Talk:Trade

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Article Creation and Improvement Drive Trade was the Article Creation and Improvement Drive for the week spanning from Sunday, 26 June 2005.

For more details, see the Article Creation and Improvement Drive history.

Contents

[edit] POV Fix

I question the POV neutrality of the remark re: "Free enterprise" being a "strange modern idea...deification"

You are right in questioning it. It is not even remotely neutral. I will now revise it. --DylanL 23:58, 14 Aug 2004 (UTC)
My God. After another look, I can't begin to figure out where to revise this. It's hopelessly biased. --DylanL 00:22, 15 Aug 2004 (UTC)
I gave it a shot at making the section in question NPOV 68.198.66.115 16:14, 28 Aug 2004 (UTC)
And making that change inspired me to get a Wikipedia account. Damien_F 16:25, Aug 28, 2004 (UTC)

[edit] Sports trades?

Is there a page on sports trades? In the North American sports leagues (NFL, NBA, NHL and MLB) players may be traded for each other, or sometimes for draft picks.) It would be nice to have a page devoted to this (if there isn't one already). Funnyhat 02:04, 11 Apr 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Sports Simulation Games

In addition to players being traded in real life, there are also games where people trade playing cards that have pictures of the players and their statistics.

I think Sports Trades is more a topic of Sports than of Trading. AlMac 3 July 2005 19:07 (UTC)

[edit] removing importantstub

I'm removing the importantstub template because this article has grown beyond a stub. If anyone knows what the article is missing it seems the expand template would be a better choice. See Wikipedia:Substub#Differences_between_a_stub_and_a_substub. Triddle 17:44, 28 May 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Improvement Drive

AlMac [1] offered [2] these ideas:--Fenice 3 July 2005 19:03 (UTC)
I agree this article is both worth while and could stand some help.

  • Gov agencies that support / promote trade
  • Global organizations that manage disputes
    • WTO
  • Recent growth
    • Bans on some products / services / content / standards
      • some of this due to protectionism
    • Areas of major change in recent years
      • Customs and Cross-Border Complexity
        • Anti-Terrorism efforts increased this
        • Example of before ... language of shipper, recipient, territory that shipment crosses needs to have paperwork understandable to their officials
      • Globalization
      • Free Trade and Free Trade Zones
      • Tax Challenges
        • e.g. nation with VAT trades with nation that has a different system of taxation (not VAT)
      • Outsourcing
      • Missionary work with human rights
      • Culture clashes for Multi-Nationals

[edit] AlMac Moved Ideas

Some of my ideas what might belong in the Trade article have in fact shown up there, probably due to people having parallel thoughts on what belongs in this picture. I hope that my ideas help bridge the thinking of others to collectively improve the article.

This stuff was at User talk:AlMac/Trade which i did not delete right away because I had pointed various other places at it, without keeping track of which where.

[edit] Trade Domestic

  • Trade within the borders of a nation.
  • How might this be different in different nations?

[edit] EU

[edit] Trade inside USA

There are organizations that are to US domestic trade, what the WTO is to International Trade. I would not be surprised if many nations had similar enttities.

Do Labor Unions count?

These organizations that exist to promote Trade inside the nation, are often also involved in lobbying the government to make sure that laws are favorable to their interests. Some of them also engage in internal education within their industries to improve standards and quality.

[edit] Legal Sea Changes

What are some of the major US laws and US Supreme Court decisions that have altered the face of how Trade functions, and can function in the USA?

[edit] Trade International

Watch out for demographic bias of most Wikipeans being from developing world as it applies to access to theories about economics.

Consider the impact of the English Channel Tunnel Chunnel on Trade between Britain, France, and the rest of the continent. In fact, High Speed Rail is much better developed in Europe and other nations than in the USA. How does different systems of transportation compare around the world? Barge, Ship, Rail, Truck, etc.

In very recent history, there has been a sharp rise in the number of democratic nations around the world, particularly in the aftermath of Communism rulling Central Europe. The story of the re-unification of Germany, and former Warsaw Pact nations joining Common Europe, EU and NATO has been a sea change in European economics and beyond.

[edit] Currencies
  • Different nations Currencies relative to each other (some pegged to each other) and International Currencies such as the Euro, which is a relatively new phenomena in history, which required an upheaval in European Accounting that was as great as the Y2K situation.
  • Degree to which one nation's assets are traded by other nations and foreign nationals.

[edit] Military Bases

When a community is home to a military base, there is considerable trade to support the servicemen and women based there. The USA is moving some bases that used to be in France and Germany forther east into Poland and Czech Republic.

That will benefit their economies, although not as significantly as the Marshall Plan.

[edit] Oil Prices

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."

[edit] Trade in History

How Trade was conducted thru history, and How Theory of Trade evolved.

  • How things were done before Adam Smith and others came along.
  • 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.


[edit] Esoteric Topics

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.

[edit] Ancient Trade

How about Trade in the times of the Romans, Greeks, Biblical times?

[edit] Trade in Medieval Times
  • 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:
  • 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?

[edit] Ages of Sea Exploration

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 teh Opium Wars.

[edit] Rise of Middle Class

Probably made possible

  • French Revolution
  • American Revolution

[edit] 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.

[edit] WW II

[edit] Radar

External links to info about the book "The Invention that Changed the World" by Robert Buderi:

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:

[edit] 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.

[edit] Socialism

Karl Marx first proposed the theory, and the Communist nations first tried it out.

[edit] Space Race

Communication Satellites

[edit] Computer Revolutions

[edit] Modern Trade Theory

When does the "modern era" begin?

[edit] Trade in Intellectual Property

[edit] Internet Trade

[edit] Removal of Trade Barriers

[edit] Trade Illegal

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

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.

[edit] 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.

[edit] 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.

[edit] Asian Trade Editions

Many publications have editions in various regions of the world.

[edit] British Trade Publications

[edit] USA Trade Publications

[edit] 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.

[edit] Big Picture

  • 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.

[edit] See also
  • This is in 2 places ... main one at bottom, and also with respect to a particular topic.
  • After editing the one on the bottom, we jump to the higher one ... a bug? This means risk of editing the wrong one.
  • I suggest the title of one be altered slightly so it is "See also" related to a particular topic, such as International Trade, History of Trade, or whatever, within the context of that section.

AlMac 5 July 2005 18:43 (UTC)

[edit] Trade Links

Looking down the [3] list of what links to here (Trade) I notice some things conspicuous by their absense.

  • I see Monopoly (game)
    • but there are MANY games that involve some kind of Trade or wider Economics.
    • Monopoly was perhaps the first adult and family board game of economics, that gained great popularity, but it was followed by many others.
      • The 3M company and Avalon Hill Games and others, came out with many family oriented games. Just about any that use Play Money qualify for some category of Trade Games.
    • There are various computer games where various vehicles are setup moving in a loop of picking up goods at various ports and dropping off somewhere else.
    • There are the Microprose Tycoon series.

[edit] AlMac More

  • Some day I will learn how to do redirects so that people, who I pointed to url of where I used to have stuff, will end up where I have since moved the stuff, some of it several times.
  • Look at what links to the main Trade article, then check next 50 ... note that the links are not in any kind of meaningful sequence after the first page. AlMac 4 July 2005 21:06 (UTC)
  • I added some more topic ideas on my [4] Talk Page AlMac 3 July 2005 19:33 (UTC)
  • I moved my thoughts on Trade to a separate AlMac/Trade page which I then grew from about 4 pages of some 20 sub-topics to about 7 pages of some 33 sub-topics. I added some stub topics with most of the expansion in my sense of what's important in the History of trade AlMac 4 July 2005 22:24 (UTC)
  • I placed brackets around topics that I thought might already exist. Some may not have right upper lower case or plural spelling, but hopefully my thoughts also give ideas to others to explore further.
  • See this explanation of Graphics on Steroids to help navigate some topic.

AlMac 3 July 2005 20:05 (UTC)

[edit] History

Aren't the two history sections redundant? — RJH 5 July 2005 22:17 (UTC)

Thanks, you quite right. I fixed that, in my above thoughts what might belong in the Trade article. AlMac 5 July 2005 22:37 (UTC)

Your are right, one history section would be enough.--Fenice 6 July 2005 04:46 (UTC)

  • Looks better now, thanks. — RJH 9 July 2005 17:37 (UTC)

[edit] Structure Thoughts

In the main Trade article

  • Do various references / see also belone one place, near end of whole article?
    • or is it appropriate to have such stuff within various branches of the general outline ... I thinking some entries would end up duplicated ... more clarity if merge at end
  • Should History of Trade be positioned before International Trade?
  • Should History within International be merged into the overall History?
  • Should Organization (spelling vs Organisation?) of Trade be a sub-section of History of Trade (after Money Development)? AlMac 6 July 2005 05:15 (UTC)
References usually go at the end, above external links. Notes section before references. I think we should start the outline with the history section. The two history sections should be merged. Concerning the spelling: I am neutral. The official policy is that if an article concerns the UK it is in British English, if it is an American subject, then American spelling is applicable. Since this is neither, I am not sure.--Fenice 6 July 2005 18:10 (UTC)

[edit] Growing Expertise

AlMac/Growing Expertise is another of my ideas. I am thinking in the Reference section at the end, not just where to go for more info, but where to go for self-education in this subject. AlMac 6 July 2005 18:37 (UTC)

Sometimes articles have another section, after references: further reading, that is pretty much what you are describing.--Fenice 6 July 2005 18:56 (UTC)

[edit] Section cleanup request: Development of money

This section is not the best summary in the world of the Money article. -- Beland 00:26, 15 July 2005 (UTC)

You're right, it's a clumsy paragraph. It should not be a summary of money however, but History of money, because it is in the history section.--Fenice 06:51, 15 July 2005 (UTC)

I would have to agree, this paragraph is fairly “clumsily” written, it also contains a very limited description of how money was developed. The spelling and gramma should also be looked into. “being scarce as an artifact” (line 13 of Development of money).. This should be written as “being as scarce as an artifact. ” or something along those lines.Nameon 23:48, 23 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Trade legislation

Are there any wiki articles on trades descriptions and trade legislation? (e.g. things like laws against using false descriptions, misleading names, etc., to mislead buyers). I can't find anything at any obvious titles - MPF 18:10, 29 November 2005 (UTC)

Laws like that often come under headings like consumer protection because that is most often where commercial speech gets abused enought to demant legislation to enforce standards. There's other kinds of abuse that is combatted by legislated bodies to manage labor relations or international like WTO, such as to block dumping, not quite what you getting at? User:AlMac|(talk) 19:55, 28 December 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Purchasing

There's a redirect to trade from purchasing which does not make sense, as the word "purchasing" is not mentioned in the whole article. Apart from that, there are other meanings, e.g. the purchasing department of an enterprise is not covered by the lemma trade. Does someone agree and split both? FelixKaiser

Perhaps there should be an article on Purchasing within the context of Accounting with links to Enterprise resource planning. User:AlMac|(talk) 19:57, 28 December 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Principles of Trade

There is a basic principle of trade, and it is that in any trade between two people, both walk away feeling they have obtained a higher value than what they traded away. I don't know if this is appropriate to include in the article, or where to put it. Suggestions? anyways, for those not getting what I mean, here is an example. Take two guys, one makes arrowheads, the other makes pots. They agree to trade an arrowhead for a pot. Here is what happens next:

  • The arrowhead maker feels he got better value, because he could not use arrowheads to cook a meal; so he came out ahead.
  • The pot maker feels he got better value, because without an arrohead, he could not hunt for something to cook in his pots.

If neither of them had felt that they where getting more for less, they would not have traded. There is no great incentive to trade even value, much less trading less for more. For example, maybe the pot maker didn't think one arrowhead was fair, he wanted two. Maybe the arrowhead maker wouldn't want a pot that bad that he would trade two for one. -- Dullfig 22:26, 30 January 2006 (UTC)

I think there is a level of accuracy in what you're saying, but it needs some revision. People will sometimes pay more than they feel something is worth. This does not mean they felt that they got a good deal, but that they felt it was an acceptable price for what they got based on the circumstance.

Additionally, there is an error in the assumption that no one would trade unless they felt they were getting a better deal. For instance, assuming that a pot and an arrowhead had an equal accepted value, the transaction would still be made: the arrowheadmaker neets a pot and the pot maker needs an arrowhead. A more interesting example can be found in almost any purchase of manufactured goods: I know that the shoes I payed $30 for are worth (in material and labour costs) less than $30, because otherwise there would be no profit in their sales, but I recognize that the price is not too high to pay, and I buy them. Robert Mason 15:52, 26 January 2007 (UTC)

Shoes are not such a good example, because they are so universally needed, they mask the cost-benefit aspect. But suppose you are a carpenter an need a hammer. Because you are good with wood, but not so good working with iron, making a hammer would probably take you a good week of work (assuming you could learn the necesary skills). If you go and buy a hammer, and find that it costs $15, to you it is a good deal, because it costs less than it would take you to maket it. In addition, the hammer allows you to work in your trade, so over time you will gain even more value from the hammer than what it cost you. -- Dullfig 18:09, 26 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Merging commerce and trade articles

I think merging the commerce and trade articles is a good idea. Both articles recognise that the terms are more or less equivalent. The question I have is whether it makes sense to merge into trade or merge into commerce. Commerce has no meaning other than its business meaning, as far as I know. But trade tends to have other uses, such as in "learning a trade" or "being traded" (professional sports context) or informal swapping. Just my thoughts. --SueHay 20:23, 9 March 2007 (UTC)

Oppose need to remain separate as the topics are both important, notable and too large to merge, it would be to the detriment of wiki to merge them. SMBarnZy 12:52, 15 March 2007 (UTC)