Harry Pollard wrote on "Fri, 01 Jan 1999 15:31:12 -0800" (you're way behind your time, Harry -- even literally):
> At 01:25 AM 3/5/2002 +0100, Christoph Reuss wrote: > >On Sat, 02 Mar 2002 18:31:20 -0800, Harry Pollard wrote: > > > At 12:34 AM 3/3/2002 +0100, Christoph Reuss wrote: > > > >Harry Pollard wrote: > > > > > You "don't advocate the butter mountains" - you merely advocate the > > > > > restrictionist policies that create the butter mountains. > > > > > > > >Neither. The EU's butter mountains are a result of corrupt > > > >concentrations > > > >of corporate power -- something that I'm the last one to advocate! > > Do I have to tell you everything? Governments enforce fixed prices that > lead to the mountains. > > Governments also pass protective tariffs that directly lower the standards > of living of their people. (Some) governments, influenced by corporate power. You want to increase corporate power -- wrong (no) solution. I want to reduce corporate power. You keep talking about people's desires but you're advocating a system that (at least in the mid/long term) *least* achieves people's desires (except for a few CEOs). > >Strawman argument again -- I didn't claim that the free market creates > >butter mountains. But the free market is not the only way to remove > >the BMs, so no need to peddle the FM by the BM argument. > > Then what does create them? Try to answer sensibly and not rant against > these "corrupt concentrations of corporate power". Or, at least, explain how > the corporation raise the mountains. It's not a rant, it's a fact that the butter mountains are created by the corrupt concentrations of corporate power. In the same way that the multi-billion DM waste for overpriced land and rents in post-WW2 Germany was created by your great idol Ludwig Erhard. But since you refuse to understand the latter issue, you also won't understand the former. > But, good, you admit that the free market would get rid of them. Cutting off one's head would get rid of one's headache, but that doesn't mean that you should cut off your head to get rid of your headache... > >If they don't want to export food perhaps it's because they're starving > >already? You bet, it's those African corporations / corrupt "elite" few > >who are exporting it. (The kind of guys who are importing arms instead of > >food, medicals etc.) > > You are talking about governments again. I'm talking of unaccountable, corporate-influenced governments again, yes. > >Since those with the privilege of raising prices are a small minority, > >I would think that they could be dealt with by democratic means. But > >that is not how the WEF &Co. works -- on the contrary. > > Just one import restriction - the Sugar Quota - privileges nearly 11,000 > beet sugar farmers, plus the corn growers and the corn syrup corporations. > We have 8,500 more tariffs, plus a horde of non-tariff restrictions. A > small minority? You have to be kidding. Aren't 11,000 farmers a small minority in 270 million people ? Talking about cheap sugar: that's a bad idea anyway. You always focus on the alleged "fat-cats" effect of trade restrictions, but you forget (or deny) that trade restrictions *can* have very good environmental and social purposes (e.g. for sugar: avoiding unnecessary transports and forest clearcuts; reducing sugar consumption, thus improving public health; perhaps even enabling subsistence farming). > All these restrictions that harm most of the 270 million Americans have > been put into law by the same governments that you are so keen to run > things. ^^^^ Naah, not the same at all... > I know that your governments would be composed of good, sweet, and > loveable people, but that's not the situation now. And has never been the > situation, no matter the political color of the rascals. Too bad for America! But that doesn't mean that all government is bad. > > > >"Best" by which criteria? "Best" for whom? E.g. for the people who live > > > >along the highways on which the trucks are taking the stuff back and > > > >forth? (Btw, the EU is full of such examples.) > > > > > > Actually, Chris, trucks don't travel across the North sea. > > > >How about answering my questions instead of making silly evasions? > >Trucks travel from the ports on to the factories and supermarkets > >throughout the continent. Both the trucks and the ships generate > >a lot of pollution. > > You answered the next bit with a non-answer: Your "next bit" was not a question in the first place: (> > >) > > >HARRY: The reason why tariffs, quotas, and > > > non-tariff barriers to trade exist is not to diminish profits. The >barriers > > > are erected to raise profits. A "minority of bullies" find their way to > > > profit maximization by preventing competition - not by allowing it. > > > >CHRIS :Your free trade fairy tales (FTFT) have long been disproved by > > reality. > > Such as? You are saying that tariffs are imposed to lower profits? Never > heard that one before. The FTFT is that privatization/"liberalization" will lower prices. But the practical reality is that it increases prices (and thus profits). Take electricity prices in the EU/EEA area, for example: Within only 30 months (from 01.1999 to 07.2001), the prices for private consumers went UP by 11-22% in the electricity-"liberalized" countries, and DOWN by 4-7% in the non-/partly-liberalized countries. (Source: Eurostat) Chris
