From: Max M (maxmcorp@worldonline.dk)
Date: Thu Mar 06 2003 - 02:34:07 MST
Adrian Tymes wrote:
> As has been pointed out in countless places, including
> repeatedly on this list before, famine is a
> distribution problem, not a food shortage. We have so
> much spare food available that people are talking
> about using some of it to replace petroleum fuels.
Isn't that a rather simplistic view of economics? If you just take all
the food there is and distribute it around it will have two big negative
side effects.
- The farmers in the poor countries will loose the market for their
products, as food becomes free, and so will loose their motivation for
being farmes. Thus adding to the problem.
- The farmers in the rich countries will not get a reasonable price for
their products, as it is given away to the poor, and so will loose their
motivation for being farmers.
Then suddenly there will be no food produced in neither the rich nor the
poor countries.
The poverty problem can only be solved by the poor, and we can only help
by opening up our markets, so that they get a chance of competing on
grounds of cheap labor.
-- hilsen/regards Max M Rasmussen, Denmark http://www.futureport.dk/ Fremtiden, videnskab, skeptiscisme og transhumanisme
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