Trade Winds
Trade winds are largely a product of the temperature differential between tropical and colder areas of the Earth and the planet’s rotation. The winds were particularly important during the sailing ship era on the high seas. Clearly Milwaukee, Wisconsin is far from any tropics. The winds on the Great Lakes near Milwaukee primarily are lake breezes and frontal winds which can create waves called Seiches. Gordon Lightfoot’s “The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald” highlights that Great Lakes winds can be quite strong though not tropically sourced.
It was powerful “winds of trade” that helped make the Milwaukee area prosper, from the time of the First Nation inhabitants until now. Cities and towns popped up along the coasts of the Great Lakes not only due to the bounty of the Lakes themselves, but also a convenient maritime infrastructure. With some bumps and hesitations along the way, the regional economy seemed to increase forever. In my own lifetime, I remember when the Milwaukee area had a car manufacturer, was a major hub in the marine engine industry and Great Lakes shipping in general, a world leader in motorcycles, the heavy construction equipment industry, in agricultural equipment production and the defense industry. Milwaukee was made famous because of its beverage companies and was also known for having players in everything from machine shops, foundries, food items, clothing and shoes. Then I watched as major, local companies began moving out, substantially diminishing or just dying. A concern with this experience was that numbers of authorities insisted back then, that my own first hand observations were not important.
With powerful arguments for bringing wealth to the impoverished and democracy to the downtrodden, there were major leaders in the United States that advocated essentially for one sided trade against our own economy! For example, concerning the automotive industry, they said back then, “Who cares about the cheap little cars dumping into our markets but protected from our competition in Germany and Japan? We not only have the vehicle manufacturing big three, that is GMC, Ford and Dodge-Chrysler but followed hungrily by the likes of the American automotive companies Packard, Studebaker, Kaiser-Willys, Hudson, Nash and others.” A major concern over those “other car companies” was that these often were local economic powerhouses that provided thousands of high paying jobs who now no longer exist. Highlighting lost automotive treasures, when the Soviet Union needed a limousine to copy in those years, they copied a Packard not something from the big three. The majority of lend/lease military trucks that the USSR received from the United States during WW2, were built by Studebaker. Over time our economy increasingly saw less and less, “made in the united states” until now it seems a rarity.
Many variables were and are involved in international trade. “Pro-free trade” advocates will often argue that the local Milwaukee area continues to maintain economic powerhouses, just now in different markets so what is the issue? Aside from the matter of economic dislocation, one extreme complication in international trade is that often, major players are or at least used to be, heavily supported by their host nation states, sometimes to the point of being a wholly owned part of that government. Clearly, a manufacturer or service provider with the financial support and trade barrier protection of their host government competing against companies that do not have this privilege, have a considerable advantage. In many cases today, United States private companies still must compete with fully or majority owned divisions of national and/or local governments, (State-Owned Enterprises: SOEs.)
I often write that advocates in every issue, usually simplify an argument. Clearly, governmental intervention in international trade is not a simple issue. For the scholar, I recommend the following.
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0954349X22001515
In order to help understand important and complex international trade, let’s start with an accurate method of measurement before anyone attempts to discuss policy. I give one possibility in Kainotomía, the second in my fiction trilogy, the first book called Welkyrie is available on this website. To be fair, let’s throw any U.S. Federal, individual state and locally supported manufacturers and services into the pot, along with Chinese, Indian, European, ASEAN, and other governmentally sponsored industries. Please note: This effort is not intended to make any advocacy statement on any international trade policy. This simply is a method of standardizing the understanding of governmental participation in the creation, maintenance and growth of individual products and services.
A Trader’s Measure: On World Trade, (from Kainotomía)
A reminder, this is a beginning discussion to be fine-tuned.
Introduction: Historical consensus is that a nation-state that loses control of its’ borders, whether in trade or travel leaving or entering it, that nation-state will soon no longer exist at least in its’ current form. It is presumed here then that trade that crosses a nation-state’s border, must be understood both by the nation that the trade is coming from and the nation for which it is destined. The failure of a nation-state in this matter brings instability with possible human suffering. A just method of international trade categorization then as outlined below, is invaluable.
Further: It must be presumed that a service or good provider that has the individual use of tax revenues, governmental trade barrier protection, and the infrastructure of their host government readily available to it and a good or service provider that doesn’t have such governmental largess available to it, are not on equal playing fields.
Further: This writing shall make no statement on the effectiveness or lack thereof, the humaneness or lack thereof, or the wisdom or lack thereof of a national trade tariff, any trade encumbrance or fee however formatted.
The Entry Number
Let there be an “Entry Number” assigned to each individual good or service produced anywhere.
The Entry Number represents a rating based on the amount of host state governmental intervention that has been and is involved in the production and distribution of the good or service being traded. Intervention includes direct subsidies, below market interest rate loans, designated supporting infrastructure, reinforcing trade barriers, protective tariffs and complementary non-trade barriers. Past state intervention must be calculated to a present value and added to current state intervention values on the product.
Goods or services where no information is available shall be assigned the maximum governmental intervention possible until other reliable information becomes available.
Once the good or service has been assessed, it shall be given its’ official “Entry Number.” This number shall range from zero to one hundred. Zero shall indicate absolutely no host nation governmental involvement or protection of the good or service in any way. The other extreme of one hundred indicates that essentially, this good or service is the product of a host government.
When an accepted Entry Number is in place, an individual national sovereign’s congress, parliament or other authority shall then have a real method of understanding the level of other state participation in a specific good or service incoming into their national economy and competing with their national producers. How an individual sovereign uses the Entry Number is not within the scope of this discussion.
Scholarly participation in methods of Entry Number assignment shall always be welcomed to continually update this effort.
The Goal
To establish Entry Numbers that…
are readily available to any person on Earth in whatever convenient technologies exist at the time for easy perusal,
are clearly shown as how the number has been reached,
are updated as often as possible but at least annually,
are as hacker proof as possible.
can be realistically objected to by interested persons including nation-states, private individuals, business organizations and non-governmental organizations with fair processes of appeal but yet defense of earlier scholarly Entry Number emplacement,
It is essential that no individual nation-state or coalition of nation states, individual organization or coalition of organizations, or any legal person have control of any Entry Numbers other than the Entry Number caretaker N.G.O.
System Maintained by an international NGO
This Entry Number system shall be maintained by a non-profit international non-governmental organization.
The effort shall be funded by private contributions and whatever subscription services that the hosting NGO establishes.
Excepting the first three years of the managing NGO’s existence, no single source of revenue, (whether direct or indirect,) may exceed 10% of the organization’s gross annual revenues for the year, with any exceeding amounts being returned to the revenue source.
Loans to the managing NGO shall be considered revenue.
Any revenue may not be received to be earmarked as incoming for a different year as actually received.
In the spirit of complete transparency, all information on all financial matters including all donations, all individual staff salaries, any remunerations, in kind exchanges and contracts of the overseeing NGO shall be readily and easily available to anyone and at all times in the most convenient technologies available. This includes any payments, cost coverage or gifts of any kind directly to the NGO’s staffers and decision makers.
No Sermons
Again, this effort is not intended to make any advocacy statement on any international trade policy. This simply is a method of standardizing the understanding of governmental participation in the creation, maintenance and growth of individual products and services.
Again, the Entry Number is solely intended to give authorities of a nation-state a real world basis of economic understanding and how an individual sovereign uses the Entry Number is not within the scope of this discussion.
