free trade
In today's news, South African president Thebo Mbeki has called upon the US and the EU to end subsidies that harm the poor. This is only the latest of several free trade stories over the past few months. Earlier, EU sugar subsidies were specifically highlighted: we keep our prices at three times the market level, so our farmers produce too much, so we dump it on the world market at next to nothing, so third world farmers cannot compete. Another story was the Chinese clothing quotas - large quantities of Chinese clothing were impounded at the ports because of a mix-up over quotas. China quite rightly demanded that we allow free trade.
Who believes in free trade? Who wants the poor to escape their poverty? Not us.
posted by Chris Tolworthy at 7:13 AM
4 Comments:
Thanks - I didn't know that. If that is true, then New Orleans has created wealth for the rest of America, and can rightly claim that wealth back. And a temporary windfall tax on housing (sorry about the bad choice of words) would slow down excessive price increases, and thus reduce any bubble effect.
But I'm just guessing here. I don't live in America, and I am no expert on property markets. All I know is that we should earn what we get, hence my passion for land rent. Beyond that, I watch with interest and surprise as these things unfold.
I just visited the vegasbuzz site. If your message was an auto-generated spam message, it's a very good one, and it deserves to stay.
Mbeki has lost all credibility with me because he continues to support Robert Mugabe. But he is right about the subsidies.
Yes, Mbeki is an interesting case. I wonder where he curently stands regarding HIV?
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