kickAAS

An interesting slant on the trade talks - the US is accused of paying hush money to Brazil while it keeps scattering ludicrously high subsidies to US cotton farmers to overproduce cotton thereby depressing the world price for cotton farmers in places such as Africa which ought to have a comparative advantage in growing this crop. http://bit.ly/bydQDq

How to cut the deficit and help the world at the same time

Sorry for the delay in posting. This has partly been because of technical difficulties due to a change of email which prevented me getting access to the site and partly sheer exhaustion with the task of saying the same thing - kick all agricultural subsidies - in a diferent way.

 The truth is there has never been a better time to cut subsiies in terms of economics. Abolishing farming subsidies would cut the budget deficits of leading countries such as the US, Japan, Germany, France and the UK while giving a parallel and connected boost to the Third World which could grow cotton and other crops without fear of being undercut in the market by heavily subsidised Western crops. Poor countries would then have more money to spend on Western goods - the start of a virtual spiral. But common sense doesn't butter parsnips. We seem as far away as ever from a successful re-kindling of the Doha international trade talks. Which is not a pity. It is a tragedy.