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Politics : Foreign Affairs Discussion Group -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: LindyBill who wrote (49269)	10/4/2002 1:08:50 AM
From: Eashoa' M'sheekha	Respond to of 281500

"Subsidies, quotas, and tariffs steal from the poor and give to the rich. " Yes they do. But tell that to those who hold voting status and those in the third world who don't, eh? There's the rub.It's just not popular LB, and the Vote carries. Always. One of the downfalls of populist democracy. KC

To: LindyBill who wrote (49269)	10/4/2002 3:41:44 PM
From: frankw1900	Respond to of 281500

That's because the government's direct payments, cheap loans, and other forms of assistance enable U.S. farmers to sell cotton for less than it costs to produce. "In an economic arrangement bizarrely reminiscent of Soviet state planning principles," Oxfam says, "the value of subsidies provided by American taxpayers to the cotton barons of Texas and elsewhere in 2001 exceeded the market value of output by around 30 per cent." This absurd arrangement victimizes not only U.S. taxpayers but also struggling producers in countries such as Burkina Faso, Mali, Benin, and Brazil (which recently filed a complaint against U.S. cotton subsidies with the World Trade Organization). Farmers in Burkina Faso can produce cotton at one-third of the American cost, but that competitive advantage is eroded by the subsidies. Yes. YES. Been saying this for years. Course, it's not possible that producers' lobbies in Washington bought some pols. Couldn't be that, could it?