RE: World Trade
I'm going to disagree a little bit here. While food aid can have some immediate positive benefits compared to doing nothing, it can also create a long-term problem for the recipient countries. Food aid as it is currently structured is primarily a way of benefiting farmers in the donor countries. I am cutting off the rest of your argument because I don't disagree with it. For example, fostering the green revolution in India that allowed it's farmers to feed a growing population was much better than shipping corn/wheat/etc. to India. No problem there. But, what I had in mind were cases of refugees, when they are displaced from their land by war, ethnic cleansings, etc. Those are the cases where the NGOs have donated food that is stopped by gunmen from reaching the starving that I was considering.. If our true objective was to help starving countries to achieve food self-sufficiency (and I am pretty sure that is *not* the main objective of our politicians), that can be done fairly simply by sending them money. I have a practical problem with this. Money is easier to steal, be subject to strong arm tactics, than food. With money, they can purchase food. If the land produces enough food for the people in a country to live on, then the problem of actual starvation goes down. Zimbabwe is a good example of this: it was a food exporter before governments took the farms away from experienced farmers and handed it to cronies who had no idea of how to farmcausing the risk of mass starvation. Now, I know that the experienced farmers are white, and the cronies are black, and whites owning most of the land in a majority black country is a problem. But my daughter Neli and I came up with a workable plan to correct this gradually in just a few minutes. All of the white owned farms have black workers. One could provide tax incentives/disincentives for the farmers to form corporations in which their workers earn shares in the corporation with work/time. I've seen that in small US companies, and it's worked well. No one would be forced to do anything at gunpoint, experienced people would always run the farms as well as possible, with profits for all when the farms are most productive. I doubt that reducing the tariff barriers before you have a strong local economy will do that much to end dependency in those countries. Except that there are known cases now, such a Uganda, where trade barriers and requirements for expensive testing techniques to prove that levels of certain pesticides are many orders of magnitude below anything that has been Demonstrated to harm human health, where the import barriers are stopping Africans from selling billions of dollars worth of product to the EU... In addition, strong local economies have not, historically, been a prerequisite for growing economies through trade. China and South Korea and Japan are all examples of export led improvement in economies. But, having said that, targeted programs such as the micro-loan programs will help. Dan M. ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Brin: What's in the works?
David Brin wrote: But of course I am distracted by the elections, hoping we'll at last save America and civilization from a criminal gang. (What we're seeing -- including the outright and direct theft of half a trillion dollars -- goes far beyond regular issues of mere left or right.) Now I'm curious - what's so wrong about McCain (beyond his killing of McAbel)? Alberto Monteiro PS: one guy is named Cain, the other is named Hussein... definitely, the writer of this story ran out of names... ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Brin: What's in the works?
Now I'm curious - what's so wrong about McCain (beyond his killing of McAbel)? Well, I'm not sure if you meant that as a serious question -- but for starters, how about the fact that McCain has shown himself to be a shallow, venal, opportunistic political hack who is willing to cozy up the very people who viciously attacked him and impugned his war record and patriotism in 2000, just because it's now convenient to have them do that to his enemies instead of him? How about the fact that he has sold out virtually every position he ever staked out as a Republican maverick now that its more convenient for him to get the support? The man who once attacked right-wing religious leaders liked Pat Roberson and James Dobson as agents of intolerance and a threat to the democratic process has now, apparently, drunk the kool-aid and become their born-again buddy. This is a man who makes jokes to reporters about women being raped by apes and liking it. Everything that once seemed virtuous and admirable about John McCain was either a lie, or something he was w illing to jettison when he got the chance to be embraced by his Party. If elected, his most important contribution will be keeping in place the same political machinery that has been trashing our democracy for the past eight years. (Has anyone noticed that every Democratic president brings, for the most part, a totally new administration into office, with a few experienced people getting re-hired, but the Republicans have been recycling the same thugs into different positions since the Nixon/Ford adminstrations? The guy at the top changes, but the faces around him seem familiar -- its sort of like one of those horror movie franchises where you think you've gotten rid of the monster but it keeps coming back for the sequal.) I'm sorry if I stepped on your joke by taking the question seriously but I'm scared to death that a lot of the ostriches out there (to borrow David Brin's term) are just buying the whole war hero, political maverick, okay-for-a-Republican schtick. But what do I know? I thought (twice) that George Bush was unelectable - Original Message - From: Alberto Vieira Ferreira Monteiromailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] To: Killer Bs (David Brin et al) Discussionmailto:brin-l@mccmedia.com Sent: Sunday, August 24, 2008 2:42 PM Subject: Re: Brin: What's in the works? David Brin wrote: But of course I am distracted by the elections, hoping we'll at last save America and civilization from a criminal gang. (What we're seeing -- including the outright and direct theft of half a trillion dollars -- goes far beyond regular issues of mere left or right.) Now I'm curious - what's so wrong about McCain (beyond his killing of McAbel)? Alberto Monteiro PS: one guy is named Cain, the other is named Hussein... definitely, the writer of this story ran out of names... ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-lhttp://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Brin: What's in the works?
On 24 Aug 2008, at 22:42, Alberto Vieira Ferreira Monteiro wrote: David Brin wrote: But of course I am distracted by the elections, hoping we'll at last save America and civilization from a criminal gang. (What we're seeing -- including the outright and direct theft of half a trillion dollars -- goes far beyond regular issues of mere left or right.) Now I'm curious - what's so wrong about McCain (beyond his killing of McAbel)? Alberto Monteiro He doesn't know how to use a computer, he doesn't know how many houses he owns and he seems to have too many senior moments for someone in charge of the big red button? And that's without anything to do with his policies. Ooh! Shiny Maru -- William T Goodall Mail : [EMAIL PROTECTED] Web : http://www.wtgab.demon.co.uk Blog : http://radio.weblogs.com/0111221/ It was only after ordering the melon balls that Rick discovered he was at a drive through plastic surgery. ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: World Trade
On 24 Aug 2008, at 21:19, Dan M wrote: If the land produces enough food for the people in a country to live on, then the problem of actual starvation goes down. Zimbabwe is a good example of this: it was a food exporter before governments took the farms away from experienced farmers and handed it to cronies who had no idea of how to farmcausing the risk of mass starvation. Now, I know that the experienced farmers are white, and the cronies are black, and whites owning most of the land in a majority black country is a problem. But my daughter Neli and I came up with a workable plan to correct this gradually in just a few minutes. All of the white owned farms have black workers. One could provide tax incentives/disincentives for the farmers to form corporations in which their workers earn shares in the corporation with work/time. I've seen that in small US companies, and it's worked well. No one would be forced to do anything at gunpoint, experienced people would always run the farms as well as possible, with profits for all when the farms are most productive. Why should the white farmers who were born in Zimbabwe from several generations of people born in Zimbabwe have their property and livelihoods confiscated either directly or through taxation just because they are white? That's racism isn't it? Saucy Maru -- William T Goodall Mail : [EMAIL PROTECTED] Web : http://www.wtgab.demon.co.uk Blog : http://radio.weblogs.com/0111221/ Two years from now, spam will be solved. - Bill Gates, 2004 ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Brin: What's in the works?
While I see far more to dislike about John McCain than there is to like... his history of vicious anger, the fact that he never administered more than 60 men, once, for a year and did badly, the fact that he has always acted like an entitled-though-oedepally-frustrated son of a high achieving father (sound familiar?)... ...I admit that there are some likeable traits too. Like his willingness to occasionally part from the standard (and completely insane) neoconservative party line. NOWHERE enough to be called a maverick alas. Which is the chief point. Though he has edged away from Bush, he would appoint at least 50% the same monsters who have been crushing the US civil service for 8 years, preventing the FBI from investigating corruption, the SEC from investigating Wall Street scams, the EPA from enforcing the law, the FDA from vetting drugs... while giving no-bid contracts to cronies and bankrupting our kids... ALL of these are crimes by conservative standards, BTW ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Brin watch
Hey, so no one has remarked on the mention of David Brin's _The Transparent Society_ in Scientific American? The September issue is about privacy, and the editor's introduction says: ...In his book _The Transparent Society_, David Brin argues that the modern conception of privacy is historically transient and made obsolete by new technology; rather than trying futilely to keep secrets, he thinks we should concentrate on preventing abuses of them by insisting that everyone, including governments, be an equally open book. How well that strategy can work in practice is debatable. ... It's good to be mentioned. ---David ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
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join klik rupiah (PTC INDONESIA) asli indonesia 1 klik Rp 100, 10x= Rp 1000, 20 ref = Rp 1 dibayar per Rp 5 lewat BCA atau Mandiri. Daftarnya Gratis... semua bisa tanya-jawab di forumnya, bisa beli refferal pake rupiah juga, asyik banget deh. buruan daftar kita ramaikan PTC INDONESIA. Mau Join Klik di sini http://klikrupiah.com/register.php?r=fatriyanto http://indoptc.com/news.php?r=fatriyanto http://gedebux.info/register.php?r=fatriyanto Mau nambah penghasilan lagi klik link di bawah ini terbukti membayar http://www.clixsense.com/?2301534 http://bux.to/?r=fatriyanto http://07bux.net/?r=fatriyanto%20%20 Atau kunjungi blok kami di Re: war on the environment Kevin B. O'Brien war on the environment Jon Louis Mann war on the environment Jon Louis Mann Re: war on the environment Richard Baker Fair Trade Jon Louis Mann Re: Fair Trade Richard Baker Fair Trade Jon Louis Mann Re: Fair Trade Ronn! Blankenship Fair Trade Jon Louis Mann Re: Fair Trade Bruce Bostwick Re: Fair Trade Julia Thompson Re: war on the environment John Williams Re: war on the environment Nick Arnett Re: war on the environment John Williams Re: war on the environment Nick Arnett Begging the question Jon Louis Mann Re: war on the environment John Williams Re: war on the environment Ronn! Blankenship Re: war on the environment Alberto Monteiro Re: war on the environment William T Goodall Re: war on the environment John Williams Reply via email to
