Keyword: among europeans. It's not free if there are barriers to everyone else.

Zephao, please try to stay in the context. I was talking about a specific zone, since there is no worldwide free trade.

"unfair and imposed free trade"? If it's free, it's not unfair and imposed, unless one country specifically INVADES or ATTACKS another until he opens up. See colonial China and pre-meiji Japan. Did the US bomb Paris? Occupy London? Invade Madrid? Destroy buildings in Berlin? No, therefore it's not "imposed".

It can be imposed without war through diplomacy and lobbyist work, the current lines and points of the treaty were imposed, since a small group of politicians and lobbyists met in a secret place without asking the people, so this does not sound as an "imposed" treaty to you?

I don't. I was criticizing the European Union for doing basically the same within it's own borders and then complaining when America does it to them. Look at Greece, or Portugal. They get shet on daily by "unfair and imposed" "free" trade in Europe where a larger economic power rules their economy. France, Germany and the UK have been doing that for ages and nobody complains about it; now America does it to them and America is an imperialist devil. What the hell, Europe.

Well, I don't see why you argue with me about it, I totally agree with you on this, if you paid attention, I clearly said, Eurobureaucrats were the first ones eroding democracy and managing the EU badly ("heavily undermined by the dictatorial behaviour of the Brussels bureaucracy." -Myself), this is why the current state of the EU is quite worrying, because it won't last long if they keep it this way.

LOL.

Dilma's policy RESTRICTS all sorts of free trade, be it free trade or "unfair and imposed" free trade. She doesn't "impose free trade" to her neighbors (rather, she restricts them even further and then literally leave the money with them all the time for them to build overpriced ports with more quality than our own), nor does she get involved in any truly developed trade agreement (just the MERCOSUR which is a joke composed of terrible leaders everywhere like Maduro and Morales).

Zeph you give an answer that totally misses the point. I was referring to their way to make deals in secrecy and hidden agreements between "friends" or people of influence giving enough money on the table of negotiations, from what I heard about Dilma she used to be an expert in that matter.

Won't deny she does that often, but there's a big gap between giving all your money away and dealing economics with megacorporations.

The only thing in common is that both are done mostly in secrecy and without consulting the population's thoughts, but that's about it, lol. Dealing with megacorps is not swaying unless the deals are about cartel forming. Which they probably are, but I rest my case about the EU's policy.

Again missing the point, I was only comparing Dilma's methods to Eurobureaucrats' that are very similar in many aspects, not comparing Brazil cartels and megacorporations, stop to put words in my mouth I never stated at all.

Socialist might be too much, but the EU definetely leans brutally left because... Merkel. And right-wing governments pay the price for that.

So now, Merkel is leftist? Good to know it!
I guess you did not even knew it but Merkel (before the scandal happened) was actually totally in favor of current TTIP terms.

Please don't. Just let it fall along with the Schengen area. Western Europe is a beautiful cultural center, but that's about it. Instead, you're eroding your own culture. It's not working the way it should work. As for the economic power that the Union projects, hopefully it'll go away too. Maybe that'll stop your "free trade embargos" on Russia?

So you want to recreate customs and close borders? End the common market (eh FREE MARKET!) and every advancements made in cooperation in various domains, particularly cultural ones? You just sound like 80 yo old cranky people right now or far right supporters, and this isn't a compliment. Current European Union has many flaws, but if it is improved many things could be solved, we need reforms, but most of the politicians are too coward for it.

Funny you talk about the "free trade embargos" on Russia, since it was mainly imposed by NATO and the US in the leading position. As an example, France was not in favour of an embargo, but you know, François Hollande has no balls, so he bent the knee as usual and s*cked d*** and shut the F up.

Furthermore, the current TTIP also would seriously endanger and further restrict trade with Russia, since gas and oil would be provided then mostly by North American nations instead of Russia nowadays, with a preferential trade with Canada and the US.

Definetely not Basque independence. Hell, it's funny to hear this from a nationalist... :P

Well, I am Abertzale that's right (it means "patriot" literally), just proud of my culture, but not necessarily in favour of independence x) I just like to argue with mi querido Pablito <3

Welcome to the 21st century, where if you attack someone, you're a cunt of a nation and get embargo'd until your economy is sh*t! See Russia. Market dependancy is a stronger peacekeeper than open borders.

Welcome to the 21st century? Saying the one sounding like 80yo cranky grandpas?
Again I am totally against the Russian embargo, this is totally unjustified, as it destroys many jobs and people's lives, and waste billions of potential revenues for nationalistic douches (Obama, Putin, Merkel you got it). We are no longer in the cold war area. Making an embargo of weapons and supplies (since France had to renounce a 2 billions of dollars deal from the army industry after the Ukraine civil war, by US demands) can be understandable, what isn't correct is to make an embargo on food supplies, natural ressources and civil technological trade. These methods are from another age and are definitely backwards (similarly the Cuban embargo for decades was also totally backward driven by nationalistic policies again).

Duh, if the frenchies can't outdo a pole who can just barely understand french, they are failing themselves. :P

This just strenghtens my case about the EU's hypocrisy.

The Eastern Europeans coming for jobs are actually paid a big higher than what they could expect in their own countries, but way less than the common French, British, Italians, Germans etc, and many eastern workers are exploited there. And then some old cranky grandpa rage because they "steal our jobs!", they aren't stealing jobs at all, they are just taking jobs common French or British would not want at all, because it is low paid. You cannot have it all. You can compare it to the situation of the Mexicans and Latinos in the US.
And yes indeed, EU's hypocrisy, you got it right, as I told many things are flawed nowadays.

That's because the UK knows what they are doing, lul. The EU was supposed to be a free trade agreement, not a (I really don't want to use such cucky, overused sentence, but I got no replacements) "spread liberal propaganda" agreement. Let's face it; Merkel pushes it. That's why nations in the Visegrad group, Austria and some others are having conservative/nationalist dips - they are being damaged by the union.

The UK is led by liberals too (liberal aren't necessarily leftist btw dear Zephao), keeping their privilege is perfectly understandable, but then they have to leave the common European market once for all, vote Brexit if you do not want to lose your privilege, but at the meantime I hope they will also lose their "preferential trade treatments" with Europe. Some people say Britain would be better out of Europe, we will definitely know if they were right or not.

The point gets across; you don't like 'em, so why reelect them?

That's the biggest flaw of democracy and exactly why we had Dilma again. :I

This is a worldwide common pattern sadly.

Yeah, and gravity didn't exist until Newton theorized it in 1684. I remember how cool stuff was in 1683 - we could float around the the years never passed.

Irrelevant point Zephao. Newton discovered how gravity works, something that always existed naturally whereas Free trade had to be conceived, and did not exist before.

If anyone is nationalist, if it you

Never denied the fact that I was Nationalist. If it means being proud of my culture and history, then go for it, call me Nationalist ;)

Ok, how about you lay it out very easily for me, pretend as if I am very dumb: what problems are there for this besides it being a bit secretive, and it being free trade?

How about you actually read the points made by me and others about it? can't you read the sentence: "it's bad economically speaking: endangering small scale producers and businesses against transnational and huge corporations colluding with states and eroding further democracy since these huge corporations could attack individuals and societies in these secretive and undemocratic 'justice' proceedings that will be taken directly from the taxpayers' pockets. "?

I do not want you to consider you as a dumb person, even if there you are trying to act like you are one, you are just a (very) stubborn person.

I am a "true libertarian" - I think most countries today spend too much on social programmes, generally, and they are too powerful in other programmes, generally, and Smedley is anarchic libertarian, in which nationalism doesn't necessarily cancel out.

You? "true libertarian"? You are changing your mind like a wind vane, some months ago you were Socialist, then Nationalist and now Libertarian? Aren't you a little demagogic per chance?

This thread seems to be dead already but since noone has emphatically shown Koala how sensles his reasoning is, I'll try to.

You said you opt into free market. In the same time you said you have nothing agains the Social democracy model.

This two statements are contrary.

Free market means no government intervention in market.

Social-democracy assumes:
1. minimum wages - interferences labour market (and causes unemployment)
2. doles - same as above
3. income tax - same as above
4. redistribution of wealth - contradictory with free market

It is also very often connected with compulsory state pension scheme, state-owned companies, public health care or education and many other types of interventionism.

I do not see how Social Democracy is against free trade. Redistribution of wealth has nothing to do with free trade. You have to be more convincing Sultan. Sweden or Denmark aren't against free trade as far as I know.

Btw, you can say my reasoning is senseless, but then you have to prove it and discuss about all the points I made, something you haven't done yet.

I've just shown minimum 5 reasons why free trade runs counter to social democracy.

Redistribution means taking money from one group of people and subsidize some other.

Free market means no intervention.

One must be stupid not to see the contradiction.

You have shown nothing, redistributing wealth has nothing to do with free trade. It is like comparing apples to oranges.

First of all you must decide, first you speak of free market (mentioned Adam Smith f.e.) then about free trade. To be honest this two terms have much in common but we won't be able to come to agreement if we don't have same terms.

The thing is this discussion is about free trade, not about free market, and it seems you are the one getting out of the actual topic.

But anyway if you want to discuss about it then why not. To make it clear, the only time I mentioned free market is about the European market, which leans forward free market with really few regulations and restriction between members compared to other geographic zones, even if people tend to say the EU makes more regulations than anything else, as for the single market, Brussels tends to deregulate the single market, as to create it, hundreds of technical, legal and bureaucratic barriers to free trade and free movement between the EU’s member countries have been abolished. As a result, companies have expanded their operations. The competition has brought prices down and given consumers more choice.

As for socialism and free market, I think you got it wrong, throughout history socialism had a broader meaning, which basically boils down to an abolition of the existing capitalist order in favor of a more equitable system without such hallmarks of capitalism as strong class distinctions, boss/employee hierarchy in the workplace, and oligarchic control of the means of production. Here socialism does not refer either to the nationalization of industry, or other forms of government takeover("socialism" is a very polysemous term as you see and can represent many different currents). This is typically what such great free market economists as FA. Hayek, Ludwig von Mises, and even Frederic Bastiat (French Libertarian economist) meant when they were referring to socialism. Hence many radical left wing free marketeers have sought to abolish these facets of capitalism while still maintaining libertarian notions of private property rights.

Edited 5/10/2016 09:53:57

As comparing "socialism" with "free market" is quite irrelevant take also in account "capitalism" isn't representing and isn't the best system leading to free market, the problem with that argument is that "capitalism" doesn’t equal "free market", and we haven't had a free market not even cloçse. In fact, the economy we live in is far more the product of government-business collusion going back to the beginning, than economic freedom (see TTIP perfectly illustrating it).

As an example to illusrate it, when the American government "privatizes" something this either means paying a corporation with tax dollars (a pure free marketeer would consider it a ill gotten gain) to do something ordinarily done by government, giving government property to a corporation, or selling said property to a corporation (see again it is what TTIP supporters advocate and support). So here we go: we change a form of control of the market to another one, the current capitalist system is led by corporations, and this is why capitalism (the current form of it) cannot match with "free market" ideals.


To end this, I am not a Socialist, I actually tend to agree to some of its ideology leaning to Social democracy, Leftist Radicalism (actually close to Libertarianism), but I also adhere to some Libertarian ideals too, particularly when it deals with free market (i mean real free market, not the fake one US and European corporatists want to impose upon us) or anything that guarantees individual freedom, in contrary of what TTIP represents, in a total opposite way. I believe nobody should stay stuck into one economic model but instead we should reason by ourselves and take the best of each economic ideology.

Edited 5/10/2016 09:57:26

Koala hang yourself you commie cuck.

Damn, another long text meaninig nothing :/

Becouse of people calling this system "capitalism" doesn't arise it is capitalism.

1. The most important, suck called strategic markets are all in the hands of the governments. I mean: education, health care. In every single EU country governments own companies. In some more in some less.

2.Capitalism is based on respect for private ownership. State that takes away more then half of the citizen's income clearly does not respect him.

Maybe we understand capitalism in another way, then please tell me how you define that too

Damn, another long text meaninig nothing :/

Guess who is making another new pointless comment here? Most of your participations here were either irrelevant/out of topic or pointless. Like the previous post you made about income taxation, you make random comments not supported by any source/solid argumentation that are consequently easily debunked, as you just share your own opinion without any credibility.

1. The most important, suck called strategic markets are all in the hands of the governments. I mean: education, health care. In every single EU country governments own companies. In some more in some less.

Well not only in EU countries, it is actually everywhere, or perhaps excepted in Somalia, you know the marvellous place where there is no income taxation, since there is no state either actually, only an anarchic islamist mess, go there and tell me if your ideals are working there, you are hilarious Sultan.

2. Capitalism is based on respect for private ownership. State that takes away more then half of the citizen's income clearly does not respect him.

The current form of capitalism, the one you can find in the US for example, does not respect private ownership nor actual private businesses, as I told you but since you seem too illiterate to bother to read me, this capitalism is led by corporatists, and corporatists play the role of the state when it comes to Free Market, hence there is no real freedom, major corporations rule the market and own everything, and sadly you seem to be the only one to not realize it yet obviously.

Maybe we understand capitalism in another way,

Oh certainly yes, you have no objectivity and you do not get how the current system is flawed, and you keep believing in lies, open your eyes, we aren't living in a baby world.

Edited 5/10/2016 12:41:54

Koala you're the economic illiterate who believes the wealthy are oppressing people you have no reason to say ''you have no objectivity''.

No, Koala we are not living in abby world, nor in capitalism. And you calling socialism - capitalism won't change that. China is today more capitalistic then EU or US.

And you say that everywhere edy
ucation/health care is public. Well for thousends of years it was not. Socialists were first to implement that, sorry. you are like: in whole Europe it is like that so it must be good, and for me that is not an argument at all.

But gg, my last comment as we are not getting any closer to agreement.

You are right about China, I have been in China, and I can guarantee that there is no social policies at all, this is why using "communist" or "socialist" for some nations whereas they have currently nothing in common with it, is rather stupid.

About public education, it did not started with "Socialists" at all. It came naturally mostly in the 19th century, do you think that before this, the situation was better? 90% of the people were illiterate and only a cast of the wealthiest ones could actually go to school. It was a social advancement.
In France, compulsory education was promulgated in the 1870s, by Jules Ferry, and he wasn't Socialist at all, but Republican (rightist party). And I am sure you could find similar cases elsewhere (US or UK) where public education wasn't actually implemented by Socialists. If you want to go to places were there is no public education, try again Somalia, there is no organized public education there. Your ideology is as utopian and dangerous as the ones of the most extreme communists, this is why as communism in its time, no nation implemented your ideas, excepted wrecked nations as Somalia!

Sorry but I just have to write it.

do you think that before this, the situation was better? 90% of the people were illiterate

Yes it would be much better. I imagine world where such people like you were not able to write or read. The Internet would be a beautiful place. :'(

ahah Sultan this was a nice one truly xP

gg Koala :)
I promise that when I see one of your threads next time I ll check it out.
And remember that we agreed about TTIP. :)

yes this was the most important, we agreed on the main topic.