Here is how a G&M columnist looks at this:

Victory for Hewers-of-Wood Economy”

http://www.thestar.com/news/canada/politics/article/1153237–walkom-japan-free-trade-pact-marks-victory-for-hewers-of-wood-economy

” … this trade deal promises to mark the finale of a 133-year effort by successive federal governments to create a vibrant manufacturing economy in Canada.

” …..Since John A. Macdonald’s national policy of 1879, Canadian governments have promoted domestic manufacturing. The methods changed over time. But the aim — to steer our economy away from a reliance on raw material exports — did not.

“Even the Canada-U.S. free trade deal of 1989 was sold to the country as a way to let Canadian manufacturers expand into the bigger American market. For auto firms, the strategy worked.”

According to the article, economist David Ricardo wrote in 1817 that countries whose relative circumstances favour raw material production should do just that.

In his day it made more sense for Portugal to export wine to England and England to sell cloth to Portugal rather than to have both countries produce both.

The articel ends with these words”

“In terms of overall efficiency, he was right. Still, it’s worth noting that over time England prospered as a result of its focus on manufacturing while wine-producing Portugal did not”

I think it is clear that today Japan is the England of Ricardo’s era and BC the Portugal of his day.

But hey, if that is the best we can do for now, let some generation down the road try to dig themselves out of that.

Now if we can just get the Asian’s hooked on B.C. wine…….

The cynic might say the Portugese consumed too much of their own production! Seriously, though, it would be hard to argue with Ricardo if international trade was actually ‘trade’. The exchange of the relative surpluses of one country for the alternate relative surpluses of another one.

Both parties to that kind of trade benefit, because it allows for the diversification of Consumption within each country. The nationals of each are, (or should be), enabled to access products from outside their borders ostensibly at a better price to them than if they were to try to produce everything internally.

The ‘fly in the ointment’, so to speak, is when we bring money into the equation. For if one country CAN’T fully pay for ALL its own Production from the wages, salaries, and dividends distributed as Incomes in the course of its making, (whether it would want to, or not, which in Canada’s case it certainly would not), then how is it to fully pay for the EXCHANGE of that Production through international trade?

Increased exports of Canadian raw resources and jobs here selling products made in Japan.

Yeah Stephen Harper, Pat Bell and the BC Liberals!

looking after corporate Canada again!

I have a very simple question for Pat Bell,Shirley Bond,Christy Clark,etc.If the Province of BC has all this increased trade to Japan,China,and India etc.,where is all the extra revenue going that we can’t fund education,healthcare,and all the other ministries to the levels required?Why are we having to cut or hold the line on these needs today?Is it because your government has mismanaged the financial side of things so bad that you can’t find the money to do so?You have also introduced the HST and the carbon tax to increase revenue and there still isn’t enough.The one thing your party has touted as being able to manage better than the NDP,and you have totally failed at it.I believe you are shooting yourselves in the foot everytime you come out with your chests puffed out and heads held high proclaiming these kinds of achievements about Japan and China.

The ‘extra revenue’ is going towards closing the gap that exists in this country, (and every other industrialised country), between Prices and Incomes, jakeadoo. Only with each improvement of process that displaces ‘labour’ this becomes increasingly more difficult to do.

If they are trying to beat the rest of the world in selling oil to China etc Canada can forget it.

China and Saudi Arabia have teamed up to build a giganitc new refinery in Saudi Arabia – opening in 2014 to refine the oil SA sells to China.

The agreement has happened not long after China signed with Egypt and another with Nigeria – both for mega refineries and the sale of oil. China has also recently signed deals with Russia.

By the time China is finished it will be the largest buyer and investor in oils and refineries in the world. Looks like the US is going to be in trouble..and that will trickle to Canada….

So if we are going to look at more trade with Japan, can we sell them recycled goods when the mass of garbage hits our coastal waters soon? Could be new jobs coming to BC? ;)

Guess what, you are right… those new mega refineries will be the end of the US dollar as the sole global reserve currency, and as such an American dollar will reflect its true value.

Interesting that China has no intention of having its oil priced by Wall Street speculators either… driving up the price of oil and gas to support the profits of the globalists will not be so easy for them.