So all WTO protestors are rich, white people?

[Imran Siddiqui]

we should force them to work for less pay and more brutal working conditions in corporate factories producing Nike's for 5 cents a pair when they are resold for $150 a pair in the US.

You do realize that Nike factories don't hurt for workers. The reason being because they pay HIGHER wages than what the workers would normally get working on the farms. That's the way factories get their worker, by having higher wages than most other jobs.

--

Anyway, ending farm subsidies in the US and EU is a good idea, but easier said than done. I have a feeling Hell may freeze over first.

[chequita guevara]

Originally posted by Imran Siddiqui
You do realize that Nike factories don't hurt for workers.

You do realize that Nike workers have repeatedly tried to unionize for better working conditions.

[Imran Siddiqui]

How does that have any bearings on whether Nike hurts for workers or not?

[chequita guevara]

Originally posted by Imran Siddiqui
How does that have any bearings on whether Nike hurts workers or not?

[realpolitic]

Originally posted by MichaeltheGreat


You mean 20% of the piped water supplies in the cities, I assume. A lot of water acquistion in Africa is the good ol' fashioned "grab a jug from the river" sort of thing, or small independent community or farm wells.

It's also a bit hard to avoid cholera when you have a water regime where your drinking water is your neighbor's laundry water and your other neighbors water buffalo just took a **** in it.

Privatized water systems can work very well, but "privatization" doesn't mean you have to convey resource ownership or abandon any form of price oversight or regulatory process, so any time you have a major abuse, one would have to ask who was paid off, and how were they making their cut under the old system?

When you can't afford the water, what choice do you have but "grab a jug".

The IMF does a great job of controlling resource managent, every Third World country they lend to ends up broke, as if by design, because if they didn't want it to happen so often, they would have modified the rules so some succeed. Then they take over this "incompetent" country's resources, as they are now doing in Africa, forcing governments to hand over fishing rights in their territorial waters.

[MichaeltheGreat]

Originally posted by realpolitic
When you can't afford the water, what choice do you have but "grab a jug".

You're missing the point. If the water isn't distributed or metered in the first place, then it doesn't matter if you can afford it or not, because carrying that jug from wherever the water is to wherever you need it is all the choice you have.

The IMF does a great job of controlling resource managent, every Third World country they lend to ends up broke, as if by design, because if they didn't want it to happen so often, they would have modified the rules so some succeed. Then they take over this "incompetent" country's resources, as they are now doing in Africa, forcing governments to hand over fishing rights in their territorial waters.

And African (and third world in general) kleptothugocracy contributes at least as much to that problem as the IMF *******s. (I'm no particular fan of IMF)

[Drake Tungsten]

You guys are all missing the most important question brought up by this article: what the **** is wrong with Koreans? ****, cutting off your fingers when the Japanese PM visits Yasukuni Shrine is crazy enough, but stabbing yourself in the heart over agricultural policies is completely ****ing insane. What kind of culture pumps out morons like this?

On-topic, down with agricultural subsidies and tariffs. I'm sick of paying out the ass for rice just because Japanese farmers can't compete with the Thais.

[Dracon II]

I have a certain inner conflict going on with this whole deal. On the one hand I want to see US and EU subsidies and tariffs disappear so Australian produce can be competitive in their markets... and on the other hand I'd like to see Australian farmers drop kicked into the cities so they'll stop ****ing up what little there is of a major river basin in this country and so they'll stop the obscene levels of tree clearing in western Queensland.
Australia has a fragile enough ecosystem as it is.
So yeah... I don't mind buying European and American meat/wheat etc if it means the regeneration of rural Australia.
But yeah, undercutting 3rd world jobs and economies isn't something I'd like to see either, hence my my confusion.

[:) Smiley]

Whatever the solution be, itd best be a slow one. Small scale Third world farming has been going on for hundreds of years. You can't expect to suddenly do what essentially amounts to firing the population.

In the US the turning point from small scale agriculture based to industrial based was during WWII, when labor demands and production demands got lots of workers off the farms and into factories or uniform.

Preceeding it was the Great Depression, a chain reaction which was caused in part by farmers not being paid enough due to oversupply. This oversupply began from farm subsidies started around the time of WWI

[HershOstropoler]

Originally posted by Dracon II
I have a certain inner conflict going on with this whole deal. On the one hand I want to see US and EU subsidies and tariffs disappear so Australian produce can be competitive in their markets... and on the other hand I'd like to see Australian farmers drop kicked into the cities so they'll stop ****ing up what little there is of a major river basin in this country and so they'll stop the obscene levels of tree clearing in western Queensland.

We'd have to include rules against eco-dumping into WTO law to address that.

Btw, most damage by US and EU subsidies is not done to african subsistence farmers, but to export oriented farming. That's mostly specialised cultures for Africa, or things like Argentinian beef.

[Alexander's Horse]

so glad I didn't go to Cancun.

[HershOstropoler]

Lazy bastard.

[C0ckney]

the thing is, that i would be happy to get rid of tariffs for 3rd world produce, as long as the food produced their came up to UK and EU safety and enviromental standards

[Dracon II]

the problem is that, historically, the northern industrialised countries had the benefit of centuries of protectionism with which to develop their economies independently. The third world, being (relatively recent) newcomers to the world economy don't have that benefit and had to enter fully unprotected because the northern states have changed the rules of the game post WW2

[C0ckney]

that's hardly our problem though is it.