Dear tin-foil hat liberals, part ii

M

Musashi

SGT Shred
Veteran XX
Tonight's lecture in reality for my tin-foil hatters:

"Fair Trade" coffee

Have you guys seen this? It's in little bags at Starbucks. It's the coffee liberals buy to salve their conscience.

Don't get me wrong, I like "Fair Trade" coffee and I will drink it over folger's if I get a chance because it is usually better quality. Then again, I have no compassion towards my fellow man. The point is, "Fair Trade" is actually harmfull to the small farmers of Etheopia, Colombia, and [insert backwards nation here].

WTF?! but I pay more money so the little brown people can get more money to feed their kids!

Correct.

That's not the problem.

The problem is simple economics. The real reason that Mogumbo, living in his mud hut on a hillside in Ethiopia, only recieves 3 cents per pound of coffee is that the world has too much coffee. The market is glutted with the shit. As the world's most traded agricultural commodity, third world nations are pumping out the shit like a dirty hippie printing anti-war leaflets.

The theory that responsible consumers should pay more for a cheap product from a company that then turns around to triple a poor farmer's price per pound artificially inflates the value of the crop. This means that on the next hillside, !Xibbu ("!X" is the romanized notation for the clicking sound) sees Mogumbo and says to himself "Fuck this food growing shit, I'm planting coffee!!!!".

This results in two things. first, the food supply decreases in nations that don't have enough food (like in africa where the nationalization of white farms left them with an agricultural "brain drain") in the first place. second, the problem with the overproduction worsens as !Xibbu and his tribesmen get into the action.

So in effect, "Fair Trade" works as a temporary bandaid to a growing problem. Sure Mugumbo and now !Xibbu get 9 cents per pound but can this work forever? Probably not with the encouragement to expand an already oversaturated market. The difference is that this time !Xibbu gets the shaft as well.

gg hippies.



This case, in short, sums up my view of the left. They have all these great ideals but no brains to back it up. Usually their efforts are noble but their methods are always unrealistic and economicaly irresponsible.
 
I feel for those people saying "oh nike is evil cause they pay them 5 cents a day to make shoes" i say "5 cents more than they would be making if nike wasnt around" and they go "yah but... oh"
 
sLoGg said:
I feel for those people saying "oh nike is evil cause they pay them 5 cents a day to make shoes" i say "5 cents more than they would be making if nike wasnt around" and they go "yah but... oh"
Click to expand...

You forget all the infrastructure build by the companies.
 
Africa is a huge coffee growing region.


Most coffee growing countries have had that "industry" for decades at the least.
 
Thats nothing.. the town of Berkeley, CA has LEGISLATED, thats right wrote laws that require all local coffeeshops to sell this fair trade politically correct yuppie go-go juice.
 
Originally posted by Musashi
Tonight's lecture in reality for my tin-foil hatters:

"Fair Trade" coffee



The problem is simple economics. The real reason that Mogumbo, living in his mud hut on a hillside in Ethiopia, only recieves 3 cents per pound of coffee is that the world has too much coffee. The market is glutted with the shit. As the world's most traded agricultural commodity, third world nations are pumping out the shit like a dirty hippie printing anti-war leaflets.

The theory that responsible consumers should pay more for a cheap product from a company that then turns around to triple a poor farmer's price per pound artificially inflates the value of the crop. This means that on the next hillside, !Xibbu ("!X" is the romanized notation for the clicking sound) sees Mogumbo and says to himself "Fuck this food growing shit, I'm planting coffee!!!!".

This results in two things. first, the food supply decreases in nations that don't have enough food (like in africa where the nationalization of white farms left them with an agricultural "brain drain") in the first place. second, the problem with the overproduction worsens as !Xibbu and his tribesmen get into the action.

So in effect, "Fair Trade" works as a temporary bandaid to a growing problem. Sure Mugumbo and now !Xibbu get 9 cents per pound but can this work forever? Probably not with the encouragement to expand an already oversaturated market. The difference is that this time !Xibbu gets the shaft as well.

gg hippies.
Click to expand...

you blame this on the hippy liberals yet a large portion of the problem actually stems from the structural adjustment policies put in place in many developing nations by the world bank and IMF.

When a developing needs cash they go to the WB and IMF and ask for money. The WB and IMF say "sure, but there are conditions". The developing nations with no where left to turn agree and end up with rules imposed on them.

One of the biggest rules is increased exports of natural resources. This is done to ensure the developing nation can pay on its debt. However, where there were once diverse crop distribution quickly becomes monocrop, most often cash crops as they bring in the most money to pay on the debt.

The WB and IMF are more of the reason this happens than hippies and liberals.
 
GreyGhost said:
Africa is a huge coffee growing region.


Most coffee growing countries have had that "industry" for decades at the least.
Click to expand...


True, just as America has had an automobile industry. Within the country though the production waxes and wanes over the years. this is just the apex of the waxing.

Wax on, wax off.
 
NO BLOOD FOR OIL - I WON'T FIGHT YOUR RACIST WAR - END THE JEWISH OCCUPATION OF PALESTINE - DOWN WITH IMPERIALISM
 
I heard the USA planted shitloads of shitty coffee in Vietnam after they torched most the land... this had a large effect on coffee prices throughout the world. That's the problem with our world today... rich getting richer, poor getting more and more f*&ked over.
 
Fatman said:
The WB and IMF are more of the reason this happens than hippies and liberals.
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You may be correct (argument for a later thread) but that is a moot point. The fact here I an illuminating is that this "socially responsible" solution is doing more harm than good.
 
Musashi said:
You may be correct (argument for a later thread) but that is a moot point. The fact here I an illuminating is that this "socially responsible" solution is doing more harm than good.
Click to expand...

i dont think its doing any real harm.
only a select few growers are currently involved in fair trade, it's usually smaller family run plantations, not like the huge agrobuisnesses.

These people don't produce enough of the crop on their own to really alter the price. I also believe that the price diffrence is made up by a lack of a middle man. The people importing the coffee, are in directly in touch with the small farmer co-op's they buy from.

I am not up on the fair trade coffee movement. But it is interesting.
 
HOly shit?!?! Are you telling me that the "west" has designed the world economy so that 3rd world countries stopped growing staples and started growing goods that depend on the west's purchase and consumption. OMG. (i think you need to check the materials of your hat my friend)
 
Musashi said:
When I get my ass to radioshack for a mic.
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you know headphones can work as mics if you speak into one (usually the left in my experience) earpieces

real shitty solution, but works.
 
=S3= Rasta said:
Thats nothing.. the town of Berkeley, CA has LEGISLATED, thats right wrote laws that require all local coffeeshops to sell this fair trade politically correct yuppie go-go juice.
Click to expand...

Berkley is the Hippie's Hive.
 
So the fact that buying this coffee raises the price of coffee and thus gets more money for even farmers who aren't paid by the fair-trade coffee companies is a bad thing?

You can't blame starvation on coffee. You mentioned the African farm nationalization disaster. Would a sensible government have grabbed all the farmland and given it away without atleast coming up with some sort of framework to ensure food production? No. That's not coffee's fault; that's the government's dumbass fault.
 
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