demanding "thousands of hours and untold sums of money" from taxpayers in "good faith"...,
2008-02-14 12:05:22
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"The United States, where we are, where we have bases, we are there at the invitation of those countries."...,
2008-02-14 14:13:21
urban planning disasters:
I should be clearer about what I'm saying about burning food: it's indisputable by now to point out that Western trade and agricultural policies have increasingly pushed small farms in developing and third world countries out of business by creating a subsidized slump in ag prices while increasing local exposures to global ag markets, mobilizing masses of humanity into increasingly militarized urban slums.
This is, without major and unlikely policy reversals, a largely non-reversible process. It does little good for farmers that have gone under for food prices to start rising due to artificially created demand for ethanol and other food-crop displacing biofuels.
It's not like those people can just waltz out of the slums and back to their farms now to cash in on a global ag boom they could have used decades ago. While a revitalization of rural economies might be long overdue, displaced agricultural workers - developing world agricultural populations have remained relatively stable, I don't mean to be unself-conscious when I over-simplify - the biggest losers in the equation are being set up to continue losing.
But of course the last thing we'd ever want would be to expand food security transfer payments. That'd disrupt the free market!