More Free Trade in Farming Please!
Toro @ Wed Dec 14, 2005 3:34 pm
IceOwl IceOwl:
If it's not good for those farmers, why is it good for any farmers?
Its good for the farmers who can produce cheaper. Those farmers are in the poorer countries.
IceOwl IceOwl:
You mean the global agricultural market that's supposed to be so great because of free trade? And you say it's damaging to the poorest countries? No shit, sherlock! The rest of us knew that, but it's not reflected in those articles you've been posting so fervently, because they're written for cronies bent on squeezing every last dollar out of anyone they possibly can.
But its not free trade. That's the point. The most distorted market in the world is agriculture, by far. These policies, which are designed to protect farmers in the first world, do more to damage the third world than virtually any other.
Rich countries do two things. First, they errect barriers to cheap food imports, either through tariffs or supply management. Second, they give their farmers subsidies, which both increases the amount produced and decreases the available market by which the third world farmers can sell. Agriculture is one of the very few competitive advantages many of the very poorest countries in the world have compared to the West, and we hamper their development by these non-free trade policies.
Blue_Nose @ Wed Dec 14, 2005 3:48 pm
I think Penn Jillette (yeah, the magician) said it best:
"Unless you and yours are starving, you need to shut the fuck up."
Toro @ Wed Dec 14, 2005 4:15 pm
Scape Scape:
We were doing that under the GATT. We had an established time table to phase out tariffs and we didn't need Chapter 11 for arbitration to do it. In effect we already had free trade, it was political expediency that we rammed this economic blackmail that was labeled free trade.
What does NAFTA have to do with reducing subsidies for agricultural produces from the third world?
GATT had a timetable to reduce agricultural tariff and non-tariff barriers? Could you supply a link please. I'd be interested in seeing that since I don't think that's correct.
Scape Scape:
How can it remain efficient when the rules of the game were so radically changed that it put out of business so many of our best producers and forced others to sell their lively hood to foreign competitors? That's not efficient at all. We has a gradual timetable already established that was well on its way is phase in the very changes you were arguing for but instead we got radical change, to not expect a backlash for that lack of planning is only going to be seen as ivory tower thinking. I don't like that the attacks against you are becoming personal but I can understand why your getting the label of economist. How heartless this change has been to the people who have worked their hearts and souls out for only to be turfed to the curb by the profit driven trade winds of globalism. Drawing on the argument of 1900 agriculture without acknowledging the devastating effect that the free trade pact has done is ignoring the elephant in the room and can be easily seen as heartless.
Why thank you Scape. I do appreciate the sentiments. I'd hate for people to think I was an economist! <shudder> Better to be thought of as a thief or a scoundrel or a lawyer.
The overwhelming evidence in economics is that free trade is beneficial. There are about 150 papers that have come to this conclusion. Here's one. Here's another.
Its heartening to see that you support the goals of the GATT though Scape, considering that the exact same people who are arguing against the WTO were arguing against the GATT a decade or two ago using pretty much the same arguments. Remember GATTzilla?
Scape @ Thu Dec 15, 2005 5:29 am
Toro Toro:
GATT had a timetable to reduce agricultural tariff and non-tariff barriers?
People are numbers. Remember? As the number of members of GATT expanded it evolved and as it did so barriers were lowered. It was a gradual process that allowed markets to adapt without price gouging and the massive and sudden job loss we had under the FTA and NAFTA.
Governments should design programs to ease the transition, your words, so what is GATT again? I have always made returning to the GATT as the starting line. It is the WTO, World Bank and IMF that are toxic to markets by subsidies. The people against GATT were for the reasons the WTO,IMF and World bank evolved into. Gattzilla has nothing on the king kong that is the WTO is. We are looking at dairy, poultry and egg being gutted.
Toro @ Sat Dec 17, 2005 1:15 pm
IceOwl IceOwl:
Toro Toro:
The overwhelming evidence in economics is that free trade is beneficial. There are about 150 papers that have come to this conclusion. Here's one. Here's another.
I bet there are also 150 papers "proving" that George Bush is Hitler reincarnated. You can come up with any kind of desired results on paper if that's what you're being paid to do.
The difference is that economics is a rigorous discipline
Toro @ Sat Dec 17, 2005 7:28 pm
IceOwl IceOwl:
A rigorous discipline practiced by humans which are prone to doing bad things for money, no matter what their profession.
The entire discipline of economics isn't dedicated to evil, IceOwl.
USCAdad @ Sat Dec 17, 2005 7:32 pm
I always thought economics was dependent on animal entrails.
Toro @ Sat Dec 17, 2005 8:28 pm
IceOwl IceOwl:
Toro Toro:
IceOwl IceOwl:
A rigorous discipline practiced by humans which are prone to doing bad things for money, no matter what their profession.
The entire discipline of economics isn't dedicated to evil, IceOwl.
I didn't say it was. Just because you deal in absolutes doesn't mean I do too.
No but you implied that the reason why this overwhelming evidence exists is because they're on the take, which is, of course, silly.
Its like arguing against global warming, even though the most of the academic evidence supports it.
USCAdad @ Sat Dec 17, 2005 8:52 pm
Economics is right up there with Sociology. It's a great field, long history, great thinkers etc. etc. At the end of the day it's a study about the way people act which so far refuses to be contained within a theory.