User talk:AlMac/Trade

The stuff on this page has been moved again to Talk:Trade, after I had pointed various places in context to here, without keeping track of what they all were.

Trade
This stuff moved to Talk:Trade.

Trade Domestic
This stuff moved to Talk:Trade.

Trade inside USA
This stuff moved to Talk:Trade.

Legal Sea Changes
This stuff moved to Talk:Trade.

Trade International
This stuff moved to Talk:Trade.

Military Bases
This stuff moved to Talk:Trade.

Oil Prices
I will keep this both places since the topic has an interest to me, beyond the effort to improve the Trade article.

This is a topic of current interest, as the price goes up.

I have conversations with various friends.


 * THEY SAY: "I just bought some gas, and the price was over $ 2.00 a gallon !!!!!"
 * AL: "You better get used to it, and factor this into what kind of next car to buy. I predict that in 3 years it will be $ 5.00 a gallon."
 * THEY: "What makes you say that?"
 * AL: "Supply and Demand, thanks to China's exploding economy. China is what, 2/3 of the world's population, moving from agrarian to industrial society, doing the same kinds of things that the USA has been doing for the past 50 years, and their economy is growing faster than USA has ever experienced.  There is also a controversial topic about whether or not the world is running out of oil, and it becomes progressively more expensive to dig out the last remnants."

Trade in History
I will also keep this here, since I have an interest in competing economic theories, such as Henry George over and above my interest in helping with the Trade article.


 * Various people dreamed up better ways to run an economy.
 * How were things done prior to that?
 * Also, there were theorists that did not become the dominant fathers of the system theory.
 * Consider Henry George and Georgist Economics as being quite different from Keynesian Economics thanks to "what's his name?"
 * Sometimes it seems with the news media that the latest crisis is the worst ever by definition.
 * Most Economic Historians treat the Great Depression following the Stock Market crash of 1929 as the all time worst event.
 * October 19, 1987 or Black Monday, was treated at the time, of similar stock market magnitude.
 * In former VP Albert Gore book on the Environment, he talks about the Year of no Summer, in association with several events. Seems to me that there was Climate Change that reduced the ability of agriculture to sustain the population that had been living off of it, combined with great plagues, caused a Pandemic the likes of which the world has never seen again.

History of Trade Theory
This stuff moved to Talk:Trade.

Esoteric Topics
I will leave this stuff here, since I have an interest in learning more about this, irrespective of my help with the Trade article.

By definition, anything that I have a real hard time wrapping my mind around.


 * Like how does a country get into Deflation and how come some nations south of the US Border have in recent years had various economic crises.

Ancient Trade
This stuff moved to Talk:Trade.

Trade in Medieval Times
I will leave this alone here for the time being, since I also have an interest in how Archeology is used to derive what we know about ancient times, where written histories are suspect, such as the effect of Climate Change upon the Vikings ... remember that where they crossed the Atlantic is about the same place as the RMS Titanic went down. Did the Vikings have to contend with navigating past Icebergs or was that during a period of Global Warming?


 * Some differences vs. modern era would be related to transportation infrastructure, and such things as not having good refrigeration for foods.
 * There was a time when the notion of storing seed against a bad season had not yet been invented.
 * Each historical period probably contributed much to subsequent eras, but the quality of our history is such that we may not know the whole story.
 * Medieval Commerce contributed:
 * Banking imported from the East.
 * Cities, that are great to day, were founded. Many of them started out specializing in a few major products.
 * Guilds promoted standards of workmanship.
 * Summa Theologically by St. Thomas Aquinas ... the concept of balancing ethical principles of Christianity with principles of making a profit.
 * Given all the troubles with criminals of the times, disrupting trade caravans between east and west, how valuable did products have to be to justify the effort?
 * What was the appeal of those spices from the Orient, and what went in the other direction to be traded for the spices?
 * When European ships first arrived in the Americas, and off the coast of Africa, was that really Trade as we know it today, or Multi-National Corporations in Laissez Faire Economics?

Ages of Sea Exploration
Another topic that interested me outside of the Trade article improvement effort.

Western nations discovered America, went around the world, introduced many new products to Europe. Doubtless some of the other nations benefitted in more ways than being visited upon by unwanted missionaries and the drug trade, leading to the Opium Wars.

Rise of Middle Class
Probably made possible (or helped with)
 * French Revolution
 * American Revolution

Second Industrial Revolution
Western nations got the immediate benefits.

1837 Morse invented the Telegraph

What a difference it made to USA economy to have transatlantic Railroad. Then the nation saw another economic revolution later with the Interstate highway system, then again with the Internet.

Impact of Suez Canal and Panama Canal.

The value of some technology, such as the Fax machine, is related to how many connections to other enterprises with the same technology.

What a difference it made to quality of life to have in many homes:


 * Indoor Plumbuing
 * Telephone

Good quality lighting meant people could work, and read after dark.

WW II

 * USA Lend Lease
 * Commerce Raiding
 * Marshall Plan

Radar
External links to info about the book "The Invention that Changed the World" by Robert Buderi:
 * Amazon dot com
 * Business Week major innovations
 * Radar impact on Air Power

This book is about how a small group of pinoneers made invention(s) that helped the Allies win WW II, and led to a technological revolution after WW II, that ranks with the Industrial Revolution, when you consider its impact on:
 * Airline industry
 * Electronics Industry
 * Laser and variants, and their impact on Medicine
 * Medical Science able to see inside the human body without surgery.
 * Military able to see through clouds
 * Radio Astronomy
 * Weather Forecasting

Post War
After WW II, many former collonies of the great powers, gained independence. Some of those nations nationalized industries that had formerly been controlled by enterprises out of the colonizing powers.

During the war years, the women had worked in defense industry, freeing the jobs for the men to go to war. Combined with Suffrage, this meant that Western Society moved from the man traditionally being wage earner, and woman traditionally being home maker and architect of chldren upbringing, to a changed society.

The Personal Automobile in the hands of many youngsters meant a much more mobile society. Gone were the times when kids got in trouble, and the neighbors knew which family they from, with swift informing the parents.

While many European nations struggled with Rationing, the GI Bill in USA helped Veterans get a decent college education, leading to a sharp rise in the Middle Class.

Socialism
This stuff moved to Talk:Trade.

Space Race
Communication Satellites

Modern Trade Theory
When does the "modern era" begin?

Trade Illegal
Some types of activities may be legal in some nations and illegal in others.


 * During the Taliban, Poetry was illegal in Afghanistan
 * Sex related such as Child Slavery
 * Smuggling

If you add up the Trade Balance of all nations, in theory they should zero out, but in reality they do not add up. This is because of the role of Money Laundering, Drug Smuggling, and other illegal activities, off the books.

Trade in Fiction
How about novels, authors, games, where the economics depicted is fairly reliable, as of some era of Trade theory evolution?

There's also used book stores where we bring in two old books, and in exchange get one old book that perhaps we have not read before. I have also seen PC game stores that do that.

Trade Publications
In different nations, different publications might be considered the primary publications for someone to be reading to stay informed on Trade issues. There can also be good relevant articles in general news publications whose other content is not exclusively or heavily focused on economic topics.

Asian Trade Editions
Many publications have editions in various regions of the world.


 * Far Eastern Economic Review

British Trade Publications

 * The Economist
 * Financial Times

USA Trade Publications

 * Barron's
 * Business Week
 * Forbes
 * Investor's Daily
 * Journal of Commerce
 * Wall Street Journal

Trade Journalists
Many journalists specialize in various different topics
 * Business & Economics
 * Politics of the nation's capital
 * Technology
 * various sciences

There are some worth watching, perhaps making an effort to invite to join us here.

Big Picture
This is one topic I do remember making links to from other places.


 * For many topics, textual charts can be an inadequate way of depicting the subject matter ... they may be Ok when a few dimensions to the data. But complex graphics can impose a bandwidth Usability hassle depending on the Browser being used by someone coming to Wikopedia and any Disability hassles experienced by the human involved.
 * Consider a map of the world, in which you can click on any of the nations, or select from a list to the side, some region of the world. This would be a separate Wiki article page.
 * After clicking on a nation or region, you could then get to Trade info about that region.
 * What kinds of products and services do they export?
 * Which other nations are their major trading partners?
 * What trading organizations are they members of?
 * See if you can navigate to this Ryze network page and see the illustration, then navigate it (click some place and drill down to the details). This is an example of something called a Social Network Map in which there is software available to draw a map based on a table keyed in by a person with such entries as:
 * NAME or Title (which will be the text in the link);
 * url corresponding to that;
 * some symbol in front of each NAME that is to be linked to this one.

Trade Links
This stuff moved to Talk:Trade.

The move completed, except for occasional clean up. AlMac 5 July 2005 17:41 (UTC)