OpEd: Eyes wide shut
The definition has never been clearer to me than after having read a recent article on the agricultural trade gaps of the developing world. We go forward, we go back. With one hand the western world pledges assistance to the developing world [$50 billion], and with the other they offer subsidies to their own agricultural producers [$320 billion] artificially reducing production costs and effectively marginalizing or eliminating competition.
This marginalizing or elimination of competition has two costs – primarily it costs the consumer more to buy products in a market where a monopoly is held, and secondly it forces the competition, usually foreign peasant farmers, to essentially work for nothing.
While the American public may ask, “what does this have to do with me?” A solid case can be made linking increasing security concerns [i.e. terrorism] with the growing dissatisfaction with the western world’s economic policies. Essentially, millions of people kept impoverished through deliberate manipulation of the world economy by the west are reaching a breaking point.
Critics may assert the importance of maintaining our own economy and the need to support our own producers, but this argument rings somewhat hollow when faced with mega-corporations, corporate crime, obscene wealth, overindulgence, and obesity – all paint a vivid picture of irresponsibility in the extreme.
What is desperately needed is dissemination of information the consumer can actually use. Mr. or Mrs. Consumer deserves to know that their government is blocking trade with other countries so they can pay higher product costs and support government cronies in big business. Is this likely to happen? The western world continues to increase telephone density, add television transmission [200+ channels], increase bandwidth on the Internet, and expand pulp media to niche markets – and yet we remain in the dark regarding issues of paramount concern. Eyes wide shut!