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- Newsgroups: sci.econ
- Path: sparky!uunet!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!sdd.hp.com!apollo.hp.com!netnews
- From: nelson_p@apollo.hp.com (Peter Nelson)
- Subject: Re: Trade War?
- Sender: usenet@apollo.hp.com (Usenet News)
- Message-ID: <BxI6oC.As5@apollo.hp.com>
- Date: Tue, 10 Nov 1992 13:55:24 GMT
- References: <BxB4ME.9BC@apollo.hp.com> <1992Nov9.201244.10258@nntp.hut.fi> <louis.721365535@aupair.cs.athabascau.ca>
- Nntp-Posting-Host: c.ch.apollo.hp.com
- Organization: Hewlett-Packard Corporation, Chelmsford, MA
- Lines: 46
-
- In article <louis.721365535@aupair.cs.athabascau.ca> louis@aupair.cs.athabascau.ca (Louis Schmittroth) writes:
- >v37262d@kaira.hut.fi (Mancko H|glund) writes:
- >
- >
- >>The import taxes imposed by the US government are quite unnecessary,
- >>but on the other hand this was something one could expect.
- >
- >Not at all. I happen to farm in Canada. Grain farmers in Canada and
- >the U.S. have been hurt badly by depressed world prices, due *mainly*
- >to the *insane* subsidies paid by governments in the EC.
-
- They're only insane by your particular set of arbitrary standards.
-
- I have no problem with a particular nation wanting to protect
- their farming industry/culture. Maybe they just want to ensure
- that they retain a domestic source of production and not have
- to depend on outside sources for something as basic as food.
- Or maybe it's a cultural issue -- their cultural or national
- identity is somehow tied up in having a farming or bucolic
- aspect to their society and they want to retain elements of
- this. This is certainly an issue in Japan. In small, crowded
- places like Japan and Europe there is almost no way that farms
- can compete in terms of efficiency with the huge US and Canadian,
- (and maybe someday Russian) agri-businesses.
-
- The only thing that's (ever) insane is for someone to not act
- consistently with their goalls and objectives. In terms of their
- goals it may be perfectly rational for nations to have agriculture
- subsidies.
-
- What's insane is for France to be a member of GATT which clearly
- calls for elimination of agriculture subsidies. Since they
- clearly prefer subsidies why did they sign an agreement which
- calls for ending them? That would be as if I, a member of the
- NRA, contributed to HCI.
-
- And it's also insane for the US to promote a trade war when
- we're all desperately struggling to emerge from a recession.
- A lot more people in the US work at companies that depend on
- foreign trade than work in oilseed farming. My employer,
- HP, for instance, does nearly half their business overseas.
-
-
- ---peter
-
-
-