffering from a bit of cultural protectionism.
To rasca or not to rasca was not the question until Tomas made it a question and that's fine I'll get to it in a sec.
But first let me point out that the anonymous loony was grasping at straws and he obviously has nothing. Here's why:
It's obvious that I was not saying "I think Chile's rasca" but rather mocking deluded pride that Pato expressed ages ago. Pato's stance is more or less "Chile is rasca but overall 'alright'" - as if blind patriotism will somehow create jobs.
Whatever mental handicap our anonymous friend suffers from makes him unable to grasp basic irony. No, in the post above I was not saying that Chile is rasca.
Now, to answer your question Tomas. Hell yeah Chile is rasca. Not only rasca, but on many levels it's a Third World shithole.
I just had a great debate about this self-same topic it with Olivier. (And yes, duh, on many levels US is a Third World shithole or is heading in that direction. Obvio'po!).
Meanwhile, in the Good Ol' USA, employers cut payrolls for a second straight month during February, slashing 63,000 jobs for the biggest monthly job decline in nearly five years as the labor market weakened steadily.
Yay for free trade indeed! Here, there and everywhere!
GM closing down the plant has to do with their own mismanagement. Just recently it was declared that GM took a heavy loss of 38-39 billion dollars the worse in American automaker history.
Chileno, can you ellaborate on my comment at 4:16
The best person to "elaborate" on a comment would be the comment author himself. If you want me to "reply" or "rebut" then I'd be happy to once I have time.
As you copied again the comment from GM one could think you concur. Do you agree with that explanation?
It sounds farcical and nonsensical to me, and the connection with free trade seems rather weak. As you linked both, I thought yo could give us more insight. When you have some time, please do.
Workers in Australia also celebrate free trade. It's a global trend, I tell ya.
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