Please dont attack me- I want to give you a heads up - This is important stuff I don't fully underst [View all]

[Baobab]

Most people probably dont know this but the US recently joined the WTO Government Procurement Agreement which means a gradual shift to international, e-portal mediated procurement of government goods AND SERVICES soon.

This procurement will be international, it will be open to dozens of countries to participate in.

Currently, US government procurement has extensive carve outs for businesses owned by women and minorities. I do not know if these carve outs are being preserved, they may well be, or they may not be. Much of the current public sector will likely be privatized in a process that began in the 1990s, this will accelerate it.

So here is a crosspost from "Good Reads" - It has a boring title but it is valuable info.

Let me go on the record here in saying that I think these carve outs for women and minority owned businesses should be preserved (and expended to include other Historically Disadvantaged Groups like non-marital children, and perhaps poor people generally) but I see them also as conflicting with new preferential priorities which are being reserved (in WTO at least) for Less Developed Countries (LDCs) firms. People need to be aware that this new system will likely not contain them without active input in the ongoing negotiations in Geneva and Brussels.

You can find out a bit about their side of the story at sites like http://tradeinservices.net and http://cuts-geneva.org

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The Limited Case for Permitting SME Procurement Preferences in the WTO Agreement on Government Procurement

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/228121888


Women and minority owned businesses may lose their preferential carve outs in government procurement under the new globalization rules.

Additionally, there are other Historically Disadvantaged Individuals who should get help. Otherwise a lot of work that's currently done my Americans will be contracted out at low wages to low low bidding foreign firms.

Debt burdened Americans can't work for such low wages and won't get those jobs.