[Moridin]

Welcome to the forum Silver Cheetah!

As for your post, here are my thoughts

The General Agreement for Trade in Services is moving forward behind closed doors. The beginning framework for GATS was agreed at the 1994 round of talks in 1994, when the WTO was created. The overall aim of GATS is to progressively move towards global trade liberalisation, gradually removing restrictions that are considered barriers to trade in the area of service delivery (including health and education.) (i.e. it's an agenda for privatisation across all WTO member countries.)

It is not an agenda for ‘privatisation’ across all WTO member countries! It is an agreement to allow for an increase in competition, which will lead to an increase in the quality of services provided, a decrease in cost of those services, an increase in labor wages in developing countries, and an increase in economic stability in those developing countries

GATS is a big priority for the UK government, which is willing (though spends a lot of time saying not) to put up with privatising services in its own patch because it's one of the world's top service exporters, and expects to make a mint from selling services to developing countries around the world, as does the US, which IS the world’s top service exporter.

I am assuming the above is a mistatement by you. From the way your post is written it seems that you are saying that the UK Government will make a mint by selling services to developing countries? Is this really what you meant or did you mean that corporations will make a mint selling services? Please clarify and I will respond

I am most concerned about the impact that GATS will have on the way we live, both in the West, and in developing countries. It will cede more and more power to big business, whilst removing that power from government.

Where are your facts to back up these claims? GATS will in no way remove power from the government. Each and every member countries government is allowed to decide whether to open their country up to outside services. If they feel it is the best interest of their citizens (like you say a democracy is supposed to do) then and only then will an outside service provider be allowed to ‘set up shop’ so to speak in that country. With that initial provision that the government is given the right to allow or not allow outside service, they are also allowed to put limits and parameters on the outside service provider. For example if a US bank wishes to open branches in Peru, the Peruvian Government can say no, we do not want your business or yes we wish you to set up branches. If they say yes, then the Peruvian Government will tell the US bank how many branches they can open, the amount of transactions they are allowed to conduct…and so on.

Essentially, democracy, where elected government takes decisions on what is best for citizens (ok, it doesn’t always work that way, but it’s the best we’ve got) will be replaced by the GATS Dispute Panel, which will determine whether a law or regulation is ‘more burdensome than necessary’ (to business, that is.)

Again a false statement. The dispute panel is set up for Governments of member nations to dispute trade laws and policies. Individuals and Corporations are not allowed to bring up disputes in front of the Dispute panel, only Governments. The Dispute Panel cannot change or enforce laws or regulations in any member country (on the federal, state, or local level). The decision of the dispute panel usually means that the ‘winning’ member country is allowed to place trade restrictions (usually in the form of tarriffs) on the ‘losing’ country until the ‘losing’ country comes into line with what the Dispute Panel deems fair.

GATS is business oriented, not people oriented, and no, they are NOT necessarily the same thing! So far, GATS has been primarily driven by the big US corporations which stand to make most out of it. Companies like Citicorp, and Amex.

GATS IS NOT business orientated! It is set up to allow free trade in services between member nations, nothing more nothing less. It is not an agreement to allow for the mistreatment of the public by corporations. It is not set up to increase the profits of corporations. It is not set up to take-advantage of developing countries. It is merely an agreement which sets an equal playing field for all member countries. While the US and UK are big players on this field, fortunately they have no more say than any other member country. One vote per country! I will address this more in another post!

What can we do about GATS? A public debate about it would be a good start. Currently both business and government seem to be keeping very quite about GATS, except to reassure us every so often that it won't really make any difference...... What do you think? Or do you think that’s what good for business is good for all of us, because ultimately the benefits trickle down.

A public debate would be a good start, but only when both sides are discussed with facts, not just statements. You bring up good points in your post, but all I saw were statements, no facts. Anyone can make a claim that anything is bad and you should be against it, but where are the facts that back up your statements.

(I have some great statistics on the increasing gaps between the world’s rich and poor, if anyone’s interested. It’s widening, by the way.)

I will address this in another post. I would like to see your statistics on this!

**edited to make all my colors match
------------------


Never try to teach a pig to sing; it wastes your time and it annoys the pig
I've got to admit it's getting better, it's getting better all the time

[This message has been edited by Moridin (edited 08-27-2001).]