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Date: 28 Nov 2006 16:35:33
From: Flasherly
Subject: Free Trade
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The Liberia Produce Marketing Cooperation (LPMC) revealed that coffee
and cocoa are being smuggled through Liberia's borders into neighboring
Guinea. Guineans purchasing from Liberian robbers are selling Liberian
farmers' coffee and cocoa at flat rates, circumventing statutory
mandates on coffee export trade prices the LPMC and a post-war
government have established. LPMC response may be to establish depots
for purchasing farmers' produce as a measure of cooperative assistance
and national well-being. The president of Liberia, a former coffee
estate manager, has extensive experience with coffee brokers. . .
.Apparently, as was his predecessor's intent, Liberian President Rev.
Dr. William Richard Tolbert, Jr., until an unfortuitous series of
events necessitated he be killed on one such LPMC compound.
http://allafrica.com/stories/200611281266.html
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Date: 29 Nov 2006 10:35:10
From: Flasherly
Subject: Re: Free Trade
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Jack Denver wrote:
> In Africa, you have to read between the lines. The LPMC is the legally
> mandated sole buyer that pays the farmer a cut rate and then resells at a
> profit, most of which is siphoned into the pockets of the LPMC government
> employees. When the farmers sell for higher prices to the smugglers, the
> government officials that run LPMC get cut out of their corruption
> potential. "Cooperative assistance and national well-being" is an Orwelling
> euphemism for "ripping off the farmers". Very sad really.
Figures - first choice, top of the list - then I stumbled on the
article last night few hours after an order arrived from the
"highlands" Monday.
http://www.ccmcoffee.com/index.php?cPath=21
2 x Green - Papau New Guinea
- Pounds: 1lb $7.90
2 x Green - Mexican Turquesa
- Pounds: 1lb $7.90
2 x Green - Mexican Genuine Coatepec
- Pounds: 1lb $7.90
2 x Green - Zambia Terranova Estate AA
- Pounds: 1lb $9.90
2 x Green - Ethiopia Yirgacheffe
- Pounds: 1lb $7.90
2 x Green - Sumatra Mandheling - Balige Estate
8.14 ship
$58
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Date: 29 Nov 2006 13:07:18
From: Jack Denver
Subject: Re: Free Trade
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In Africa, you have to read between the lines. The LPMC is the legally
mandated sole buyer that pays the farmer a cut rate and then resells at a
profit, most of which is siphoned into the pockets of the LPMC government
employees. When the farmers sell for higher prices to the smugglers, the
government officials that run LPMC get cut out of their corruption
potential. "Cooperative assistance and national well-being" is an Orwelling
euphemism for "ripping off the farmers". Very sad really.
"Flasherly" <gjerrell@ij.net > wrote in message
news:1164760533.874657.167400@80g2000cwy.googlegroups.com...
> The Liberia Produce Marketing Cooperation (LPMC) revealed that coffee
> and cocoa are being smuggled through Liberia's borders into neighboring
> Guinea. Guineans purchasing from Liberian robbers are selling Liberian
> farmers' coffee and cocoa at flat rates, circumventing statutory
> mandates on coffee export trade prices the LPMC and a post-war
> government have established. LPMC response may be to establish depots
> for purchasing farmers' produce as a measure of cooperative assistance
> and national well-being. The president of Liberia, a former coffee
> estate manager, has extensive experience with coffee brokers. . .
> .Apparently, as was his predecessor's intent, Liberian President Rev.
> Dr. William Richard Tolbert, Jr., until an unfortuitous series of
> events necessitated he be killed on one such LPMC compound.
>
> http://allafrica.com/stories/200611281266.html
>
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Date: 29 Nov 2006 01:02:46
From: Flasherly
Subject: Re: Free Trade
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i840coffee@optonline.net wrote:
> Free Trade by definition is an ideal model for economic intercourse
> between nations which does not include protective customs tariffs,
> subsidies, trade quotas regulations and laws and other bars to an open
> unfettered market for capital goods services and labor.
>
> In the Liberian /Guinean illustration, above, dealing in contraband is
> not free trade. Mandates on export pricing is not free trade, and
> murder is not an accepted free trade practice.
>
> These fellows appear to need remedial free trade training.
>
> -Donald Schoenholt
Yes, interesting, isn't it. . . as a standard within potential
measures, perhaps, although I've doubts about seeing through
unconvential practices on a starker stage than one with a fixed
viewpoint to regulatory concessions. The LPMC simply isn't the
Securities and Exchange Commission, and a greater leveling effect from
inroads into world trade and labor equality, former FED Greenspan
addressed, aren't to me a scenario likely to materialize overnight. A
methodological term, to discretely bias by some measure, and an
exercise less willingness forms to assume a capital share approached
within risk. Shadows upstaged in reservation for wider alpha swings
when distantly factoring profits. For a couple months running, new
film documentary reviews are denouncing one aspect or another of the
industry for deriving its asset costs by means outside Fair Trade
agreements. A bone on a string called Fair Trade to dangle before a
dog, yet one postulated not unduly out of place for considering
captalists that needn't bite. . . .God only knows the SEC has a
handful reigning in the domesticated breeds.
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Date: 28 Nov 2006 23:18:12
From:
Subject: Re: Free Trade
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Free Trade by definition is an ideal model for economic intercourse
between nations which does not include protective customs tariffs,
subsidies, trade quotas regulations and laws and other bars to an open
unfettered market for capital goods services and labor.
In the Liberian /Guinean illustration, above, dealing in contraband is
not free trade. Mandates on export pricing is not free trade, and
murder is not an accepted free trade practice.
These fellows appear to need remedial free trade training.
-Donald Schoenholt
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Date: 29 Nov 2006 08:30:25
From: Ian Smith
Subject: Re: Free Trade
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On 28 Nov 2006 23:18:12 -0800, i840coffee@optonline.net < > wrote:
> Free Trade by definition is an ideal model for economic intercourse
If by 'ideal' you been 'taken to extreme', or 'pure', possibly. If
you mean 'good' or 'to be aspired to', certainly not. No nation
believes in free trade. All nations have protective tariffs, quotas
etc.
> These fellows appear to need remedial free trade training.
Or alternatively, the fellows supporting 'free trade' need to explain
why, if it's so wonderful, not one nation in teh world actually puts
it into practice.
regards, Ian SMith
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Date: 29 Nov 2006 14:21:33
From: Barry Jarrett
Subject: Re: Free Trade
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On 29 Nov 2006 08:30:25 GMT, Ian Smith <ian@astounding.org.uk > wrote:
>Or alternatively, the fellows supporting 'free trade' need to explain
>why, if it's so wonderful, not one nation in teh world actually puts
>it into practice.
>
because an unrestricted flow of labor between nations does not yet
exist.
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Date: 29 Nov 2006 03:08:04
From: jim schulman
Subject: Re: Free Trade
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On 29 Nov 2006 08:30:25 GMT, Ian Smith <ian@astounding.org.uk > wrote:
>why, if it's so wonderful, not one nation in teh world actually puts
>it into practice.
It's states, not nations, that create trade policy. Free trade helps a
lot of people, consumers, a little by hurting a few people, higher
cost domestic producers and their employees, a lot. Given these
political realities, it's a minor miracle there's any trade other than
smuggling or bribe exchanges at all. In Africa, where most of the
states seem to have collapsed into a civil war of kleptocrats, this
seems to have become the norm.
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Date: 29 Nov 2006 17:58:07
From: Ian Smith
Subject: Re: Free Trade
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On Wed, 29 Nov, jim schulman <jim_schulman@ameritech.net > wrote:
> On 29 Nov 2006 08:30:25 GMT, Ian Smith <ian@astounding.org.uk> wrote:
>
> >why, if it's so wonderful, not one nation in teh world actually puts
> >it into practice.
>
> Free trade helps a lot of people, consumers, a little by hurting a
> few people, higher cost domestic producers and their employees, a
> lot.
No it doesn't.
That's my point - it doesn't exist. You can't credibly say "it does
this" or "it does that". No-one is operating the system. It's all
speculative, all guesswork, or all academics making sweeping
assertions they know they will never have tested. You can't credibly
claim to know the consequences of something that does not exist (and
probably never has). You certainly can't claim it to be a better,
more effective or superior method to existing methods.
If it was a better way of doing things, someone would be doing it and
reaping benefits. No-one is.
regards, Ian SMith
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Date: 29 Nov 2006 17:53:43
From: jim schulman
Subject: Re: Free Trade
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On 29 Nov 2006 17:58:07 GMT, Ian Smith <ian@astounding.org.uk > wrote:
> No-one is operating the system. It's all
>speculative, all guesswork
Free trade means that, anyone ships their stuff anywhere there's a
buyer -- it's not a system, but the lack of one. When a state stops
you shipping stuff in or out, charges you to do it, or when it's
officials or their cousins require bribes, consulting fees,
notarization fees, etc, then it stops being free trade.
The speculation is that government direction of this chaos is likely
to be more harmful than helpful.
The proof of this is very simple: if managed trade does benefit
everyone when states do it, it would benefit everyone even more if
city officials, or even neighborhood watch groups did it. I'm sure I'd
be vaslty better off morally and spiritually if I payed a tariff to
every Hyde Park neighborhood group for various goods they believe to
be good or bad for me or the Hyde Park economy; but I'd rather eat
instead.
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Date: 30 Nov 2006 05:52:51
From: Luke
Subject: Re: Free Trade
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On Wed, 29 Nov 2006 17:53:43 -0600, jim schulman
<jim_schulman@ameritech.net > wrote:
>On 29 Nov 2006 17:58:07 GMT, Ian Smith <ian@astounding.org.uk> wrote:
>
>> No-one is operating the system. It's all
>>speculative, all guesswork
>
>Free trade means that, anyone ships their stuff anywhere there's a
>buyer -- it's not a system, but the lack of one. When a state stops
>you shipping stuff in or out, charges you to do it, or when it's
>officials or their cousins require bribes, consulting fees,
>notarization fees, etc, then it stops being free trade.
>
>The speculation is that government direction of this chaos is likely
>to be more harmful than helpful.
>
>The proof of this is very simple: if managed trade does benefit
>everyone when states do it, it would benefit everyone even more if
>city officials, or even neighborhood watch groups did it. I'm sure I'd
>be vaslty better off morally and spiritually if I payed a tariff to
>every Hyde Park neighborhood group for various goods they believe to
>be good or bad for me or the Hyde Park economy; but I'd rather eat
>instead.
Are you saying there are no trade laws in the U.S.?
--
Luke
___________________________________________________________________
"The culture of recovery is insidious: now the moral measure of a
war is how it makes us feel about ourselves." -- Wendy Kaminer
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Date: 30 Nov 2006 06:37:49
From: Donn Cave
Subject: Re: Free Trade
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Quoth jim schulman <jim_schulman@ameritech.net >:
...
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Date: 30 Nov 2006 19:46:41
From: Ian Smith
Subject: Re: Free Trade
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On Wed, 29 Nov, jim schulman <jim_schulman@ameritech.net > wrote:
> On 29 Nov 2006 17:58:07 GMT, Ian Smith <ian@astounding.org.uk> wrote:
>
> > No-one is operating the system. It's all
> > speculative, all guesswork
>
> Free trade means that, anyone ships their stuff anywhere there's a
> buyer -- it's not a system, but the lack of one.
Nonsense. I know what free trade means, and it is a system - an
entire absence of rules is a system. It's a way of doing something -
a system - a body of theory pertaining to a particular form of trade.
> The proof of this is very simple: if managed trade does benefit
> everyone when states do it, it would benefit everyone even more if
> city officials, or even neighborhood watch groups did it.
Nonsense. Most of those groups do not have the authority or
capability to do it. If someone is unable to do something, that does
not mean they would not benefit if they were able to. I would benefit
from being able to run faster than everyone else. Your 'proof' would
say that because I'm not world champion over 100 metres, it must mean
I would not benefit if I were.
You haven't addressed the converse, which I suggested before your
apparent attempt at avoiding the question:
If free trade is such a good idea, why does no nation on earth adopt
it?
regards, Ian SMith
--
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Date: 30 Nov 2006 11:00:14
From: Omniryx@gmail.com
Subject: Re: Free Trade
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Auntie Em! Auntie Em! I'm trapped in a universe of
supply-siders........
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