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To: elmatador who wrote (65458)6/24/2005 8:01:29 AM
From: aknahow  Respond to of 74559
 
From th article you recently quoted.

"Luther Markwart, chairman of the American Sugar Alliance, says that, contrary to the WTO’s assessment, Brazil’s success is based on unfair competition. “Brazil used subsidies, a government-run ethanol programme and appallingly low labour and environmental standards to become the world’s largest sugar producer,” he says. Mr Markwart reckons that Brazilian regulatory backing for ethanol – all cars in Brazil run on either pure ethanol or an ethanol-petrol mixture – is worth about $1bn a year."

While this source may be biased against Brazil the rest of the article provides information demonstrating that the government is providing aid to growers of sugar cane.

Any resource any government provides comes from the people that pay taxes and fees of any sort.

My only point in these exchanges is that ethanol or other government backed projects be they hydrogen or stem cell research in California do not represent market forces and proof that a problem is being solved. Rather they simply represent proof that governments have the power to take from one group and give to another. Many times the public is fully behind a governments programs having been manipulated by skilled use of the media and the actions of various political groups.

Do government programs work? Some do, but that is not a good reason to believe that governments make better choices than markets.