Other Countries Screwing American Companies

Most countries have regulated or semi-regulated economies, while only the United States has a mostly free economy. So what happens when companies from a free market compete with companies in a closed market? Usually they are far more efficient and more competitive, so the companies in the closed economy turn to their government for help. Closed economy ccompanies are not innovative or hard-working because every time they have a problem they turn to their tangled, inefficient government bureacracies to bail them out. How do these closed countries economies bail them out? The closed countries economies fine the American companies huge amounts of money for silly things, force the American companies to give their trade secrets to the less effective competitors and sometimes flat out steal the American companies assets. Some example of this phenomenon are listed below.

• Hugo Chavez, the socialist thief who leads Venezuela, has been aggressively nationalizing oil companies, electrical companies and parts of the stock market. American oil companies, including Chevron, have had billions of dollars stolen from them by Hugo Chavez and his so-called “nationalization” (basically stealing foreigners assets in the country). ‘
• The European Union has repeatedly screwed American high-tech firms, with Microsoft taking the biggest hits. The EU’s companies are inefficient and poorly run, but the EU aggressively tries to help them through laws & courts. The EU passed laws forcing Microsoft to share it’s trade secrets and when Microsoft didn’t share as much as the EU wanted, it started fining them… total fines are well over a billion dollars now.
• Boeing also has been forced to give trade secrets to Airbus. Boeing receives some tax cuts from the US, but Airbus receives billions of dollars in direct aid from European governments so that it can try to compete with Boeing.

These are just some of the more glaring cases of foreign government cheating American companies. Most smaller American companies operating abroad must deal with similar egregious treatment from foreign governments. American companies cannot even publicize the fact that they are getting screwed for fear of angering the foreign governments.

2 Responses to “Other Countries Screwing American Companies”

1. 1
   Plato Says:
   July 1st, 2008 at 4:44 pm

   Poor, poor, oil companies.

2. 2
   Joel Says:
   July 1st, 2008 at 4:46 pm

   Oil companies are owned by tens of thousands, if not hundreds of thousands, of ordinary Americans who hold stock in them. The people who got screwed in the end were ordinary stockholders.

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