Comments on: Trade Talks Crash on the Shoals of Farm Subsidies, Sensible People Yawn

By: Ian Welsh

Ian Welsh — Fri, 01 Aug 2008 16:16:16 +0000

It kind of died, probably because of the title. Should have made it something like “Millions of Farmers Saved by Trade Talks Collapse”

By: ekunin

ekunin — Fri, 01 Aug 2008 13:56:49 +0000

It’s not your kid’s water or your wife’s water. It’s everyone’s water including the bandits who pollute it. That’s the insanity and I mean that literally. Why is someone so invested in accumulating money, he is willing to kill everyone including himself in pursuit of it?

By: jackie

jackie — Fri, 01 Aug 2008 12:24:05 +0000

Ian, this was a very needed thread! Maybe you could re-introduce it when posts aren’t going up so fast? Pretty please, Mod Gods and Mother? :)

By: DWBartoo

DWBartoo — Fri, 01 Aug 2008 02:31:44 +0000

Test?
Erk!

Nobody said anything about a ‘test’.

What subject?

When?

Where?

Why?

Geez, LS, this is creepy, like one of those dreadful ‘high-school’ nightmares.

You know the one …?

By: LS

LS — Fri, 01 Aug 2008 02:26:03 +0000

test

By: DWBartoo

DWBartoo — Fri, 01 Aug 2008 01:56:55 +0000

Ian;

“Managed” is such a nice, innocuous, and value-neutral term, one just knows it’s going to have a great personality.

And, since its reality is emphatically denied and semantically evaded, even (and especially) by most of your colleagues, why not simply refer to trade as “manipulated”?

Of course, were such a term to gain ‘traction’, then the powers-that-be would have to insist that they’ve absolutely no choice (perhaps claiming that a certain ‘hand’, though ‘unseen’, was and is behind it all), and then, of necessity, they shall have to explain that they were and are doing such things only for the greater good, for the Homeland and Mom and Dad, the kids and all of their pets like little Dick and Jane’s cute little dog, named Spot.

Ian, you are a most excellent teacher, a very wise person and a credit to your profession, which is in dire need of such …

By: egregious

egregious — Fri, 01 Aug 2008 01:54:38 +0000

New Ian post upstairs

By: Peterr

Peterr — Fri, 01 Aug 2008 01:40:36 +0000

The general idea of the book salons, as I understand them, is twofold: (a) to give support to little-known progressive authors with important things to say, who don’t have big media tours lined up for them, and (b) to give interesting books some publicity and push in the progressive blogosphere.

I don’t know that there’s a rule that says “all Book Salons are about new books,” but judging from the Book Salon book in the right hand column, you can ask Bev about it directly this Sunday.

And even if the regular Saturday and Sunday book salons are kept to “new books,” the idea of having Ian host a chat with Stiglitz could be a great thread during a regular weekday time.

By: ThingsComeUndone

ThingsComeUndone — Fri, 01 Aug 2008 01:33:23 +0000

We do not have free trade so we should focus on the costs to Americans of not having free trade vs other systems. The cost of Socialized Health care vs our current system. The cost of farm subsidies on tax payers etc.
Also the incidental cost like what is the cost of not insuring everybody when sick people go to work and spread disease rather than take a paid day off to see a Dr?
What is the cost of corn being grown for cows rather than letting cattle just eat prairie grass? Corn makes factory farms possible in small spaces where cows stand in their own poo which means more disease and of course more antibiotics.
Which means deadlier antibiotic resistant e coli. To bad we don’t have socialized medicine.
One fast food worker who ate a bad burger yesterday feels sick but can’t afford to take a sick day from work forgets to wipe his hands and suddenly we have an epidemic.

By: selise

selise — Fri, 01 Aug 2008 01:28:55 +0000

So instead of pretending we live in some free trade world that keeps getting more free, it’s time to start discussing the real options.

i’d love to see ian host stiglitz for a book salon on his 2005 book, Fair Trade for All. maybe even as a double bill with his 2003 book, Globalization and its Discontents. is there are rule that all the books have to be new publications?