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Politics : Politics for Pros- moderated -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: frankw1900 who wrote (36159)	3/23/2004 2:16:41 AM
From: Dennis O'Bell	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 793885

You're dead on, Steven. NA and EU subsidies are absolutely the single biggest drag on 3rd world economies. I suspect the effect is even worse than that of (some) of their leadership. In many ways this doesn't make complete sense or fit the facts. In many "third world countries", ethnic minorities do have an iron grip on the economies, and have not let the profits trickle down to put it mildly. This has been a source of many, probably the majority, of the explosions of ethnically motivated genocide in recent years. While some of these ethnic minorities are "white", many are also Chinese (as in the Philippines) or Lebanese, or Indian, or even barely distinguishable from their adversaries to Americans, as was the case between Tutsis and Hutus in Rwanda. I am not a friend of all these farm and other subsidies whose purpose is to prop up non competitive sectors of the economy. But I have a hard time believing that if we became Boy Scouts tomorrow that the same group of global economy middlemen wouldn't instantly step in and take up the slack, and the struggling farmers would end up with nothing but scraps as always. One of the most pressing problems right now is that these under privileged populations are so ripe for the kind of demagoguery that winds up inciting genocidal revenge and destruction of the economy of the countries where it takes place. Look at Zimbabwe for a recent example. They're really in great shape having kicked out the White farmers. So many other sub Saharan African countries are in a similar situation. We in the US are really not the poster boys for the worst of the direct exploitation of indigenous populations in the world, even if our policies have not helped things, and being the world economic leader we can make a positive if not decisive difference. But domestic politics being politics, I'm not going to hold my breath for an end to our farm subsidies.