I dunno if anyone remembers October last year when:
[quote]The US will on Monday offer to end farm export subsidies in five years and slash its domestic subsidies by more than half, in an attempt to revive the flagging Doha round of trade talks.
Natch, hearts were a-flutter. Finally the Americans were going to address this massive injustice! The EU might even be guilted into action if they did something! Bravo, America! Agricultural protectionism on the part of the US and EU is one of the worst features of the way global trade is set up. It's unfair and pretty directly killing people in the third world.
[url=http://www.guardian.co.uk/wto/article/0,2763,1020721,00.html]Some numbers[/url]
[quote]But [subsidies have] grown into an institutionalised nightmare preventing developing countries from fulfilling their potential in one of the few areas where they enjoy a natural advantage - agriculture. Europe and the US are the main culprits. It is economic and social madness for Europe to be growing, for instance, subsidised sugar beet when its average cost of production is more than double that of efficient exporters such as Brazil and Zambia. It is only possible thanks to ludicrous subsidies, including protective tariffs of up to 140%. As Kevin Watkins of Oxfam says: "The $1.6bn a year the EU gives to the sugar barons of East Anglia and the Paris Basin generates surpluses that deprive countries such as Thailand and Malawi of markets. Mozambique loses almost as much as a result of EU sugar policy as it gets in European aid."
The US is no better. America's 25,000 cotton farmers received more than $3bn in subsidies last year, equivalent to 100% of the market value of cotton output. This works out at a staggering subsidy of $230 an acre. West Africa, one of the mostdeprived places on earth, happens to be one of the most efficient cotton producers, with an estimated 11 million people dependent on cotton as their main source of income. But it can't compete with subsidised products from the US, which has 40% of world exports. If subsidies were removed, West Africa, according to IMF figures, could produce profitably at two thirds of US production costs.
Another example: Thanks to obscene subsidisation, American rice on the streets of Nigeria is actually cheaper than Nigerian produced rice. The result is that developing countries can't compete in these vital crops. They get pushed into other areas, cash-crops, producing solely for export. The result is dependence on the global market place as a supplier of cash-crops to the first world, loss of the ability to feed your own country cheaply, massive social effects as farmers get forced off the land by economic pressure (or sometimes, direct government clearing of small farmers to make way for big agrobusiness) and so forth. If you've ever seen pictures of a famine in a third world agricultural nation, THIS is one of the big reasons why.
So it was a very good think that the US was offering these cuts. Long overdue and it might've even guilted the EU into some action on its CAP. Fast-forward to now though, and we see that once again, the administration's tactics of "announce something cool then: underfund it, recant the promise, or gut the policy into oblivion later on" have come into play.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/5209010.stm
[quote]EU Trade Commissioner Peter Mandelson has blamed the US for the collapse of the latest round of global trade talks.
US conditions attached to cutting farming subsidies were "unacceptable" for developing countries, he said.
But the US said it was "fully committed" to the talks and blamed Europe for its lack of ambition over reaching a deal to cut farming tariffs.
[...]
EU Commissioner Mandelson said he was "profoundly disappointed" that talks had stumbled, mainly as a result of America's inflexibility.
"What they're saying is that for every dollar that they strip out of their trade-distorting farm subsidies they want to be given a dollar's worth of market access in developing country markets," he said.
Ignoring the staggering hypocrisy of the EU statement here given that they're not even bothering to put their CAP on the table... the US here needs either a basic lesson in economics or to stop treating the rest of us like idiots. "Market access" won't be blocked, it's the invisible hand who'll drag the US out of the markets in which it is artificially competing... they only have "market access" now because of those **** subsidies. If they lose access it's the market's doing, which is the whole point of the exercise in the first place and the BASIC PRINCIPLE OF THE FREE TRADE THAT THE US TRUMPETS SO LOUDLY. What they're essentially asking for is a different form of assistance to their farmers to preserve their artificial market position in a new way.
Which would have a net impact of ZERO on the developing farmers who're presently getting screwed.
How about this: The US never gets to proclaim itself capitalist or pro-free trade until it stops this rot.
F*ckin' commie Americans... well, agrarian socialists, anyway.
Arwon you have WAY TOO MUCH ****ign time on your hands, buddy.
This thread title made it sound like it was about something important
Yeah, i mean, who cares about hte starvation and deprivation of millions of peopel world wide, thats not important at all:cookie: ****ing *******
This is rediculous, but it goes right on par with the type of idiot bull**** that this adminstration does. Just one more thing for me to add to my littany of complaints against them.
Yeah Bebop, these subsidies are probably the single most damaging systemic cause of third world deprivation and social problems, but hey, it's only trade wonkery, eh? Not important, like banning adultery or blaming girls for being raped.
[quote]But seriously, if people want to guilt the government into doing anything about this they should target the tobacco companies. But then again, why would we want to hurt ourselves? For the good of the world? Har har, I laugh!
Uh, because you get cheaper food and cotton and stuff? It's not benefitting you and cutting them won't hurt you. Well, unless you're a farmer who's getting half his income from the American taxpayer... In a developed country like the USA, there's no reason for preserving any sector of the economy artificially... it damages you in the long term. You end up paying all this extra tax to keep farmers afloat out of some misguided sense of economic patriotism, and you end up paying more for food in the end as well.
Meanwhile, you could be reaping the benefits of cheap food from overseas while spending your money elsewhere, and letting your agricultural sector move to areas it is efficient in (not sure what these are but there'd be some of them).
Of course, try explaining this to a bunch of idiot congressmen in the pockets of big agricultural businesses (or to a bunch of French bureaucrats, for that matter). It's not just the administration, it's all the interests the congressmen and senators have, right down to state legislators, right down to farmer lobby groups, and so forth.
Specialisation in stuff you can actually do without subsidies > Having to give out subsidies
Hey I've done my bit. I bought a fairtrade banana once.