Brazil and creativity regarding US cotton Subsidies.

[Whoha]

http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-brazil10_jun10,1,3988507.story?coll=la-headlines-business&ctrack=2&cset=true

To provide a counter part to a fairly smart move by the Japanese, a retarded move by Brazil.

"Trade Battle With Brazil Threatens U.S. Copyrights
Brasilia weighs halting intellectual property protection to get U.S. to curb cotton subsidies."

[Sandman]

Needs registration.

[Whoha]

How the hell? I'm not registered.

"By Jerry Hirsch, Times Staff Writer


Angered by subsidies to U.S. cotton growers, Brazilian lawmakers said Thursday that they were considering suspending the intellectual property rights of American products in their country if the U.S. government did not explain how it intended to change subsidy programs by July 1.

The deadline was set earlier this year by the World Trade Organization, which found that U.S. assistance to cotton farmers distorted world prices by encouraging overproduction. If implemented, Brazil's plan would negatively affect a range of U.S. industries including entertainment, software and pharmaceuticals.

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"Essentially, the Brazilian position would be, 'We're going to have state-sanctioned piracy,' " said Neil Turkewitz, an executive vice president of the Recording Industry Assn. of America, the music industry's largest trade and lobbying group.

Although it's not unusual for nations to slap high tariffs on a marketbasket of goods as retaliation in trade disputes, sanctioning the copying of one country's products is unconventional and possibly illegal, trade officials said. At the minimum, the move would require a new law in Brazil and WTO approval, they said. The plan was the topic of a legislative committee meeting in Brasilia, the nation's capital, Thursday.

Richard Mills, a spokesman for U.S. Trade Representative Rob Portman, called talk of Brazilian action premature. "We intend to comply so there will not be any need for retaliation," he said.

U.S. cotton farmers received $1.6 billion in federal subsidies last year, with California growers getting $144 million, according to Environmental Working Group, a Washington-based nonprofit that tracks the data.

Brazil's proposed strategy is designed to draw Hollywood, Silicon Valley and the pharmaceutical industry into the trade battle, said Pedro de Comargo Neto, head of a large farm organization and a former trade official who oversaw the nation's successful challenge of U.S. cotton payments.

"We want other parties in the United States to understand that what the cotton lobby is doing is not in their interest," Comargo said Thursday.

Rather than enlisting allies, the strategy could have the opposite effect.

Any Brazilian move against U.S. copyrights or patents probably would draw retaliation from the U.S. government on key Brazilian exports, said Dan Glickman, chief executive of the Motion Picture Assn. of America and Agriculture secretary during the Clinton administration.

"They sell a lot of airplanes in the U.S.," Glickman said, referring to commuter aircraft maker Embraer. "This could become a pretty serious ***-for-tat trade dispute."

A trade war would be the last thing Brazil wants, said Alan Tonelson, a trade expert at the U.S. Business & Industry Council in Washington. "They need the U.S. market far more than we need them," he said.

Brazil is the U.S.' largest trading partner in South America and ranks 14th overall, according to the World Institute for Strategic Economic Research. About $35 billion of trade occurs between the two nations each year.

Ordinarily, Brazil would raise tariffs on U.S. goods, the typical WTO-sanctioned remedy for getting nations to comply with the trade body's rulings. But such a strategy is rarely effective and only raises the price Brazilian consumers pay for imported U.S. products, Comargo said.

Entertainment and software products are especially tempting targets because of the ease with which they can be copied. Piracy of music and movies is already a big problem for U.S. entertainment companies in Brazil, accounting for as much as 60% of the market. According to the U.S. trade representative's office, American companies lost nearly $1 billion last year from copyright infringement in Brazil.

Nonetheless, Brazilians see economic and social advantages to easing copyright and patent restrictions. Making generic versions of drugs that fight HIV infection and other maladies is attractive because it serves a social value and reduces Brazil's healthcare expenses, said Brazilian congressman Fernando Gabeira, a member of the Chamber of Deputies' committee that took up the issue Thursday.

Allowing the copying of U.S. goods is meant to provide Brazil with leverage to overcome foot dragging in Washington caused by the powerful influence of the cotton industry lobby, Comargo said.

In March, the WTO told the U.S. to change a system that subsidizes cotton sales to fabric mills and exporters when the domestic price exceeds the prevailing world rate. Over the last decade the U.S. has paid out more than $2.4 billion in such so-called Step 2 payments, according to the Environmental Working Group.

Another program ruled in violation by the WTO provided guarantees to allow developing nations to purchase domestic cotton on favorable financial terms.

Brazilian officials are skeptical that the Bush administration can come up with a plan to trim payments to cotton farmers that will win approval in Congress. They say the issue has seen little movement since the WTO decision in March. Federal farm subsidies have proved among the most resilient programs in Washington, surviving numerous domestic assaults and pressure from abroad.

"Even when they have the right, it is hard for poor countries to go against rich countries," Gabeira said.

[Sandman]

Nonetheless, Brazilians see economic and social advantages to easing copyright and patent restrictions. Making generic versions of drugs that fight HIV infection and other maladies is attractive because it serves a social value and reduces Brazil's healthcare expenses, said Brazilian congressman Fernando Gabeira, a member of the Chamber of Deputies' committee that took up the issue Thursday.

Cool.

[Dinner]

Brazil loves to tie unrelated things. That's their choice but I've got money that Brazil will once again come out the loser. Why? Simple Brazil's market isn't that big but the markets of rich countries which want intellectual property rights protected is very large plus they've all already signed numerous agreements to punish states which don't meet rich country standards of what adequate protections are. Lula is playing with fire and his country's economy will get burned if he isn't careful.

[Dinner]

Originally posted by Sandman

Cool.

Except it is theft. Companies invested billions coming up with these drugs and if they don't make the expected returns then fewer people will be willing to invest more billions in the future to come up with more new treatments.

[GePap]

Originally posted by Oerdin


Except it is theft. Companies invested billions coming up with these drugs and if they don't make the expected returns then fewer people will be willing to invest more billions in the future to come up with more new treatments.

Bull.

Drugs shall always be horribly profitable, and large institutions such as universities and governments will always have incentives to find cures.

The largest changes in world medicine that have lead to the greatest gains were done without any corporations controlling the ideas (vaccines, new types of surgery, so forth). To believe that mankind will slow its search for ways to live longer because a corporation will make less money is insane. There will always be wiling investors, whether the profit margin be 20% or 10% or 5%. Profit is profit.

After all, companies are willing to sink billions into drugs that don;t work or kill people.

[Dinner]

Sorry but most drugs aren't invented by governments or universities but instead are the result of private capital. Will inovation stop if private capital goes else where? Nope, but it will greatly slow down and that's bad for sick people. If we want to keep coming up with cures then we need to keep protecting the flow of money which makes these cures possible. It's as simple as that.

Not that Lula's threat to steal music or movies has anything to do with cures. If this is implimented there will be a backlash in the first world and Brazil will once again find itself with the short end of the stick because it very much needs the first world while everything Brazil has can be gotten else where. That's the classic power relationship and it isn't in brazil's favor.

[chequita guevara]

Originally posted by Oerdin
Sorry but most drugs aren't invented by governments or universities but instead are the result of private capital.

Actually, you're wrong.

[Krill]

why not ask Provost, as he is the industry expert in that area...

[Lawrence of Arabia]

im with brazil here. Bush pays lip service to free trade, and until now, the third world countries depended on the good will of the 1st world to get them to lower their subsidies. but people respond to incentives, and america will see that intellectual property rights are worth a lot more then cotton, and will finally turn to free trade.

[GePap]

Originally posted by Oerdin
Sorry but most drugs aren't invented by governments or universities but instead are the result of private capital. Will inovation stop if private capital goes else where? Nope, but it will greatly slow down and that's bad for sick people. If we want to keep coming up with cures then we need to keep protecting the flow of money which makes these cures possible. It's as simple as that.

Most drugs do NOT treat things that kill you. Athletes foot, heartburn, indegestion, impotance; these are NOT deadly things. Inconvinient, lower your quality of living, but don't kill you. Smallpox was eliminated from the world without any corporation being there. Ditto for polio. I can't think of a single disease erradicated due to the life saving work of corporations making profits. If anything, corporations utterly ignore diseases like diahrea and Malaria that still kill millions because there is no profit there (poor people can't afford the little purple pill, nor do they have a doctor to ask). But universities and government backed reserach will continue trying to find a way to cure them, and if in 50 years malaria goes the way of Smallpox, I will be 50 bucks right now it won't be western drug companies that save those millions upon millions.

[Dinner]

Originally posted by Lawrence of Arabia
im with brazil here. Bush pays lip service to free trade, and until now, the third world countries depended on the good will of the 1st world to get them to lower their subsidies. but people respond to incentives, and america will see that intellectual property rights are worth a lot more then cotton, and will finally turn to free trade.

How quickly you blame America when Europe is the heart of this problem. The US says it would be happy to eliminate farm subsidies if Europe does the same but France refuses to play ball. There is no way in hell the US is going to give up farm subsidies until Europe does.

[Dinner]

Originally posted by GePap
Most drugs do NOT treat things that kill you. Athletes foot, heartburn, indegestion, impotance; these are NOT deadly things. Inconvinient, lower your quality of living, but don't kill you. Smallpox was eliminated from the world without any corporation being there. Ditto for polio. I can't think of a single disease erradicated due to the life saving work of corporations making profits. If anything, corporations utterly ignore diseases like diahrea and Malaria that still kill millions because there is no profit there (poor people can't afford the little purple pill, nor do they have a doctor to ask). But universities and government backed reserach will continue trying to find a way to cure them, and if in 50 years malaria goes the way of Smallpox, I will be 50 bucks right now it won't be western drug companies that save those millions upon millions.

There have only been 2-3 diseases eradicated ever in the history of the world and they've all been the same pattern type. Highly virulent but burning out quickly; that meant it was easy to contain those diseases. Diseases like AIDS and other viruses require complex cocktails in order to treat and universities don't have the funds to keep up with private research there. True, there is always a role for government and philanthropy but I already repeatedly acknowledged that. Didn't I?

Instead the question is what approach is most likely to lead us to a cure or at least life sustaining treatments? I'm not sure how Lula's plan to legalize software, music, and video piracy will help but it seems like he's just using the odd drug piracy to justify his grander theme of theft. This will not help Brazil, its economy, or the sick people in Brazil. Instead it will result in adverse consequences which will harm Brazil's economy and its ability to treat the sick.

[DinoDoc]

Originally posted by Lawrence of Arabia
america will see that intellectual property rights are worth a lot more then cotton, and will finally turn to free trade.

The Brazilian market isn't that large for us. They'd just get ***** slapped in retaliation.