slothrop

How do differences in price structures (what does that mean?) cause an increase in lumber imports from Canada? I would have thought that US producers would see increased sales to US companies since the Canadians' prices would have increased as a result of the tariffs. Are the Canadians reducing operating costs (less efficient workers and equipment) because they will be seeing less sales volume? That doesn't jibe with "increased exports to the US". I must be missing something. Does the increase in lumber price offset the losses caused by reduced sales to the US? If so, it seems that the tariffs would hurt Canadian workers and equipment vendors but benefit US and Canadian lumber companies.

. Cultures will change.....give it time.......you can't have "everything" now in the "information" revolution that is just getting started. You couldn't do many things in the former USSR. Things changed....... Organizing was de facto impossible or illegal in the US for quite a while, too, right? Perhaps Stefan is right. I can see how sweatshops could give a developing country a foot in the door of international trade. Once the industry is established, workers can organize (with the help of progressive organizations and information from the developed countries) to demand better conditions. Since the sweatshops' production has become important to the national economy, eventually a smart government will relent and conditions will improve. If the government planned well, the proceeds from years of exploitative production will have improved infrastructure and other areas of industry so that the country's economy will be able to bear the shock of its sweatshop labor being moved by the multinationals to less-developed countries.

Yup, that's me. Are you working at PMS anymore?

Hmm... I seem to read an awful lot of controversy over free trade these days, and whether it works economically for developing countries. The World Bank's free trade policies have left many developing countries in poor shape. I don't see every economist agreeing that free trade is unassailable. Why do trade barriers exist? Is there ever a good reason for tariffs? Are state industries (one way to be protectionist) always a bad idea, even in the short term? What are alternative methods of keeping international competition from overwhelming developing industries?

You do the volunteer belay program? I just do that in the rainy season, but it's worth it when I'm short on cash and know I'll be in the gym three days a week. Stone Gardens is the bomb in the wintertime.

Yeah, being in a union wouldn't have saved your dot-com job. But people were happy with those jobs because they were making tons of cash and getting to wear sandals and shorts every day. Don't need a union there. If jobs aren't so easy to find, the way to improve your working conditions is to a) start your own company or b) change things from the inside. Big companies or stable, mature industries have a hard time giving a shit about the concerns of individual workers, so eventually those workers want more clout and form a union to get what they want.

Word. I agree, but it's easy to shift the costs to someone else or to something less measurable by economic indicators. The usual economics is not sophisticated or forward-thinking enough to account for long-term environmental damage, for example, or social degradation. Again, I'd really like to read an in-depth economic assessment of Wal-Mart's impact on small towns. Until then, we're all just bs'ing. I never studied economics in school. Too much else to do at the time. I did get a broad education, though, with plenty of science in the mix. So I have a hard time believing that "the argument concerning free-trade... was settled conclusively centuries ago" just by hearing that JayB's selected sources say so. Evidence to the contrary suggests that there may yet be arguing to do. There's no evidence to back up Creationism, that's just dumb. Tariff barriers have a long history of helping developing nations improve their economies. When competing against industrialized nations, countries with weaker economies (less cash) impose tariffs to favor their nascent industries until those industries have a chance to mature and the government can use the tariff income to develop sufficient infrastructure to allow the growing industry to become competitive. Only then is "free trade" a reasonable economic choice. Remember how Bush passed tariffs on steel and softwood imports that got Canada all huffy? Where's the free trade, George? The US (through the WTO, World Bank, etc.) pushes for free trade because it knows it can dominate smaller economies (most of them), but feels free to be protectionist when it needs to. Duh, capitalism. I need to do some more reading. Want to lend me any of those books, Jay?

Is the development of antitrust legislation and enforcement also considered PROGRESS? Until antitrust laws enabled government to break up unethical abusers of commercial power, the few rich robber barons were able to control prices to benefit themselves. In order to cooperate with a democratic political system, capitalism must have checks and balances to bring the will of the people into consideration.

You're joking, right? It's not 1998 anymore. I know a guy who just graduated with a computer science degree from CMU (!) and is having to do part-time contracting because he can't find a full-time job. Three years ago, any idiot with a CS degree got $50k/year. Now someone who graduates from one of the best CS programs in the country doesn't have a single job offer before leaving campus. The times have changed, bucko. I'd like to see the developers at Amazon.com unionize.

Yeah, seriously. There are more and better cracks to climb at the rock, plus it's OUTSIDE. You know, with sun and fresh air unpolluted by chalk dust. Did I mention the low cost of the UW rock?

Nice argument, Jay. I'd love to see some facts to back it up, though. Someone do a long-term economic study of several real small towns and learn how big the impact of a new Wal-Mart really is. Any such data in that muckracking book you mentioned, Allison? Fence, you bring up a good point again about the number of displaced workers. It's hard to argue that Wal-Mart does a better job than a small shop with customer service. A bunch of low-wage drones with no vested interest in the company just can't serve a customer as well as the local old-timer mechanic or bookseller. (I wonder how Wal-Mart's turnover rate compares to similar low-wage employers, like McDonald's...) Not only are the workers less well-trained and motivated, but there are probably fewer of them per retail area. Wal-Mart can staff the whole music section with one cashier and deal in more volume than the two indy music stores that used to employ three punk kids and one burnt-out ex-hippie. Let's say that one young community college grad, stuck in Pittsburg, KS, loses his job at the local record store because Wal-Mart muscles in. He used to make $8/hour -- not too much, really, but enough to live on if you work full-time and live with your folks. Because he's got experience, Wal-Mart hires him on in the music section, but pays him $7.25/hour, just about minimum wage. Now he's making (pre-tax) $290/wk. vs. $320/wk. He'd have to save $30 in living expenses per week by shopping at Wal-Mart to break even with respect to his previous lifestyle. Assuming he doesn't mind spending his cash on the cheap, disposable, sweatshop products lining Wal-Mart's shelves, he still might be hard-pressed to save $30 every week ($120/month!). He won't save much on the CDs he likes -- Wal-Mart's selection is basically limited to "Christian rock", country, and Top 40 shit that will make your brain melt (no Parental Advisory stickers either!). Say, $10/month in savings. Food: he buys all his Mac'n'Cheez at Wallyworld. 10% off his monthly food bill is $30. Car: can't buy gas at Wal-Mart (or can you?), but maybe he can get an oil change for less and stocks up on those pinetree air fresheners. $20/month. What other expenses are there? Beer ($10/month if he drinks the cheap shit at home, nothing if he hits the one bar in town). Rent, utilities, movie tickets, taking his girl out to Olive Garden, phone, car insurance, AOL -- none of these major expenses have Wal-Mart discounts. We're only up to $70 in savings so far (Jay suggested $100). Anyway, it's close, but doesn't seem very likely to me that Joe here is getting the better deal thanks to Wal-Mart. He probably didn't have much of a choice in taking the job, either. There is a net job loss when a more efficient megastore moves into town. Whether that's a small or large net loss is not really relevant. The small town's economy is probably not terribly vibrant, anyway, so Joe can either fight for the Wal-Mart job that replaced two small-business jobs, leave town, or sponge off his parents, collect unemployment, and drink himself into a stupor every night. In any of those cases, someone loses. If he gets the job, someone else doesn't. If he leaves town, there's one less young person in the community (hard to measure the impact of this, but when the people leave, there's not much of a community). If he gets depressed and angry, he could help raise the local crime rate.

You don't vote with your dollars, you vote with your vote. Since "the market rules" (as you have pointed out elsewhere, Stefan), democracy is irrelevant when money talks louder. Wal-Mart will move into a community regardless of what local small business owners think about the matter. As a huge business, Wal-Mart can afford to buy prime real estate, get the state to build them access roads (or give them tax breaks), and undercut local businesses until there are no competitors. Come on, this is the classic tale of a nationwide/multinational corporation operating a local branch at a loss until it has eliminated all local competition. Of course, opening a new Wal-Mart *will* add jobs, at first. Wal-Mart's employees will coexist with small business employees for a while, but then all the small businesses will close and those jobs are lost. Since Wal-Mart is more "efficient", the retail needs of the town are satisfied, through Wal-Mart's monopoly, by fewer employees who are paid less and receive less-generous benefits (if they get any). Wal-Mart may consult with the communities in which they plan on opening a store, but can a small town compete with their marketing onslaught? Can Mayberry afford to hire an economist who will warn the town fathers about how Wal-Mart will suck the town dry? In short, Wal-Mart's behemoth financial and marketing machine can just swallow up small towns. Locals go to Wal-Mart and spend their money because they are given the false promise that Wal-Mart is pro-community and are led to believe the money they're saving is worth the damage inherent in those savings.

I thought the 80% went to improvements on the very site at which the fees were collected. After some point, that doesn't make any sense. If you've already got a nice composting toilet at the trailhead and it only costs $5000/year to keep it up, what are you going to do with the extra $5000 that you have to spend at the site? Like any good bureaucrat who wants to keep his budget intact, you'll spend it whether you need to or not. Perhaps you'll suggest the road get widened or graded to let RVs up there, or add other unnecessary "improvements". I wouldn't want my fee money to go toward unnecessary improvements that could, in fact, create more user impact by attracting commercial interests, RVers, or wilderness-lite enthusiasts (aka car campers). I just want trail maintenance and the occasional fresh roll of TP in the shitter. Fees don't go down when all that's been funded, so why should I pay for services in excess of what I use, if the goal is a use-based system? On the other hand, I'm happy to pay taxes, where I know even less about how the money is spent, if it means that public lands stay publically, "freely" accessible.

What are these Russian Aiders? Can they soak up more vodka than the average aider?

A very good article. I enjoyed seeing a UW professor skewer every asinine statement the CEO made. Madsen's equating consumer spending habits to democracy is particularly troubling. You don't vote with your dollars, you vote with your vote. If the members of REI have no power to make decisions as to how the co-op's run, it's not a co-op anymore. cj, are you a future former employee? What job do you do for REI?

Yeah, they appear to be a big (7 or 8 kids!) weird Christian family, but the food's good (if Marblemount-expensive) and they had a cute puppy playing out front. No Jesus radio when I was there.

Good Food makes a fine chili dog, one where you can't see the dog because of the chili. And real peanut butter milkshakes.

I remember climbing next to him at Smith this spring. My condolences to his friends and family.

But there are cougars on the rocks in Fraser Valley!

I've been eyeing that traverse, too. Let me know if you need another.

No climbing area is complete without grafitti. Where is this place, Dru?

Nice job, chuck. Is that horrible picture on the Vantage page designed to make people never want to go there? You can't read anything on the page with that image behind it!

Anyone find a lightweight black Smartwool cap/helmet liner near Colchuck Peak this past Memorial Day weekend? I got it as a present this past Christmas and would love to have it back.

My dad lives outside of Leavenworth. There's not much to do outdoors there, especially in the summer, other than mow the five acres and drink lots of Sam's Club pop. I'd love to know of a place to go for some climbing next time I'm out to visit. I've been to Swope Park but wasn't looking for boulders at the time. Lemme know if you dig up any more info.

Whoa! Climbing in Kansas and Missouri? Is there anything near Kansas City?