4 Responses to “Trading Graces”

1. #1 |  John T. Kennedy |  February 19th, 2004 at 7:04 pm

   At the start of the piece on free trade and the evironment you ask “What affects do trade agreements like NAFTA, GATT and the WTO have on the environment?”

   I’d be interested to hear your answer, which I could not find in the piece, unless it was this:”Griswold notes that since the passage of NAFTA, a more affluent Mexico City has been able to introduce cleaner gasoline, and residents there have begun installing catalytic converters on their automobiles.”

   But how was the absence of NAFTA regulations preventing Mexico from introducing cleaner gasoline? How was the absence of NAFTA preventing free trade?

2. #2 |  michelle |  February 20th, 2004 at 2:05 pm

   i enjoyed your piece on trade and religion. it puts a new perspective on how incredibly intolerant some of the societies in the middle east can be. 330 nonarabic translations a year? that is HORRIBLE. it’s no mystery why so many of their scholars are wanting to get the heck outta dodge. i am curious as to who gets to choose the books to be translated though? if i lived over there i would have started a civil riot by now. i would go nutso if i didn’t have my oprah picks. michelle

3. #3 |  Henry Baugh |  February 23rd, 2004 at 1:32 am

   I remember studying that at one time the middle east was the intellectual capital of the world. Did religion cap it or did they just rest on their laurels.

4. #4 |  wade |  February 23rd, 2004 at 11:30 am

   on the subject of the middle east, i read this today,

   http://www.guardian.co.uk/elsewhere/journalist/story/0,7792,1154165,00.html

   which was quite interesting, if you like geography.

   on the free trade – environment thingy, there is no such thing as free trade, other than on the black market, and i don’t see how that helps protect “the environment”…

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