WILLisms.com: Trivia Tidbit Of The Day: Part 249 -- Agricultural Subsidies & Tariffs.

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Trivia Tidbit Of The Day: Part 249 -- Agricultural Subsidies & Tariffs.

Free Trade = Good For Poor Farming Countries-

Hey, hippies, listen up. We need you over here. You've got something very wrong. Your anti-WTO, anti-trade, anti-markets type stuff just isn't cutting it anymore.

Want to help the poor, downtrodden, pre-industrial people of the world? Get rid of agricultural subsidies. Get rid of them in the United States. More importantly, get rid of them in the European Union (where the subsidies are MUCH more outrageous than in the United States).

Meanwhile, free up other barriers to agricultural trade, and you will see third world countries fending for themselves.

The likely total annual economic benefit to the world in 2015 from efficiency gains and investment growth that would result from full agricultural liberalization from 2005 through 2010 is in the range of roughly $50 billion to $185 billion (measured in 2001 dollars), or 0.1 percent to 0.4 percent of the value of world output of all goods and services. Expanding the analysis to include the effects of liberalization on the rate of productivity growth can raise the estimates by amounts ranging from 50 percent to more than 100 percent, depending on the study.

The best international economic aid program is the end of farm subsidies in Europe and America. And free trade.

Source:
CBO (.pdf).

More on the elimination of barriers, such a no-brainer:

The World Bank estimates that free agricultural trade would provide benefits of an additional $248bn: $106 billion would accrue to the rich world, $142 bn to the poorer world. Of that $142bn, $31bn would come from wealthy countries’ barrier removal (internal subsidy support and quota limit system removal) and a staggering $111bn from poor countries removing barriers between their own countries--and that is partly because barriers are far higher between poor countries than with the West. Poor countries also trade a great deal with each other. In other words the largest trade gains are with barrier removal and between the poorer countries of the world.

TRADE, NOT AID.

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Posted by Will Franklin · 17 January 2006 11:04 AM

Comments

So Bush is a hippy. Interesting.

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Bush signed a 10-year, $190 billion farm bill Monday that expands subsidies to growers, turning aside criticism from fellow Republicans who called the measure a budget-busting step backward in agriculture planning.

It increases spending by nearly 80% over the cost of existing programs at a time when government and private analysts are projecting a budget deficit this year of $100 billion or more. The president has been calling on lawmakers to show fiscal restraint.

http://www.usatoday.com/news/washington/2002/05/13/farm-bill.htm

Just blame everything on the Democrats. I am sure you will find some people who are unaware that the government is run by the GOP.

Posted by: thomas at January 18, 2006 07:46 AM

If there is one shortcoming of the studies it is that only one of the 5 studies used by the CBO was a dynamic analysis. Still most US farmers today, as 30 years ago, would gladly give up any subsidies as long as all nations would do the same and drop their tariffs as well. For more than 30 years, most farmers believed they would be better off if the world markets were totally free and open.

I do not have a blog so follow the link http://www.hicsq.net/JGsez/farmsubs.htm for more of my comments.

Posted by: JG at January 18, 2006 06:40 PM