At

http://upbeat.tk

kiwi: 120000 miles? Methinks thou hast a sticky zero key.

“The winners would be farmers in developing nations. ”

Which developing nations? If you are excluding African ones then it seems a reasonable statement, but considering the situation in Africa, even South Africa now has lobbies to remove the White farmers to create small holdings for the “landless” which cannot produce in economical quantities for export but just for subsistence.

If Geldorf had read Moeletsi Mbeki’s paper

“The private sector, political elites and underdevelopment in Sub-Saharan Africa”

http://www.saiia.org.za/modules.php?op=modload&name=News&file=article&sid=500

maybe he would not have been such a demagogue with respect to Africa. Then again he must have made a fortune selling his music CDs at the G* summit …. and employs expensive people to reduce his tax burden which could form part of that which he demands of Britain for charity.

Moeletsi Mbeki is the South African President’s brother by the way.

The Cato Institute has this by Mbeki:

“Shield Africa’s Wealth from Self-Serving Political Elites”

http://www.cato.org/research/articles/mbeki-050419.html

“Geldof said of Bush’s trade tariff proposal, adding that he was impressed with the president’s acknowledgment that terrorism “comes from despair and lack of hope.”

After all we have seen these past 4 years it amazes me that Bush could still trot out that nonsense. Just take those bombers in London full of “despair and lack of hope”.

That being said, I believe Bush to be a dedicated free trader and sincere in his belief that it’s a vital component of any plan to develope the third (or even second) world. And what I wouldn’t give to watch the Bush administration trying to persuade Congress (Reps and Dems alike) to end farm subsidies. Oh happy day.

1. Good, smart farmers would often switch to different crops than they grow now.

2. Adequate farmers would struggle on with same crops for a long time, which will be possible because of all the good, smart ones getting out of direction competition.

3. Marginal farmers will sell the farm. This also removes competition from the above two groups.

4. NBA players running farms as tax shelters will no longer find them attractive, unless they hire a good, smart farmer to manage the enterprise.

Next effect–remaining farmers get same or better money, but more reliably and without subsidies while consumers get cheaper food. Or more accurately, consumers get a wider variety of relatively cheap food.

What is basically being proposed is that the First World price supports for farm products be done away with, allowing food from poorer countries to compete in First World markets, or even in their own markets. The US exports about 25% of its farm production, and these goods are subsidised by the US taxpayer.

The losers in this would be farmers in Western nations, and they have a lot of clout. The winners would be farmers in developing nations. Sounds like a good move to me, from a global perspective. But it seems like a risky proposal for a Republican president whose base is in the farming states. Which is why I don’t think it will happen.

Ed, when I read that story Reagan’s Zero Option came to mind, too. Like Peter G., I don’t think it will accomplish much of practical value in the short term, but it does throw down the gauntlet and set the tone for the debate to come. I hope we will look back in ten years and see it as just as memorable. The problem, of course, is that we’ve been fighting with the Euros and the Japanese on ag subsidies for decades now, and they’re still an issue. Heck, ag subsidies are a domestic issue, too. There are many votes in red states on the Great Plains and in the Midwest that need to be kept in the fold. So I think Bush is right not to go unilateral with this. But he’s begun by shaping the debateó preparing the battlefield, as they say in the military.