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Comment by belorn | Hacker News Reader

Will be interesting to see how much of the leaked chapters is still in there. The old one said to make ISP's more liable for data being transfered through it. Imports of copyrighted goods without the authors permission will be made illegal (and they said barriers to international trade was dead). Copyright Terms will be extended in several countries. DRM protection is extended so that those who "enabl[e] or facilitat[e]" circumvention can be charged even if they do not violate a copyright (fun time for researchers). Last it dictate that generic medicine is destroyed if such happen to be found in a country where a patent cover it (all those who complain about Russia burning smuggled food might find this interesting).

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Funny how globalization was going to flatten the world for everyone. Turns out it doesn't actually include the plebs.

Capital gets to traverse the world - its factories spewing waste and arbitraging cost of living and currency differences in SE Asia, its profits reported in tax-resorts like Ireland and the Cayman Islands, and its protection guaranteed via the US Military courtesy of the US middle class.

But should a lowly citizen try to pull a stunt like importing a medicine from India or purchasing a text book from Hong Kong, well that's against the law.

It isn't free trade without also free immigration.

Global free trade without global freedom of movement is just profit rearranging for corporations.

That's not the point. Corporations get to (mostly) benefit from the most favorable aspect of all the governments of the world, all at the same time.

Even with global free movement people would not be able to do the same. I cannot live in California, build my house using Chinese labor prices, and be taxed as if I lived in Nevada.

Simple fix: people should be citizens of corporations instead of citizens of countries. Then they can move freely and their (literal) parent company will take care of healthcare, benefits, social services, etc.

I sincerely hope this is a joke

Visas are already heavily tied heavily to employment. It's not much of a leap to just become a citizen of a company since they already control your (employment-based) foreign immigration eligibility.

Right. The American worker lost his job because he was undercut by people who'll do the job for a third-world salary in third-world conditions. The solution is to let the American migrate to the third world so he can join the fun. How could we have been so blind?

It's like how the Affordable Care Act had to contain mutually reinforcing requirements for insurance. You can't have insurance that covers pre-existing conditions unless you also require everybody be insured. Otherwise, people would only buy insurance when they get sick.

You have to toggle both knobs at the same time to make sure the system doesn't become unbalanced.

With trade+immigration, you can't allow the free movement of capital without also giving people the option of following their jobs to places long removed from their origins.

Is it practical? Not entirely, but the road has to flow both ways.

The two knobs you want to touch in this case go in the same direction. You're not balancing anything. You're just touching knobs for the sake of it.

If you wanted to balance things, you'd pair an open market with shared rules on safety, environment, labor rights, etc.

We should invite the world to live in America, then when the rest of the world is empty, take it over, make it all modern, then we can all have our non-polluting futuristic countries of equality and proper environmental regulations and building codes and renewable power transmission without trying to negotiate with hundreds of mutually unnegotiateable peoples.

The ole' america swircherroo.

There's multiple ways to reach equilibrium. As people migrate, rents and wages adjust. And freedom of movement would also include allowing workers into the US, where wages are higher presently.

As an aside, you don't even have to have large migration to produce a new equilibrium. As long as workers could feasibly migrate, they can negotiate for higher wages in their home country using that as a BATNA.

> As people migrate, rents and wages adjust.

Americans are not migrating to third-world countries because there are more jobs. That's not going to happen.

In the 80s I witnessed several neighbors move to the Phillipenes for a job. It happens, esp in civil engineering / construction services. And on the margins, we have the nomadlist, which is predicated on the assumption that you can write code from nearly anywhere.

But no, Americans are not emigrating in bulk any time soon. The thrust of my argument today is simply that greater inflows to the US is part of the 'free flow of labor' equation.

As a Canadian, the copyright extensions are what really bug me. Cheaper dairy I can actually get behind.

Creators have a right to determine what their product sells for. If you don't like the price then you have a right not to purchase it. However, I suspect you only care about yourself - as long as you can copy/download for $free.

Actually that's not it at all. In fact I just bought Regulate by Warren G and Nate Dogg and Gimme More by Britney Spears on iTunes after this post. What I don't like is ridiculously long copyright terms.

If you purchased the product then the length of the copyright does not affect you.

Can anyone explain why my comment was massively downvoted? Am I factually wrong or is it because you simply disagree. If it's the latter, then you are building an echo chamber where new or different perspectives will be disincentivized.

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