Problems

"How you spend your money is how you vote on what exists in the world." Vicki Robin

“A revolution is truly needed-in our values, outlooks, and economic organizations. For the crisis of our environment stems from a legacy of economic and technical premises which have been pursued in the absence of ecological knowledge. That other revolution, the industrial one that is turning sour, needs to be replaced by a revolution of new attitudes toward growth, goods, space and living things.”
Michael McCloskey

Problems

*Security threats: caused by the instability of a global economic system to issues such as food, energy, and basic services

*Current economic structures: which assume that the environment is a never ending source and infinite economic growth is possible. Therefore, the environment is a subset of the economy.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ecological_economics

*Wars for oil-rich land: This supports the industrialized nation’s dependence on cheap non-renewable fossil fuel energy.

Dominican Republic–Central America Free Trade Agreement

DR-CAFTA is a free trade agreement. Originally, known as CAFTA the agreement encompassed the United States and the Central American countries of Costa Rica, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, and Nicaragua. In 2004, the Dominican Republic joined the negotiations, and the agreement was renamed DR-CAFTA.

Free Trade

International, free trade is an idealized market model, often stated as a political objective, in which trade of goods and services between countries flows unhindered by government-imposed prices.

Examples:

• International trade in services without tariffs or other trade barriers
• Free movement of labor between countries
• Free movement of capital between countries
• Absence of trade-distorting policies (such as taxes, subsidies, regulations or laws) that give domestic firms, households or factors of production an advantage over foreign ones
• Trade-distorting policies to enforce property rights so as to ensure the above conditions

Free Trade Area of the Americas FTAA (Spanish and Portuguese: ALCA Área de Libre Comercio de las Américas, French: ZLEA Zone de libre-échange des Amériques)

Is a proposed agreement to eliminate or reduce trade barriers among all nations in the American continents (except Cuba, Venezuela and later Bolivia).

General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade

GATT was originally created by the Bretton Woods Conference as part of a larger plan for economic recovery after World War II. The main purpose is the reduction of tariff barriers, quantitative restrictions and subsidies on trade through a series of different agreements. The GATS places governments in low rank and does not allow them to regulate or intervene with the corporation’s actions. To top if off, under the GATS rule the government cannot take back their basic services once they have become privatizes, making the actions of privatization irreversible. The functions of the GATT have been replaced by the World Trade Organization which was established through the final round of negotiations in the early 1990s.

Globalization

Is the increasing world-wide integration of markets for goods, services, labor, and capital by leading companies and corporations that hold more power than nations.

IMF/ World Bank

The IMF is an international organization of 184 member countries. It was established to promote international monetary cooperation, exchange stability, and orderly exchange arrangements; to foster economic growth and high levels of employment; and to provide temporary financial assistance to countries to help ease balance of payments adjustment.

To bad they are the world's biggest financial lenders, masked as development organizations. Problem is, they are also the world's biggest loan sharks, keeping poor countries impoverished while helping multinational corporations exploit nations' natural resources.

www.imf.org/external/about.htm and http://www.globalexchange.org/campaigns/

Industrial Revolution

A major shift of technological, socioeconomic and cultural conditions in the late 18th and early 19th century that began in Britain and spread throughout the world. During that time, an economy based on manual labor was replaced by one dominated by industry and the manufacture of machinery. This has led to countries having enormous manufacturing capabilities that depended on the large-scale extraction of resources, particularly fossil fuels. This manufacturing capability has further led to the unethical targeting and fragmentation of third world cultures from corporations.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Industrial_revolution

NAFTA

Is a "free trade" agreement among Canada, the United States of America, and Mexico.

Two ridiculous rules constructed under NAFTA:
- The proportionality clause: once a country has begun to export its resources it can not stop until there are no resources left
- Governments can be sued for any loss of profits, even if the government was taking a stand for human rights, environmental or health issues.

World Trade Organization (WTO)

Formerly GATT, the WTO is the only global international organization dealing with the rules of trade between nations. The WTO is the most powerful governing body on the planet—yet it is designed to benefit corporations while ignoring the needs of communities and the environment.