SENATE BILL: Promoting Responsible Foreign Investment Act of 2014 (Failed)

[Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee]

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Sponsor: TNF

[Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee]

You have 24 hours to begin advoacy, Senator.


Section 2 is a counter-productive protectionist measure that arbitrarily selects 50% and prefers to opt for 0% over 25% or 30%.

Section 3 could jeopardize our ability to recycle our debts when necessary and cause a spike in interest rates if not worse.

[TNF]

To the contrary, Section 2 mandates job creation and job growth. This is how a lot of European countries rebuilt their industrial economies after World War II, and I don't see a reason why not to use our power to control trade to do the same here. You assume that these multinational corporations will go on strike and not sell anything in the Republic; I believe that is a naive assumption, given that the Republic is the largest market for those products and said corporations would be shooting themselves in the foot by not selling products in that market.

Section 3 is designed to prevent our debt from being essentially taken over by foreign powers. I don't know about you, but I don't feel entirely comfortable knowing that both the Japanese and the Chinese hold the amount of Atlasian debt that they do. It would be far better that, assuming we cannot sell our debt abroad, we sold it at home (as was the case Pre-1970s) to stakeholders here. Let's let Treasury bonds flow to union pension funds, community groups, schools, etc. Why should we let tyrannical regimes abroad (China) fund our operations when the Atlasian worker can do the same?

This bill is designed to promote responsibility in foreign investment. Section 1 deals with the fact that foreign companies march into the U.S. and then run union-free, anti-labor workplaces. If you don't believe me, I'd point you to Nissan, Toyota, and all the auto magnates in the South. That part of this bill would require that those companies not resist if their workers decide to form a union. I think that's fairly little to ask from them, personally, since we're letting them build cars in the states and have access to our internal markets.

[Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee]

I am not really concerned about section one. Though I think a better approach would be to require that all foreign companies comply with all federal labor laws, which would include the "Employer Non-Interference Act".

Rebuilding a country in a world destroyed by War where there is only one economy left undamanged is one thing. Competing in a world where there is a global competition and millions of new customers coming online all the time in the Emerging Markets is another.

I am concerned as well, but a large part of the reason we depend on them for that is because of our deficits and these bonds are traded on a market. If we restrict the pool of buyers, then the prices of the bonds would drop, and the interest rates rise unavoidably and considering our present economic situation, that is not desirable.

[Sec. of State Superique]

Superique's Review of Promoting Responsible Foreign Investment Act of 2014:

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I believe that is a pretty useless Section since all Foreign Companies have to comply with the regulations where they are settled. When Shell, Zara and so many other multinational companies are working on a country, they have to comply with the laws of said country. As long as we don't have a piece of law giving privileges to foreign companies when it comes to Labor Regulation, then I see no reason why we should have this written in a law. The best word to define this Section is Redundant.

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Good intentions, terrible consequences. It's good to give incentives for companies to product things in our country but it is impractical for most of the multinational companies to do that, specially by this non-voluntary and coercive methods. Such a terrible and authoritarian requirement will not attract companies, but it will  make thousands of jobs, investments and capital fly out of the country and that's something that I believe that not even the less reasonable politician would want to see.

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Good intentions as well, but terrible consequences. By prohibiting foreign nations of buying our treasury bonds, Section 3 will actually reduce abruptly liquidity and will hurt strongly our debt refinancing. As a result of a strong plummeting of resources, the Atlasian Government will have to raise its interest rates significantly to find interested domestic investors. That means that we will have terrible consequences for our economy. Higher interest rates may very well smash our domestic demand and suppress part of our consumption and that is not going to be good since our national economy is still growing slowly, our production costs are high and we ought to focus more on investments on the real economy rather than focusing on Treasury Bonds with high interest rates...

[Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee]

This can be put to a vote in about five hours.

[Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee]

Senators, this is now at final vote, please vote Aye, Nay or Abstain.

[DC Al Fine]

Nay

[🐒Gods of Prosperity🔱🐲💸]

Nay

[Goldwater]

NAY

[H.E. VOLODYMYR ZELENKSYY]

Aye.

[President Tyrion]

Nay

[Lumine]

Nay.

[Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee]

This is one vote away from failing.

[Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee]

And apparently, I haven't voted yet so problem solved.

NAY

This has enough votes to fail, Senators have 24 hours to change their votes.

[bore]

Nay

[Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee]

This can be ended as well.

[windjammer]

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The results of the vote:
Aye (1): Senator Alfred
Nay (7): Senator DC, Senator Shua, Senator Goldwater, Senator Tyrion, Senator Lumine, Senator North Carolina Yankee, Senator Bore
Non voting (2): Senator Griffin, Senator TNF

This bill fails.

I, Windjammer, certify these results are accurate:

[windjammer]

Yankee, I have a question, shall I consider Bore has voted or not?
I believe Bore's vote is valid, considering he voted before the end of "senators have 24 hours to  change their vote".
But I'm not sure.
Thanks!

[Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee]

Yea, bore is fine.

[TNF]

Aye FTR.