From: Robert J. Bradbury (bradbury@aeiveos.com)
Date: Sat Jun 15 2002 - 03:01:48 MDT
The NY Times had an interesting article on the U.S. increasing
farm subsidies:
http://www.nytimes.com/2002/06/15/international/europe/15FARM.html?pagewanted=print
In reading this, the amazing thing in my mind was the
degree to which this legislation was completely off
the radar. [Contrast the press for ~$30 billion in
compensation for 911 vs. a $180 billion farm bill.]
We vote an 80% increase in subsidies (no political
motivation at work I presume...) whose ultimate consequence
seems to be to impoverish 3rd world farmers. [And according
to the inserts in the non-print version of the article the
U.S. has 11% of the world share of rice exports!?! How much
of California are they flooding to get this?]
If we presume I pay fairly close attention to the news
how did this slip by beneath my radar screen? Particularly
when the U.S. is moving into a budget deficit paradigm!
Is the only way to reform U.S. politics to push for a 1-term
ammendment to the constitution? Confine the president to
4 years -- thats all you get to sink or swim in the history
books. There is no second act. So you have to play the
first one rationally (at least one can hope).
Robert
This archive was generated by hypermail 2.1.5 : Sat Nov 02 2002 - 09:14:48 MST