Coopertative Trade

Union-owned multi-national corporations are an invaluable tool for modernizing the rest of the world. They have every incentive to do so. The extent to which foreign workers, especially workers in the same conglomerate, are under-paid, that is the extent to which American workers are at risk. When American workers adopt union-ownership, it is in their interest to extend the same system to each of their overseas factories. Likewise, when overseas worker learn of the good fortune of their fellows, they demand equal treatment.

Doing so dramatically alters the economies of the nations where union-owned firms have facilities. These facilities are quickly seen as the best place to work, so that American union-owned multi-nationals have the pick of the best workers and the best students. Firms establish universities in these nations or send their employees to the United States for school. Such firms also look to workers in the lower classes to find geniuses who have been ignored because of their color or class. As workers become owners and pay is increased, living standards rise and a middle class is formed. As living standards rise and elites have less economic influence, these nations become freer and more stable. Political reform sweeps the planet.

Trade, Currency Exchange and Conversion
As economies continue to integrate currency exchange rates become less exploitive of the third world, which in turn preserves the jobs of many American workers. Union-owned multi-nationals need to develop a better means of currency conversion for transfer pricing and trade. These methods rely on developing a common market basket of goods relevant to the needs of all of their workers. This market basket is then priced in both currencies, comparing the cost difference with the exchange rate difference. To be true to all of its employee-owners, it makes internal pricing decisions based on the single market basket, while capitalizing on these differences for other economic decisions.

Comparing the various market baskets cost differentials and the price differentials is also the measure of how much one economy exploits another. An examination of the effect of tariffs and subsidies is part of this analysis. Knowledge of these disparities is useful ammunition in defeating or modifying exploitive trade agreements, such as the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), as well as subsidies and tariffs. Publishing this information widely also has an effect, as the information itself affects the performance of trade and currency markets.

Using this information in these ways is as close as the world comes to the adoption of a single currency, although wide publication of this information is a first step in that direction. As tariffs and subsidies lessen and third world economies develop currency rates stabilize. When this happens, agreements on money supply growth targets are made between national reserve banks, controlling inflation and further stabilizing both prices and currencies, facilitating long-term growth and prosperity on a more global scale. These actions diminish the need for such institutions as the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund and their failed fiscally conservative policies. In fact, the spread of Cooperativism leads to a wide adoption of tax and social insurance policies suggested in this volume. Such policies are the antidote for the failed policies of the World Bank/IMF.

These metrics are also useful to accurately measure the health of developing economies and ease the transition to a free market system in the formerly Communist world.