Europe has better government, and is not shy about imposing rules on corporations. And despite this (or maybe, thanks to this), it is attractive enough that corporations want to do business in the EU and thus follow the EU rules. And the good news for them is that once they follow EU rules, theu pretty much follow the rules everywhere else, because they are never as tough. If you're good enough for Europe, you're good enough everywhere else.

Who are the 'them' in the bolded sentence? The companies? Because, but...
The 'market' will obviously adopt to whatever rules are in place, one way or another. After all, doing some business is most of the time better than doing no business. Some profit is better than no profit. And once you have the infrastructure for you factory in China to make products that are safe for Europe, it may not be cheaper to have a second factory that makes products for some other location. However, this does not mean that they would not be able to profit even more were those pesky rules not in place. If business was just 'free' to screw over any and all for the benefit of the few, why, then that benefit might be so much larger...

It is of course the case that each and every improvement in the lives of ordinary people, be it child labour laws or environmental/health protection laws, have been pressed through in a fight against corporate/capital interests, each time with the same arguments trotted out, that this legislation, this measure, this law that might seem good, would bankrupt the corporate back bone of the nation/society and lead to devastation for all. Or at the very least, while these are good ideas, the time is not right, we need more profit, more growth first, but maybe later, after productivity/free trade/whatever really kicks in, then these benefits will be there... (Human/labour rights in China...) It is a fight, alright. I don't think it is in the profit-interest of business to give way. So we must drag them there, kicking and screaming if necessary. They will survive, but without the regulations, they might get even richer...

Thanks god most spanish companies get that... unfortunately there are some elements whcih never surrender... never give up.... their theology I mean.

A pleasure

I therefore claim to show, not how men think in myths, but how myths operate in men's minds without their being aware of the fact. Levi-Strauss, Claude

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2007/7/10/9825/87039

In the long run, we're all dead. John Maynard Keynes

I note they forgot to mention the new trans-atlantic partnership initiative at least in part designed to dilute this power and to improve the position of US companies.

I love the inverse logic in this statement

C. Boyden Gray, the US ambassador to the EU, (...) adds: "What many in the US think is happening is that EU policymakers tolerate a higher level of regulation and then worry that they are putting themselves at a competitive disadvantage. So they seek to export their regulations abroad so that every multinational is subject to the same level [of regulation]."

Of course, here we mistake the push for higher standards as existing to protect consumers, the workforce and the environment. However, in reality  regulations exist only to hinder competitiveness out of the sheer joy of clipping the tallest poppies.

Doh, if only we were all as clear-sighted as those risk-taking plutocrats across the water. Thank goodness our  wiser leaders are working towards undermining this socialistic foolishness

keep to the Fen Causeway

European standard armor for motorcyclists has long been the premium.  It has really set the bar and driven out some of the crappy soft stuff that was really not much more than foam pads we used to get here.  You can still find crap, but when you see the CE sticker its sure to be better.

"I said, 'Wait a minute, Chester, You know I'm a peaceful man...'" Robbie Robertson

had this addendum:

Daily Kos: Europe's power: bringing good government to the world

And ironically, the biggest losers are US companies, which have been so effective at declawing Washington-issued regulations lately that they are unable to cope with EU regulations which apply to the rest of the world - and need to spend money to bring their products to level. Of course, they have now stormed upon Brussels to try and influence the EU bodies directly, but not all the tools of lobbying available in Washington work in Brussels (yet).

As I may have professed before, I've a family member working as an assistant for a MEP in Brussels (who I have given an open invitation to post here). I can't remember for which subject it was, but one afternoon she and her MEP were confronted by an American lobbyist who in a seemingly aggressive style advocated appeals of certain legislation proposals. They ignored him utterly, but it's just to underline that the locusts have indeed descended upon Brussels.

Jerome was among the biggest cheerleaders of the plutocrats that plundered the Ukraine after the Orange revolution on behalf of the Frankfurt Bourse.  The citizenry appreciated the bandits so much that Yushchenko's party gets 10.2% support in the latest polling and the citizens are looking toward the Eastern Tycoons as saviors, being less ruthless thieves.

   

"Materially, the West has done little to help us.  Not only has there never been a Marshall Plan for Ukraine, there has never even been a discussion of a Marshall Plan," [the historian Orest Laleniuk] complained.
    "Sometimes, Western governments seem more interested in Chernobyl, AIDS, and the work of Western NGOs in our land, than helping Ukraine become a real country with real laws and a real economy," added the usually pro-Western Korrespondent magazine.
  Seven years after a group of Western nations promised Ukraine 1.2 billion dollars to help clean up still-radioactive territory around Chernobyl and develop clean electricity sources, less than 20 per cent of the cash has been handed over, the magazine noted.

link

Maybe Jerome prefers to talk about the great things the EU did for Yugoslavia or maybe how prescient it was that Iraq was drawn without a deep water port, or how the Kurds did not really need a nation.  Gawd this premise is nonsense.
Hal C.