Quiet Sunday afternoon; moody Monday

Yesterday, I lay on my bed, watching the curtains dance in the afternoon breeze. The sky outside was filled with white clouds of all shapes and sizes. The heat was toned down for a change. The sun was shining but it was a mellow golden haze. It was a very pleasant afternoon.

I closed my eyes and tried to sink into a nap. I listened to the quiet sounds of the street below: roosters crowing, the muted sound of the tv from the neighbors, the occasional buzzing tricycle. Very, very pleasant. But I couldn't get drowsy.

It felt very peaceful. I wondered if it were true, that I love to be alone. The thought bothered me, as if it were a bad thing, wanting to be alone. But, truth to tell, I relish the fact that I'm living on my own, away from my very doting parents, despite almost nine months already having passed. I realized that it's not the novelty of it. It's the being alone that I value.

What do I do during the weekend, anyway? There's the laundry and the ironing, of course. Then there's the cleaning. And the cooking. I don't really cook anything fancy. I just fry chicken, make tuna something (canned tuna sauteed in garlic and onion), boil rice. Sometimes, I fry dried fish and make sunny side-up eggs. Or sautee corned beef. I really gotta learn some new recipes.

I guess I can try making arroz a la Cubana this weekend. Sauteed ground pork, fried rice with raisins, sunny side-up eggs, and fried bananas. We'll see what we can get from the store. Depending on my budget. Hmmm...I can have corned beef instead of ground pork. That'll do.

Carl went skiing this week. He gave me a call yesterday, saying he had a grand time. I'm getting tired of this long-distance crap. He's sweet and all, very thoughtful, but it's getting kinda boring. I mean, what's to talk about?

Dale went off to New York last Sunday. He said he was gonna be there for a week. So I guess he's back already. Haven't sent him any email or text message. I don't care about this set-up anymore, either. I'm getting tired of it all. If he wants to see me, he can call me. If he wants to drop it, then he can well fucking do so.

Maybe it's got something to do with the fact that I'm getting my period next week. Anwyay, I've gone back to the gym, as in really gone back. Had a real sweat this morning, good time on the transport machine. Great shower. My back muscles feel strained but, in all, I feel a lot better than the past three weeks.

Good laugh!

Peter Hartcher has another good article on the SMH today but I found this one by Peter Rodgers really entertaining, sharp and to the point.

When alliteration attacks
August 13, 2004

(Why Peter Rodgers thinks going to war on Iraq was bananas ...)

I now deeply regret putting my name to the petition of 43 criticising the Government's involvement in Iraq.

It's not because Paddy McGuinness called me an old fart. For in doing this he merely reinforced my concerns about lies in public places. McGuinness was born in 1938 and I first saw the world in 1946. So, that'll be young fart to you Mr Paddy.

It's not because Gerard Henderson and Michael Baume and a few others huffed and puffed and threatened to blow my house down (or perhaps up).

It's not because we were told we had no right to comment on matters we were not directly involved with. Which, incidentally, is why we rely on governments to level with us in the first place.

No, I regret it because my life has been hell ever since De-Anne Kelly described us as doddering daiquiri diplomats. Before that fateful day, my partner was content with a glass of orange juice in the morning. Now the call goes out for one of those daiquiri thing-a-me-bobs.

I've never made one in my life. I've only ever drunk a couple. And that was a long, long time ago. Given that I'm now a doddering post-modern neo-fart, how the hell am I supposed to remember what went into them? It's hard enough to spell, let alone to concoct.

Why did you do it, De-Anne? How could you be so cruel to those of us who can barely find their way to the kitchen in the morning? Was it the allure of the alliteration that so attracted you? Fair enough. But then why not drambuie drizzled dippos? Or muscat mellowed mandarins? Even cognac cognoscenti would have been easier to deal with.

But no, you had to be the clever one. It's your government that talks about valuing those of us of more mature years. Instead you taunt us with impossible recipes.

I've got news for you, though. Our profiles may be podgy, our prostates prominent, but our penchant for the profound persists. (Now that's what I call alliteration!)

So I've been doing a little research into this daiquiri business. And what do I discover? Often they're made with bananas. And where do bananas grow? Why, in Queensland, of course. And where do you come from?

So why weren't you honest with the Australian people? Why didn't you tell them that your daiquiri dig was a typically underhand way of promoting your electorate's interests? You knew that as the Iraq story unfolded there'd be an opportunity for Queensland banana growers. You've been saving this one up.

Got to hand it to you then. You've been prescient, persistent and patient. You understood all along that the real reason we went to war had nothing to do with the situation in Iraq or weapons of mass destruction. We went to war to promote bananas. Quite frankly, that's as good a reason as any I've seen. At least we know they exist.

I had a blast reading this!

US' obsession with IP

Ross Gittins of the SMH goes down to the basics of the opposition to the AUSFTA. It all revolves around the American strategy of furthering global corporate interests via intellectual property (IP) rights.

Selling off a slice of our country
August 11, 2004

The funny thing about the free trade agreement with the United States is that Australians and Amer-icans see it as being about completely different things. Australia's businesspeople see it as about eliminating the barriers to exports and imports between the two countries, which they regard as a good thing.

The premiers see it as about our Government giving up the right to vet US takeovers of mid-sized Australian companies or proposals to set up shop in Australia. The premiers think this will bring a lot of new investment to their states.

To the Americans, however, the deal is about something most Australian businesspeople don't take much interest in - intellectual property rights.

Intellectual property rights are protected by such legal devices as patents, copyright and trademarks. Copyright covers things such as books, music, recordings, movies, computer games and software.

Patents cover a multitude of mechanical inventions, but also medical drugs and aspects of computer software.

The US is by far the world's largest exporter of goods and services with intellectual property (IP) embodied in them. It rightly believes that the production and export of IP is where its future prosperity lies.

So a primary objective of the US Government's trade policy has long been to make the world a more congenial place for US exporters of IP.

It's trying to get other countries to "harmonise" their IP laws with US laws, to act as policemen in prosecuting citizens who pirate American IP, and to enhance the ability of US companies to protect their rights in other countries' courts.

This is all very well for the Americans, but it offers little benefit to us, just costs. Why? Because we are, and always will be, a heavy net importer of IP.

Another concern is that the US Congress has allowed America's IP law to be debauched by powerful commercial interests. Big American drug and software companies have turned the patent system into an anti-competitive rort.

They do this by using many dubious patents to extend the life of a patent ("evergreening") or just to box in their competitors. They've become highly litigious, suing competitors or threatening to sue small innovators they want to push around. This has been possible partly because the US patent office is hopelessly understaffed and thus incapable of vetting dubious applications.

On top of this, Congress allows industry lobbyists to persuade it to extend retrospectively the duration of patents and copyright. Copyright has been extended from 50 years after the death of the creator to 70 years, mainly because the Disney Corporation was about to lose control of Mickey Mouse. Such extentions do little or nothing to increase the incentive to create, they just give a windfall gain to copyright holders at the expense of consumers.

And yet the free trade agreement obliges us to extend the life of our copyright to fit in. We have already been obliged to extend patents from 16 to 20 years in the name of harmonising with US law.

The section dealing with IP is the longest chapter in the agreement. And it presents us with a puzzle. Our Government repeatedly assures us it has given the Americans little of any value, so there's nothing for us to worry about. But US politicians and lobby groups say they're well pleased with the precedent our deal sets for the many free trade agreements the US intends to reach with other countries. How can this conundrum be resolved?

Well, it may be that one or both sides is lying. But I think it could be that our Government is talking about now, whereas the Americans are thinking about the future.

Take the classic case of the US objection to our rules specifying a minimum level of Australian content for television programs and ads.

Our Government has acted to protect its existing local-content rules for television. But it has limited its ability to extend local-content rules to cover new electronic mediums as they arise. So the Americans know they have only to wait for changing technology to give them the upper hand.

Or, take the "standstill" principle we've agreed to. We can't decide to increase the existing local-content requirement and, should we ever decide to lower it, we're forbidden to put it back up. So, over time, the Americans benefit from a kind of downward ratchet.

Mark Latham's last-minute amendment will do nothing to stop this loss of our control over local content. It merely ensures that any reduction of the existing standard must be decided by the Parliament, not a bureaucrat.

As part of its obsession with advancing the interests of its big IP exporting companies, the US Congress deeply disapproves of our Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme, which allows Australians to pay two or three times less for their drugs than Americans do.

Our Government swears it's agreed to nothing that would add to the cost of the PBS, but various experts in IP law see loopholes in the free trade agreement that the US drug companies are bound to exploit over time. Those academics doubt that Latham's amendment is sufficient to solve the problem.

In this and other areas, the agreement gives US companies considerable scope to use our courts to argue the toss with our Government when it seeks to do something they believe is contrary to the provisions of the agreement.

Now consider this. The deal prohibits Australian companies from exporting drugs to the US (and thereby undercutting local US drug prices). Our Government says this is not a problem because Australian law already prohibits such exports.

What we've given up, however, is our ability to change that law should we see fit at some point in the future. So I suspect the deal involves us giving up a fair bit of our future room to move - selling off a slice of our sovereignty - particularly in the ever-more important area of intellectual property.

And don't forget that, should our Government persist with actions the Americans consider contrary to the agreement, they have the right to impose sanctions on us.

I have a fear the Howard Government's wonderful trade agreement with the mighty United States may turn out to be a Trojan Horse.

Sneaky, these Americans, you gotta hand them that.

The Filipino and values

Randy David, my favorite op-ed columnist in the Philippine Daily Inquirer, writes about the new Presidential Commission on Values Formation. He certainly hits the spot:

Our Constitution's Declaration of Principles and State Policies may be read as a litany of our nation's core values. Yet the conduct of our national life is antithetical to almost everything the Constitution celebrates. We don't take our constitutional values seriously. It is obvious that enshrining them in the nation's basic charter does not guarantee their realization. The problem is not their lack of clarity. The problem is their irrelevance to our national life.

The fault is not in the values themselves, or in our genes or stars. It is simply that the conditions that make it possible for us to live up to our Constitution's value aspirations are not there. We actually live by another set of values that are more congenial to the kind of society we are, more feudal than democratic, more traditional than modern, reflecting the social instincts of a highly unequal and underdeveloped nation.

Read with Peter Wallace's Report (June 2004), David's article certainly puts a lot of things into perspective.

I've been trying to find ways to publish The Wallace Report on this blog. It's kinda long and incorporates graphs.

Places, everyone!

Peter Hartcher of the Sydney Morning Herald has presented a fascinating analysis of the political maneuverings of PM John Howard and Mark Latham as against each other in re: the AUSFTA. I'm reproducing the entire article here for posterity. It should be interesting to observe how the (election) game is played out from hereon.

Game of bluff against all interests
August 6, 2004

The debate between free trade and protectionism was the original divide around which Australian politics was organised. It wasn't just a lively subject of debate. The names of the two main political parties reflected the overwhelming importance of the issue - the Free Trade Party and the Protectionists.

The question was settled decisively in favour of the protectionists. It didn't work. Australia moved away from protectionism from 1983 when the Hawke-Keating-Button regime dismantled tariffs and quotas that had been designed to keep Australia prosperous. Instead, they had bequeathed the country what Hawke's industry minister, John Button, described as an "industrial museum".

It was hugely controversial. Together with a brace of other economic issues, this was one of the reasons that the big political arguments in Australia in the 1980s were all about the economy. Today it's foreign policy, not the economy, where the big arguments rage.

Australia's two main political parties have reached consensus on the big economic questions. Both sides are committed to keeping the federal budget in surplus; both sides agree on an independent Reserve Bank; and both sides favour free trade.

Mark Latham threw this consensus into doubt in February. When the Labor leader heard the news that the Howard Government had agreed on a free trade agreement between Australia and the US, he said it did not to appear to be in the national interest and Labor was inclined to oppose it. This was a mistake - Latham didn't know the content of the agreement. John Howard put Latham on the rack. He taunted him for obstructing Australia's economic opportunity, for being indecisive, for being viscerally anti-American.

The big news this week is that Latham changed his mind. "Despite several flaws in the agreement, it has net economic benefits for Australia," said Latham's statement on Tuesday. "Over time, the agreement will allow Australia to establish closer economic relations and integration with the world's largest economy with increased two-way investment flows. This will be of long term benefit to Australia." The deal "will increase access to US manufacturing, agricultural, services and government procurement markets".

Latham proposed two amendments necessary to put the deal into law. Neither would interfere with the trade agreement; both are designed to guard against any harmful side-effects. One seeks to protect local content rules for Australian TV and radio; the other seeks to guard against any abuses of the Pharmaceutical Benefit Scheme by multinational drug companies. "We won't be giving an inch" on these two conditions, he said.

Latham's tactic was to turn a necessity into a virtue. He had to agree to the trade deal, but rather than appear to be merely capitulating to Howard's agenda he would portray himself as the protector of Australian culture and health.

Howard agreed to the first amendment, but not the second. Latham's amendment to safeguard the PBS was unnecessary and unworkable, he said. Howard was too emphatic too soon - he should have reserved his position until he saw the text of the Labor amendment. It was Howard's turn to make a political blunder.

Now, Latham is in favour of new economic opportunity by supporting the trade deal. Now, Latham cannot be accused of being viscerally anti-American, and now he is the defender of the PBS, a mainstay of Australia's universal health system and an electoral sacred cow.

Howard's position instantly does four important things in the shadow world of public perception.

First, it turns the national political conversation to the subject of health. This is an advantage for Latham. The electorate trusts Labor on health much more than it does the Coalition - by 42 to 36 per cent according to a June 20 Newspoll. And if we're talking about health, we're not talking about the subjects of perceived Coalition strength - the economy and national security.

Second, it casts Latham as the defender of the system and throws into doubt Howard's commitment to it. Third, it denies Howard a major prize - he cannot harvest the fruit of his labour, the free trade agreement.

And fourth, the people most disgruntled and chagrined by this happen to comprise key Howard constituencies - big business and the farm sector. And, despite the controversy about this trade deal, it also frustrates the national interest.

Free trade does not work for all countries. Some are not equipped to exploit the opportunities as others are. Trade liberalisation has been critical to East Asia's rise from poverty over the last half-century, but has not worked to the advantage of Latin America. But where a country has risen to prosperity, trade liberalisation has been a vital component of its success. In short, free trade is a necessary condition for prosperity, but it is not a sufficient condition.

Since 1970 world trade has burgeoned from $US1.5 trillion ($2.13 trillion) in today's dollars to $US8 trillion, or from 13 per cent of world economic output to 25 per cent.

Countries that made major trade liberalisations in the 1990s enjoyed an average national economic growth rate 2.5 percentage points higher than those that did not, according to the International Monetary Fund.

Despite the doubts and fears about Australia's ability to compete in the world, it is one of the countries that has benefited from embracing open markets. The protectionists said dismantling of protection for Australian manufacturing would wipe it out. Many uncompetitive firms did go under. But overall it has been one of the major sources of vigour in Australia's economy.

Manufacturing output has surged by 40 per cent. Tariffs on imported cars have fallen by two-thirds, and Australia's car industry, instead of collapsing, has emerged as an export success story. It was sadly uncompetitive, but today exports 32 per cent of its output and generates $5 billion in export earnings a year.

We know, from experience, that Australia will stagnate if it hides from the world, but that it can prosper if it embraces openness and seizes the opportunities the world trading system presents. One job in five in Australia depends on exports, according to the Federal Government, and one job in every four in rural Australia.

Bilateral trade deals are not ideal. But with the ideal - global market-opening deals negotiated through the World Trade Organisation - in an eight-year twilight of indecision and anti-climax any prudent government must take trade opportunities where it can find them.

Howard knows this and has done a great deal to advance Australia's trade agenda. The national interest, and his political interest, impel him to correct his blunder, cut a deal with Latham, and grasp the fruit of his labour. He does not have much time - Parliament's sitting, possibly the last before he pitches the country into an election campaign, ends next Thursday.

Hope for the press

Peter Wallace, former president of the Australian-New Zealand Chamber of Commerce in the Philippines, rebuked the Philippine press of irresponsible journalism in the face of social, political and economic instability in the country. As an example of this, he cites the reportage of coup plots which have no basis whatsoever aside from rumors and war-mongering of publicity-hungry politicians and political wanna-bes. The editorial of the Phil. Daily Inquirer today, however, shows how the press can, instead, aid efforts in boosting the people's morale, as a way of cultivating a people's identity and a state's sovereign independence.

The Philippines has held fast to its emerging, more independent policies, and retained the moral advantage in its relations with Australia. For our officials to back down now would only send a message that our reaction to Australian rhetoric was merely emotional pique, and not a substantive difference. Most of all, it would send the message to the Australian government that we are easily bamboozled. Only say a nice word, and Manila is all but ready to dance to Canberra's tune.

Congratulations are, I believe, in order. We need more of this kind of analysis and responsible treatment of news. However, the Palace needs to catch up, as can be seen in this article on ABS-CBN news.

3 August 2004
5:00 p.m.

Dearest Carl,

I went to that interview last night, with the training company, X. The CEO himself, F, conducted the interview with his assistant, a Filipino, present. The CEO's French, very young, no older than 32. So was the Filipino, DO, who's in his mid-20s, and asked one question during the entire hour. They're both based in France. It started well, but ended disastrously.

First thing was the handshake. As CEO, the French guy shook hands unconvincingly. Limp, weak, and just plain confusing. I can't remember if he looked me in the eye. I guess I was looking confusedly at his hand.

The training company offers English language tutoring or coaching via telephone (landline) or videophone, on a 1-on-1 basis. The clients sign up for programs of lessons at 30 minutes per lesson. The client signs up, but the teacher calls him up at a designated hour. Teacher and student then converse in English for half an hour. The CEO says that most of their clients are Eureopeans, a majority of whom are French, since under French law, companies are obliged to allocate a portion of their budget for training, and honing English skills is part of that training.

At first, I was deeply puzzled. I've never heard of anyone learning any foreign language with any appreciable result via the phone. It simply isn't done. So I ask them if they have set modules for teaching. The CEO says no, as the company has been growing so fast (at 300%, if this guy's to be believed), there simply is no time to establish any uniform system.

The obvious question then is how the company measures the effectivity of their teachers. The way he described it, clients are at first assigned to two teachers. Then, he is asked to choose between the two teachers as to his preference. If the teacher gets requested for by clients, then she's considered effective. Because the company's main emphasis is that the client enjoys ("has fun," the CEO's very words) the learning process, as long as the client signs up for more lessons, it doesn't matter if he learns, does it (his own words)? Conversely, if the teacher doesn't get enough requests or none at all, then she's considered ineffective and terminated.

Then there's the payment scheme. The teachers are to be paid a fixed monthly salary of P16,000, plus a fee for every lesson given. Teachers are required to work a maximum of six hours a day, so one teacher can give a maximum of 12 lessons per day and, if sustained for a month, can earn a maximum of P38,000, inclusive of the fixed salary.

The first thought that came to my mind upon learning about the system of "teaching," and the technology used in this, was "phone sex," without the sex. After learning about how teachers were paid, I said to myself, it might not be sex, but it's definitely not teaching English. If you think about it, it's very easy to cross over to erotic chat in this kind of set-up. A complete stranger calls you up, presumably of the opposite sex, and what the hell are you going to talk about? The client sets the topic, he needs to be entertained if the teacher is to continue receiving requests. It can harmlessly start with easy banter, off color jokes, then slight innuendos to sexual matters. Very easily, it becomes erotic chat. Or it could remain on the flirting plane. Why not? The client is kept happy, he remembers the teacher's name, signs up for more lessons with the same teacher, business flourishes, the teacher's pay is assured. It's a phone pal service, in English.

The CEO finally got tired of my questioning, because he could see that I was so disbelieving, and I guess I was trying so hard to find justification for giving credulity to the entire thing, I came across quite aggressively (think courtroom cross-examination of the witness). He ws put out by my tearing the payment schedule and scheme apart and getting into the little details like tax shields (of which he knew nothing about), etc., that he started to act petulantly, like a kid, really. And he didn't particularly like it that I referred to the lesson fees as commissions as, according to him, they were not selling anything. sure. I got the distinct impression that I put him on the defensive and that he was not trying to explain the confusion. So I said goodnight and left. He didn't extend his hand.

It was the strangest job interview that I've ever had in my entire life.

If you check out their website, X.com, you'll notice two things:
1. no specific geographical addresses for the home office or the branch offices, only phone numbers and email addresses; and
2. they accept payments by check, wire transfers and credit card payments online, secured by VeriSign, not PayPal.

The first is very suspicious at the outset because it makes no mention of the principal office of the company, where it's based and the address. The same goes with the branch offices. The second one is frightening in itself since VeriSign is not known to verify the authenticity of the company and/or the services offered. Note that Amazon, eBay and similar sites use PayPal, while Adult Friend Finder and sites of that nature carry VeriSign.

I'm convinced it's a scam. Teaching English, my ass. I went to that interview all prepared to discuss teaching methods and lesson plans. For what? To be offered a job idly chatting with European men who might or might not call again. Fuck them.

Anyway, ADB called and set me for an interview on the 12th. The job's boring but the pay's good, and the benefits, better. Let's hope. I really miss you, sweetheart. Write me something funny and light. I need you to keep me sane, you know. The duck joke doesn't seem to be working anymore. I need my complete and utter bastard fix badly.

Love you,

Emyn

More on AUSFTA

Talked to Carl on the phone yesterday. Complained about how much I was missing him, how things weren't moving as fast as I wanted them to, insofar as job transfers were concerned, and how I was falling ill because of my obsessing over things I have no control over. Again, my sweet could only remind me to take it one day at a time, and be patient.

I did tell him I was amusing myself with this diplomatic row between the Philippines and Australia. We talked about it for a bit and he did enlighten me with an explanation of that part of the Aussie psyche which deals with the Yellow Peril Syndrome. He defines this as an unfounded fear of a takeover by Australia's Asian neighbors. Ridiculous as it may sound, it seems that landlocked Aussies actually are terrified by the fact that they are alone as a non-Asian nation in the Asia-Pacific region. I broached my theory that Australia's present leadership is seeking a stronger presence in that region. Carl says it's not farfetched.

Below are "clippings" from articles in an Aussie paper. I like the SMH. It's easy to read, the op-ed writers are very down-to-earth in their writing style and clear in their views. Suffice it to say, I find these Aussie sentiments quite refreshing.

From the SYDNEY MORNING HERALD, online edition:

No free trade in so-called free trade agreement
By Ross Gittins
July 19, 2004

Citing Peter Urban, Australia's consul-general to the US from 1989 to 1994 and the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade's chief economist in 1995 and 1996:

The area where the United States retains a global competitive edge is in services and goods embodying intellectual property - software, films, music, many capital goods, pharmaceuticals etc.

And the last thing the US wants for these IP goods and services is free trade. The fact is, the US wants monopoly or oligopoly pricing for these goods and services, not competitive pricing.

The US has been pursuing its IP trade agenda quite single-mindedly for more than the last decade. xxx xxx xxx

xxx xxx xxx

xxx [T]he US has a culture of aggressive use of patents (and patent enforcement) and the US patent office is granting very broad patents (for example, on double clicking) for IT.

The result - the US government and US industry are looking to trying to use IP protection as a major element in their strategy to protect the position of the United States as a major economic power.

xxx xxx xxx

We (i.e., Australians) are significant consumers of IP goods and services. Indeed, Australia's fast uptake of IP has been a major driver of our rapid productivity growth over the last decade or so.

For this to continue, Australian industry needs access to these goods and services at competitive prices. Yes, it is in our long-term interests that US producers of IP earn reasonable returns. If they don't, they will reduce their investment in new IP.

It is not in our interests, however, to help the US institutionalise its market power in IP markets.

The bottom line: AUSFTA is just another case of that hoary old marketing ploy of "bait and switch". We were promised a real FTA but that's not what we will get if we sign this FTA.

Sovereignty lost in the trade-off
By Alan Ramsey
July 31, 2004

Consider reality, not make-believe. The so-called FTA is not a trade agreement, free or otherwise. It is a political deal with George Bush. What the United States Congress, at Bush's bidding, has given the Howard Government, in gratitude for embracing the lies and manipulation that took both countries into Iraq, is a signed piece of paper, no more and no less. Its immense value is that it enables Howard to spin an electoral illusion to seduce voters, as well as use as a cudgel should Labor challenge it. It is, Howard prays, the key piece in his election strategy to stay Prime Minister.

A plague on both their houses on the FTA
By Margo Kingston
August 1, 2004

Citing Ex-Australian ambassador Tony Kevin's stunning commentary:
Latham’s fateful choice, and Peter Beattie’s cargo cult economics

This FTA isn’t about protecting Australian jobs or capital. This shonky deal is about John Howard trying to salvage something politically from the mess of his Iraq policy – to try to convince credulous voters that he has plucked some alleged economic benefit for Australia out of the tragic and shameful Iraq invasion imbroglio.

But he hasn’t. The Emperor has no clothes. There is not enough real benefit in this FTA for us. Even Vaile wanted no deal in the end – why are we all burying that recorded fact?

Ironically, the structure of this agreement – the small print - offers good prospect of benefits for US exporters and investors. Zoellick knew a good deal when he saw one. They are being offered preferential access to Australia’s national garage sale. Lots of good stuff to sell – but only one buyer, thank you – big, rich and white. You can see who will win there. No wonder the US Congress fell over itself to vote for this deal. As Zoellick murmured quietly, Australia offers "the low-hanging fruit", The Canberra Times' Jack Waterford reported the US diplomat as saying to him? "We like you Aussies, because you are such an easy lay". Thanks again, John, for taking such good care of us. There is no net benefit to Australia in this FTA. There is only farmer disappointment, and unacceptable risk, and loss of sovereignty. We do not need this so-called Free Trade Agreement.

Political drama without a happy ending
By Alan Ramsey
July 31, 2004

Megan Elliott, executive director, Australian Writers Guild: "What is in this agreement for the US? One might ask how much bigger a share of the Australian audiovisual market do US companies want? Or is this free trade agreement more about setting a precedent for negotiating with the European Union? We have now had the opportunity to study the text of the agreement and we have found there is no economic benefit to the audiovisual sector at all. Australia will not gain any greater access to the US market ... [And] the agreement will severely constrain the ability of this and future Australian governments to determine cultural policy, giving the US government a much stronger role in determination of that policy. We will be moving from a position of being solely in charge of our own cultural policy to one where we must consult the largest cultural producer in the world..."

This is a mere taste. The detail of what the proposed FTA means for Australia's pharmaceutical benefits scheme and its consumers - the real detail - is a nightmare by comparison.

Picking the low-hanging fruit first
by Brian Bahnisch

What's in it for the Americans?

First of all there are strategic geopolitical considerations. You do not have sign up to every military adventure, but you do have to behave. New Zealanders need not apply. The US does see trade in terms of national security, indeed in terms of consolidating their hegemonic position in the world.

Second, the US will always act to further the interests of its corporations.

Third, this FTA is said to be the first with an advanced economy. (I'm not sure where that leaves Singapore!) As such it is important in setting standards for further deals, both bilateral and multilateral.

Anti-US? Most Australians would call it Anti-Bush.