Protests outside TPP talks

5/12/2012 2:12:47 p.m.

Greg wrote:

Mike, we dont have a free trade deal with China, its just a slight percentage cut in tariffs. The only free trade operating in the world is between members of the EU, they cut out everybody else. We will get nothing from America. Any tarriff reduction wont be before 2025.

4/12/2012 8:03:36 a.m.

Mike wrote:

How does free trade work?

We have some claiming there is no free trade in the world.

Take Fonterra selling on the world market. They put product up for auction and it sells at the price the world is willing to pay. Thats FREE TRADE to anyone but with brain. That FREE TRADE has also made NZ the most efficient dairy producer in the world while others have gone the subsidies route for greed and sloth.

Free Trade does work, if not for the anti-trade lobbies trying to protect their only little empires. We have some demanding higher wages for no productivity gains, and thats not sustainable. We have parties runing govts on borrow today, and borrow tommorrow and ever after - thats not sustainable.

Free trade works. If somehting is priced highly, it encourages more to produce, which then through supply and demand reduces the price. It also encourages efficency. We have leftists saying this/that dont work when its the leftist policies stuffing them up.

NZ depends on Free Trade, and around 1/2 our exports we dont set prices, ie the world does. Much of our other exports we also gained due to NZ reputation of good quality products. While we have idiots who think NZ still a primary producer, we have been moving away from selling primary products and have a lot of secondary production/manufacturing, and it the secondary production/manufacturing that has raised likes of Fonterra sales/profits.

If not for politics, we would have much more exports today. We used to sell a lot to the US, but due to bigoted politics in the 80's we lost almost all of that trade, export trade that with inflation would be worth over $10 billion a year more than our current exports to the US, which would be quite useful for NZ. How many jobs did that 80's anti-US policy cost NZ?

3/12/2012 11:33:43 p.m.

Mike wrote:

@Mark When did NZ tariffs get removed?

They were mostly removed back in the 1980's, ie we have almost no tariffs left to remove so your talking garbage.

How can other countries who already have access to sell in NZ benefit by tariffs not being lowered any further. They wont. On the other hand NZ exports will benefit in other country markets with lowered tariffs.

Its a simple equation.

Currently NZ tarriffs on imports ~ 0
tarriffs on NZ exports, sizable - (plenty 8-20%)

With TPP:
NZ tarriffs on imports - 0
Tarriffs on NZ exports - lowered towards 0

This is win/win for NZ. We have the anti-business idiots, that believe revenue=profit, and somehow you can tax like $1 million dollars out of $1 business dollar, and anything less than this is coprorate greed! Business give jobs, without business we have no jobs, so when the left goes out of its way to damage business, they are costing jobs and standard of living. Typically the so-called greedy businesses have profit margins of 0-3%, ie are barely surviving due to union greed demanding pay rises for everything including one of their members breaking wind instead of matching productivity. #1 cause of job losses is failure to adapt and NZ productivty is amoung the lowest in the world in many industries, and thats what losses jobs, burying heads in sand and ignoring the world.

Take woolen carpet manufacture, Aus $ stronger than NZ$, Aus wages higher, and even with added freight costs Aus can export woolen carpets to NZ because NZ productivity is too low. Thats not cheap imports, but poor productivity and NZ needs to fix this.