Santa and his little foolish elves

“The WTO wants to get rid of poverty by freeing trade in services, and [Lockheed Martin] has the solution – let’s bomb them using our freely traded products!  Let’s get rid of poverty by killing the poor!”  This was the result of an impromptu gathering of craptivists taking their fight to the General Agreement on Trade in Services (GATS).  One was dressed as Santa Clause and the rest of them as his little elves coming to tell the evils of what they see as a bad deal. While it’s difficult to understand this kind of logic, it seems they think freely traded services is something that should be stopped.  Their misguided logic is ostensibly based on the notion that publicly-owned monopolies are better at providing services than private, competitive firms.

Of course, since these attention-deprived people were shouting at the top of their lungs, they attracted enough attention to get me – and many other members of the media - to listen to their tirade.  Being upset at the lack of representation in their arguments, I jumped into the fray and offered a different opinion to those who were interested in listening; mainly that trade  in services offers the chance for millions around the world to be freed from the shackles – like protectionism – of poverty.

Imagine how much worse off we would be if India’s wonderful IT sector, for example, was closed off from the rest of the world and unable to trade in an area that some firms hold a considerable comparative advantage. Without being able to trade, just think of how many millions of lines of code that would have to scrap from the fast-paced world of software design.  Some of those programs go a great length to helping improve medical techniques, which have a direct impact on people's lives.

Perhaps these people think we have too much software and that too many Indians are escaping poverty?

“The WTO wants to get rid of poverty by freeing trade in services, and [Lockheed Martin] has the solution – let’s bomb them using our freely traded products!  Let’s get rid of poverty by killing the poor!”  This was the result of an impromptu gathering of craptivists taking their fight to the General Agreement on Trade in Services (GATS).  One was dressed as Santa Clause and the rest of them as his little elves coming to tell the evils of what they see as a bad deal. While it’s difficult to understand this kind of logic, it seems they think freely traded services is something that should be stopped.  Their misguided logic is ostensibly based on the notion that publicly-owned monopolies are better at providing services than private, competitive firms.

Of course, since these attention-deprived people were shouting at the top of their lungs, they attracted enough attention to get me – and many other members of the media - to listen to their tirade.  Being upset at the lack of representation in their arguments, I jumped into the fray and offered a different opinion to those who were interested in listening; mainly that trade  in services offers the chance for millions around the world to be freed from the shackles – like protectionism – of poverty.

Imagine how much worse off we would be if India’s wonderful IT sector, for example, was closed off from the rest of the world and unable to trade in an area that some firms hold a considerable comparative advantage. Without being able to trade, just think of how many millions of lines of code that would have to scrap from the fast-paced world of software design.  Some of those programs go a great length to helping improve medical techniques, which have a direct impact on people's lives.

Perhaps these people think we have too much software and that too many Indians are escaping poverty?