"Ryan Ginstrom" <ginstrom@hotmail.com> wrote in message

> But the ones getting screwed the most by so-called free trade are the poor
> countries, who opened up their markets to imported manufactured goods, on
> the promise that they could sell their agricultural products in return.
What
> happened is they bought all the cars and electronics, but the rich
countries
> subsidize their famers and keep food imports out of the country.

You know poors that bought cars and electronics ? I think the third world
farmers are getting screwed in the deal (and not only them), but not the way
you say.
I went to China, and I met the people that pocketed the money from opening
of Japanese market to Chinese agro-alimentary. The 2 things are
unrelated...most Chinese farmers are as poor as ever. Their employers live
in Kobe from where they manage at distance the sweat-shops and they share
the benefits with a bunch of Chinese apparatchiks. Because it's China's
politics way, because it's Japanese big business's way. I think both stink
the same.

> As for protection from the lying, cheating megacorps, that's a more
endemic
> problem in Japan and not limited (or even primarily confined) to
agriculture
> and retail.

I know, and not only in Japan.
The facts are in the recent economical difficult times (since the WWII),
most industrial countries didn't have crisis as socially destructive as
1929, because the "protected sectors" have compensated the sectors striken
by international bad context. Even if economies are driven by the
unprotected industries. Both are necessary.
Public intervention cannot, shouldn't be universal. We have to make a
choice. The intervention on local agriculture ( I think you can't put large
scale agriculture in the same basket) and local services are easier, and
bring more local social benefits than an intervention on internationalised
sectors like car-making industry. I have seen what the creation of Swatch
car factories by public initiative brought to local economy : peanuts. And
what it costed to the taxpayer : the skin of the bum.

You know well tax money and time/energy of civil servants are used for
public intervention anyway, in Japan, in the US, anywhere. Like free trade,
non-interventionism
is an utopia. Now interventionism is used to favor big industry lobbies and
generate pocket money for the reigning dynasties (the Koizumi klan, the
Tanaka klan, the Bush klan, the Kennedy klan, the Chirac klan, the Chirac
klan -yes they count twice..).

> But even if we hypothetically prevent corporations from performing
unethical
> or illegal actions, the mom and pop stores will still surely die unless
they
> can somehow convince their customers that they offer something different
and
> better. I.e. differentiate.

I agree, and don't see any problem with that. Certain shops close, other
open. That's not about maintaining businesses artificially but not letting
big bucks stab them. Don't give charity to people who have been ripped off
by highway thieves, get the cops arrest the thieves.
The problem is a situation like my hometown. There used to be a diversified
choice of small and middle sized shops all over town (not paradise, but
normality). Then the big corporations came with their money, marketing and
dumping power and asphixiated the others (5 hypermarkets fighting for 100
000 inhabitants, what do you think ?). Now if you want to open a little
business, the entrance ticket is very expensive, as you need to rent a space
in a shopping mall/street owned by the majors (they bought or obtained
exclusivity on everything), and more media communication is needed (or
forced on you as "inhabitant" of the mall).
What is happening here in Osaka ? Exactly the same thing. Individuals can no
longer raise the capital to start little businesses. When you look at my
local shotengai. A part of it has been renovated (with tons of money, even
disproportionate investment with certain shops completely renovated before
the paint of the last revamping is dry), and contains chain shops employing
only baitos, and mass-producing. A part are ruins of old shops, and the few
individuals that survived. A part are trucks and stalls from which all the
new individual businesses operate,  on certain days, as they can no longer
rent shops or expect doing that full time (they get other jobs to complete
their income.), and they don't seem to last and ever generate enough money
to upgrade.
A couple of friends opened a restaurant 25 yr ago, something like your
tempura shop, so they maintained. They say now the investment to start the
same business is 10 times bigger, banks don't lend more than before, and
possible income has diminuated. They wouldn't be able to restart today.
They'd work for a chain. As baitos, not as owners or even employees.

You'd be surprised to know how few people actually own those chain shops
around here. In the first years in Japan, I made a false assumption. In
France, I know most of the fast-food or other shop chains work mostly on a
franchise basis, so there are local owners, the bigger local owner owns a
few shops in one town. I thought that was the same here. In fact a number of
Japanese chains are 100% owned by an investment company, if not one single
person. Even their baito-employees ignore the big boss of their udon-ya also
owns the spaghetti-ya next door and the butaman-ya and melon-pan-ya that
will replace them next month. I have heard of a guy that owns over 10
different little chains (of not more than 50 shop each around Kansai). I've
travelled with another that explained me he had not even bothered to visit
each of his bakeries, only the 30 first ones. They both started in real
estate business, in bubble era. Both take money from the banks like I take
water from the tap. The same banks that won't lend 500 000 yen to your great
tempura guy the day he needs  to repaint his shop. The Y word came to my
mind often when I was thinking of these 2 managers. I have seen that
elsewhere too, in eikaiwa world.
I really hope that's reversible and my children won't live in a new
Middle-Age with a bunch of Bill Gates as the aristocratic caste.

> I see nothing wrong with stipulating that imports must meet domestic
> regulations, including in their production. However, this type of rule is
> ripe for abuse, and has been abused in the past. Plus it's hard to
enforce.

I've never said that was easy.

CC