Farm Subsidies (Doha)

[DinoDoc]

Originally posted by aneeshm
A question for those in the know - the US is unwilling to open up its services markets to India , isn't it ?

I dunno. I get people speaking poor English calling from what I assume are Indian call centers on a regular enough basis to have assumed that it was already open. Let's not forget the few times I called for tech support.

[Dinner]

Originally posted by aneeshm
A question for those in the know - the US is unwilling to open up its services markets to India , isn't it ?

The US policy was that everything was on the table however it wanted a comprehensive solution covering all sectors at one time. Japan had the same position the US had while the EU wouldn't talk about agricultural subsidies and various third world countries wouldn't talk about this or that.

BTW India already has pretty good access to the US services market. It very common for accounting firms to outsource much of the day to day common work to Indian accountants, software companies do the same, while Indian call centers cover a huge share of the costumer service calls coming from the US. I'm just not seeing the protectionism here.

[Dinner]

Originally posted by LordShiva

No, they're not. They make groceries more expensive.

That sort of depends on how you look at it and the type of subsidies. If it is a production subsidy then production ends up going through the roof thus lowering prices but taxpayers end up paying twice; once at the store and once to the tax man. Then their are the type of subsidies which attempt to keep prices high by lowering production and paying farmers not to farm. Those obviously do raise prices and tax payers still end up paying for food twice.

[Kuciwalker]

Originally posted by Datajack Franit
Adding a fruit-and-vegetable dependency to the oil dependency

[chequita guevara]

Originally posted by Oerdin
the US said they were willing to talk about the elimination of farm subsidies and a virtual elimination of all agricultural tarrifs

Never pass the Senate in a million years.

[chequita guevara]

Originally posted by LordShiva
No, they're not. They make groceries more expensive.

The reason foreign ag products can't compete is cuz our food is cheaper cuz of subsidies. If we get rid of subsidies, the price of ag products goes up, thus enabling your products to compete. Since the price of ag commodities goes up, the retail price of ag products also goes up.

Dropping tarrifs would make the prices go down, but tarrifs aren't subsidies.

[Ari Rahikkala]

Originally posted by Datajack Franit
Adding a fruit-and-vegetable dependency to the oil dependency

And wheat, meat, pottery, furniture and wine dependencies, too .

[Barnabas]

If first world countries say they wont eliminate their farm subsidies,they should at least stop demanding open markets in the third world for their industrial exports. (which are in fact already quite open)

It is a situation in which the wealthies group subsidies the sector in which it isnt competitive, and asks the poorer group to have open markets.

In fact the USA is getting exactly that right now, getting completely open markets by bilateral free trade agreements like the one with Chile, without even needing to touch the farm subsidies.

[Krill]

*Shrug* The French are stupid Fvckers. Personally I wouldn't mind it if someone preformed cluster bombings on their wheat fields. And it is not entirely the EUs fault; some of the members of the EU would be very happy to see agricultural subsidies removed...

[Dinner]

Originally posted by Brachy-Pride
If first world countries say they wont eliminate their farm subsidies,they should at least stop demanding open markets in the third world for their industrial exports. (which are in fact already quite open)

Perhapes you didn't read the thread. There are three main political organizations which subsidize their agricultural production. The EU, the US, and Japan. Two of those three said they were willing to discuss eliminating both subsidies and tarrifs while all three said they were willing to discuss eliminating tarrifs. The third world joined blocks to prevent any discussion of lowering trade barriers out of the mistaken belief that they would somehow benifet from less trade.

If anything the third world, if they had intelligent leadership which I recognize they do not which is the reason they are so undeveloped, then they wouold have sided with the US and Japan for a comprehensive reduction in subsidies and trade barriers however they pretended that France's protectionist ways some how justified their own protectionist ways. Both were stupid and both will be hurt severely because of it.

[chequita guevara]

Originally posted by Oerdin
The third world joined blocks to prevent any discussion of lowering trade barriers out of the mistaken belief that they would somehow benifet from less trade.

It's not necessarily a mistaken belief. All of the countries that have risen from 3rd world status to developed nation status did so by restricting imports while pushing exports. This enabled them to build up enough capital to become industrialized societies, rather than simply exporting resources. In fact, no country has ever industrialized without trade barriers, not even Great Britain.

[LordShiva]

Originally posted by chegitz guevara

Originally posted by LordShiva
No, they're not. They make groceries more expensive.

The reason foreign ag products can't compete is cuz our food is cheaper cuz of subsidies. If we get rid of subsidies, the price of ag products goes up, thus enabling your products to compete. Since the price of ag commodities goes up, the retail price of ag products also goes up.

Except, the fact that developed countries aren't naturally competitive in agriculture means that taxpayers end up paying way more to finance the subsidies than they save on groceries. Sugar in the U.S., for instance, is hugely subsidised and just slightly more competitive than Carribean sugar, because the former is from sugarbeet which is a much less efficient source than the latter's, sugarcane. Moreover, agriculture in developed countries is a corporatised thing, and so the subsidies need to satisfy much larger profit margins than what the developing world's subsistence farmers would demand.

[Kuciwalker]

Originally posted by chegitz guevara

Originally posted by LordShiva
No, they're not. They make groceries more expensive.

The reason foreign ag products can't compete is cuz our food is cheaper cuz of subsidies. If we get rid of subsidies, the price of ag products goes up, thus enabling your products to compete. Since the price of ag commodities goes up, the retail price of ag products also goes up.

Dropping tarrifs would make the prices go down, but tarrifs aren't subsidies.

Except Shiva was counting the hidden costs as well.

[chequita guevara]

Originally posted by LordShiva
Except, the fact that developed countries aren't naturally competitive in agriculture means that taxpayers end up paying way more to finance the subsidies than they save on groceries.

American sugar is largely sugar cane. At least table sugar is. In the supermarket it's either pure cane sugar from Florida or Hawaii. Heck, I can drive about a half hour and I'd be in the middle of sugar cane fields.

The big problem is that Amerifan famers are so insanely productive that they swamp the market and can't make a living on what they produce. One of the little insanities of capitalism is that if you're too productive, you go broke. Anyway, so the government gives payments to farmers to either not produce, in order to drive up prices (which sucks for consumers) or just gives them payments based on certain other criteria, and they produce anyway.

The bigger probelm is that a lot of subsidies go to farmers who don't need them or are used in loopholes. One well known example is for developers to put a handful of cows on a piece of property they aren't ready to build on, get it declared a farm, and collect some money from the Feds.

[Jon Miller]

Or just my freind, who had a certian number of chickens and goats, and so could call their property a farm...

JM