In business everything boils down to greed.  Most people's actions are governed by it.  So is the burning of European shoes by the Chinese.  It's one thing to subjectively judge some shoes are of low quality, it's another to have the authority or legality to burn them.  Gee, if I were judge and executive I would have deported most Chinese in most Chinatowns for being of "low quality", which is not a surprise, given they come from Chinese areas with low standard of living.  Most Chinatowns I've been to stink, with low hygienic pratices.

Re. M.I. and K.A.'s postings, yes they're nice but also lucubrations in the sense of attempts to explain a fact.  Like I said, greed seems to be root cause of most facts or phenomena.  I had too many bad experiences dealing with Chinese business people.  Money is really their god, before all those supertitions they're following.  In brief I'd rather not deal with them if I had better choices.  Look, they're ruining their environment while pursuing economic development.

Well I'm glad to see we're on the same page. I do find your posts interesting, thoughtful, and detailed, so I appreciate that you enjoy reading mine. I would like to elaborate on a couple of your points, namely those concerning corporate shareholders and derivatives trading. At first glance, it does appear that the internationalization of business is undemocratic, as the multinational corporations that are driving it answer to their shareholders rather than to the entire populations of the states in which they operate. However, corporations are far more 'democratic' than privately held companies or even international organizations (e.g. the U.N. or E.U.) in which decisions are made by representatives of states rather than their electorates. Corporate shareholders are, by and large, ordinary people who are both employed and retired, and no major Western banks have any one individual or entity controlling more than 5% of its shares. Furthermore, corporate governance now extends to responsibility to the corporation's community and environment, and these corporations consist of thousands of individual employees the vast majority of whom are not wealthy. I also share your disdain for speculation, and the Gordon Gekkos of this world. However, as long as Western financial systems are properly regulated and monitored, it matters little whether a speculator is a private individual with a few thousand dollars or a banking consortium.

As far as my socio-political leanings are concerned I would say that I am a centrist who believes in centre-right values (i.e. liberal) and centre-left government fiscal policy, because I accept that some need the social safety net, and that corruption and inefficiency occur in every bureaucracy, whether public or private. Best Regards, The Captain.

Agreed. However, I suggest that Western post-industrial economies derive a net gain from the internationalization of business and finance which is but one facet of globalization. Firstly, global capital continues to flow mainly between between Europe, North America, Japan, and the newly industrialized economies of Taiwan, Singapore, South Korea, etc. Secondly, the so-called multinational and transnational corporations remain tethered in their home countries, and thus subject to the national economies in which they are embedded. Thirdly, globalization allows the West access to resources and markets which it would otherwise have to obtain through military conquest and economic exploitation; this imperial option is far more costly than free trade (with the obvious head start) is. Indeed, the British Empire of the 1860s with its vast holdings of territory and peoples was in fact economically weaker than during the 1820s and 1830s, when its dominions were smaller but it was a commercial powerhouse. Why should the West lose its advantageous position in the global economy just for the sake of a decreasing number of inefficient and unionized labourers who: (a) don't want to upgrade their skills, and (b) combat technological change like robotics?

Here is an example of the kind of trade barriers Economists are so "skilled" at ignoring, or of being completely ignorant of. Economic theory has little useful to say about foreign cultures and their idiosyncracies.

You could interpret the burning of 70% of a consignment of imported shoes as a hidden form of import tarrif. If they were indeed sub-standard, then they could have been returned to the sender, or sold off at a heavy discount, in the local market.

Since 1992, the Indian economy has thrived behind some of the highest import tarrifs the world has ever seen. Nobody seems to care or comment, whilst that continent (or at least, its pompous and greedy elite) benefits disproportionately from globalization.

China already presents a default trade barrier due to its impenetrable language. If it is also prepared to trash consignments of imported (European) goods on the basis of subjective measures of quality, then we are a very long way from free trade.

What the reality of attitudes found in both China and India suggest, is that Economics is too often an exercise in wishful thinking, and can just as often be the wrong tool that when overused, succeeds only in providing the gloss of academic justification to a set of delusions that eventually lead its stubborn disciples (and those who depend upon them) to penury.