[governance] Clinton Admits: "Free" Trade is Harmful to 3rd World

[Carlos A. Afonso]

Avri, I agree with you, this is actually a heavy game played by all 
large exporters and usually won by the most powerful ones in each 
sector. In reality the corn-to-ethanol policy of the US government 
impacts much more the poor in nations where corn is a staple food, like 
Mexico, since corn prices went up wildly after the USG stimulated this use.

All big agricultural exporters (Brazil included of course -- btw 
harvesting this year an all time record of 146 million metric tons of 
grain -- mostly beans and corn) have stimulus/subsidies policies in 
place. No one just sits down and waits for the good will of the other 
ones to drop these in favor of the never existent free market. The 
smallest countries are not allowed to play, just to be played with, 
unfortunately.

--c.a.

Avri Doria wrote:
> On 4 Apr 2010, at 07:24, Carlos A. Afonso wrote:
> 
>> Anyway, right now the recent Obama government's decision to reduce
>> barriers to ethanol imports is meeting severe resistance from US
>> corn farmers. Any similar attempt regarding other crops will have
>> similar reactions, and basically nothing is new on this and nothing
>> will change, remorseful discourses aside. Europe is of course no
>> exception.
> 
> 
> just checking because i do not know, what are Brazil's policies
> regarding the protection of its farmers and industries?
> 
> also i think it is easy to condemn other countries for such behavior,
> but when masses of people are unemployed and homeless, despite the
> fact that rich manufacturers and agribusiness are raking in the
> billions, the issue is slightly more complex then US and Europe are
> bad.  also when the business leaders in the developing world are
> exploiting their workers and using child labor in many case to enable
> their capitalists to get rich, were does the motivation come from?
> 
> this your country bad, my country good stuff is not going to get us
> very far - though it does help the owners of our repspective
> countries a bunch.
> 
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