600M Asian Children in Poverty, Group Says

[Urban Ranger]

Originally posted by Rufus T. Firefly
One of the other big problems in Asia, though, is a very weak notion of the Common Good. Interpersonal relations are much stronger in Asian societies than in the West, but that carries with it a corollary: people who are not a part of one's web of interpersonal relations are treated as if they don't exist (anyone who has ever driven or stood in line in Asia knows how this works...).

Hm, yes and no.

Local fundraisers are usually successful, whether they are for local charities, for flood victims in China, or for the Boxing Day Tsunami.

[Rufus T. Firefly]

Originally posted by Urban Ranger


Hm, yes and no.

Local fundraisers are usually successful, whether they are for local charities, for flood victims in China, or for the Boxing Day Tsunami.

No doubt, but fundraising events -- involving as they do community pressure of a sort -- are no measure of ongoing, day-to-day attitude or ongoing social priorities.

[Drogue]

Re: 600M Asian Children in Poverty, Group Says

Originally posted by SlowwHand
The report said that to combat poverty, the international community needs to reduce subsidies given to U.S., European and Japanese farmers

Top of the "If I was President" list. I'd even vote for Bush if he did this.

[chequita guevara]

I suspect the backing of this group. Anyway who says that removing Western farm subsidies will help the 3rd world is either in Agrobiz counting the dollars to be made exporting to the West or one of their stooges.

Right now, those countries produce food for their local markets, cuz they can't get in to ours. Remove that barrier, and you'll hav a hundred Somolia's, where you have famine on a massive scale while crops are exported to the West. Food crops will be replaced with cash crops. The poor will be driven off their land. Urban poverty will increase.

[Verto]

Maybe they'll all die to make room for white children.

[Drogue]

Originally posted by chegitz guevara
I suspect the backing of this group. Anyway who says that removing Western farm subsidies will help the 3rd world is either in Agrobiz counting the dollars to be made exporting to the West or one of their stooges.

Right now, those countries produce food for their local markets

No they don't. Go to a market in Somalia, or Guatamala, or any developing nation. They sell Italian tomatoes, EU fruit and vegetables, banana's from US corporations. Why? Because we dump them, in order to get some money back for them, making them cheaper than the local produce.

Remove that and not only will they export, they'll start consuming their own goods. Remove that and we'll start to see schools appear. Hospitals even. We'll start to see people have the capital to become skilled. Why is it that coffee producers are paid so little? Because the profit goes to those that roast the beans, that combine the raw product with industry. Removes the subsidies, and they have the capital to build coffee roasting industry and take the profit for themselves, rather than letting western corporations walk off with it all.

And yeh, I'm in agrobusiness

[Az]

Removes the subsidies, and they have the capital to build coffee roasting industry and take the profit for themselves, rather than letting western corporations walk off with it all.

Eh? How come? How does the Coffee industry change because of the fact that tomatoes are no longer imported?

[chequita guevara]

Originally posted by Drogue
Removes the subsidies, and they have the capital to build coffee roasting industry and take the profit for themselves, rather than letting western corporations walk off with it all.

BS. Any additional profit taken by the reduction or elimination of subisidies will not see it's way to the producers.

Banana's from U.S. corporations!?! Use a third world product to prove how the third world is importing from the West? Somolia exported food to Europe during its famine, so I hardly expect Africa to be such a huge market for European produce. Europe is a net importer of food, and the U.S.'s major agricultural export is grain, which is much better suited to our climate than it is in most of the 3rd world.

[Urban Ranger]

Originally posted by chegitz guevara
Right now, those countries produce food for their local markets, cuz they can't get in to ours. Remove that barrier, and you'll hav a hundred Somolia's, where you have famine on a massive scale while crops are exported to the West. Food crops will be replaced with cash crops. The poor will be driven off their land. Urban poverty will increase.

OTOH, when Western food is grown with subsidies, it is cheap enough to competite on the world market. Without subsidies, Third World farmers can grow food for their own markets because they won't be driven out by cheap, Western imports.

[Az]

Many products will remain cheaper, though.

[Urban Ranger]

There are a number of countries that, as a condition for getting loans from WB/IMF, they needed to open up their markets. Once they did that, their situation took a nose dive because the farmers suddenly found they could no longer sell their produce on the market. As a result, loans meant for long term development was used to buy food instead. Very, very, sad situation, and almost impossible to escape.

[Bosh]

Chegitz: it really confuses me why so many in the left think that ending first world farm subsidies will hurt the third-world poor. Right now the poor countries are getting shafted since they're can defend their small scale industries with tariffs while 1st world countries do the same with farm tariffs/subsidies/quotas. It's blatantly unfair for the third world. Whatever you think about free trade, its pretty obvious that having free trade in everything is better than having unfair/partial/slanted free trade that benefits western farmers while giving the third world the shaft is worse. NAFTA etc. aren't real free trade, they're corporatist trade, REAL free trade would be a damn good thing.

Right now, those countries produce food for their local markets, cuz they can't get in to ours.

Thereby stunting their GDP.

Remove that barrier, and you'll hav a hundred Somolia's, where you have famine on a massive scale while crops are exported to the West. Food crops will be replaced with cash crops.

Thereby raising rural GDP in rural areas and helping overall, I'm willing to bet anything that there's less poverty in areas producing cash crops compared to areas with subsistence farming. Subsistence farming is no way to run a modern economy.

And that's not even taking into account the MASSIVE damage done by 1st world dumping on 3rd world rural economies, since it's a simple economic fact that subsidies depress prices, thereby screwing over all producers who don't get subsidies.

What you're saying is every bit as silly as say, opposing industrialization in the 3rd world since 3rd world industries usually pay low wages.

In addition, most cash crops aren't the sort of things that have that high tariffs on them in Western Countries. It's often staple crops that have the highest tariffs/subsidies/quotas. For example an end to Japanese rice tariffs and Korean rice import quotas would do a world of good for SE Asian and Chinese rice farmers.

Agrobiz counting the dollars to be made exporting to the West

Do you have the slightest idea how much Agrobiz makes due to first world tariffs/subsidies/quotas?

Also, while we're on the subject 1st World food aid is often done more as a subsidy to agribusiness than to help 3rd world countries, where it often does more harm than good by disrupting rural economies.

[chequita guevara]

Originally posted by Bosh
Chegitz: it really confuses me why so many in the left think that ending first world farm subsidies will hurt the third-world poor.

You're such a tool of the corporations.

Right now the poor countries are getting shafted since they're can defend their small scale industries with tariffs while 1st world countries do the same with farm tariffs/subsidies/quotas.

Then the solution isn't to make things worse by turning the 3rd world into farms for the 1st (moreso than it already is).

Thereby stunting their GDP.

And when I stand next to Bill Gates, we'll have an average wealth of $38 billion. How much real good does that do me. Increasing their GDP be selling crops to the West won't help the poor of these countries. It will only help the rich, and they will put their money in Western banks.

Thereby raising rural GDP in rural areas and helping overall

See previous comment. All this will do is concentrate even more wealth and power in the hands of the latifundia, who will then have even more incentive to expropriate even more land from the peasants. Look at Mexico, violating their constitution to seize the Indians communally owned land and turn it over to big business. Being a poor peasant make suck, but it beats being a peasant with no land and having to move to a shanty on the edges of a city.

And that's not even taking into account the MASSIVE damage done by 1st world dumping on 3rd world rural economies, since it's a simple economic fact that subsidies depress prices, thereby screwing over all producers who don't get subsidies.

Then the solution is tarrifs, not dicking over 3rd world peasants and 1st world consumers.

[Spiffor]

Che

[Sandman]

The EU dumps 5 million tons of sugar annually on the world market, pricing out developing world farmers who can produce the sugar far more cheaply. A lot of the money goes in the form of export subsidies to sugar corporations.

The sooner we can scrap grossly unfair arrangements like this, the better. I've never understood Che and Spiffor's views on this issue, and I doubt I ever will.