Re: Quebec Protests

["J. Barkley Rosser, Jr." <rosserjb@xxxxxxx>]

James,
      My use of "fussing" was sarcastic.  I am all
too aware that the EU's CAP is this enormously
expensive and bureaucratic scam, mostly set up
to please the French, clearly one of the biggest
single messes in the EU, although not fatally so.
      However, you overstate things.  There is not
total protectionism with regard to non-EU ag
products, but certainly very vigorous protectionism.
OTOH, there is very little within the EU, although
it is not completely gone.  This is why agriculture
is a major sore point with regard to the admission
of new members and a major reason the French
are regularly the naysayers in terms of letting new
members in.  They were unhappy about the Spanish
and Portuguese geting in because of the competition
from their agricultural commodities, and it is because
of agriculture above all that the French have been
(trying to) block Poland and other East European
countries from entering.
Barkley Rosser
----- Original Message -----
From: "schulte-baeuminghaus" <cresscourt@xxxxxxxxx>
To: "J. Barkley Rosser, Jr." <rosserjb@xxxxxxx>; "Peter Dorman"
<dormanp@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>; "Post Keynesian Thought" <pkt@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Sent: Wednesday, April 25, 2001 3:00 AM
Subject: Re: Quebec Protests


> Barkley,
>
> > Although there is still
> > some fussing in agriculture, I do not hear of any
> > calls by the traditionally protectionist French to
> > re-erect barriers to German imports,
>
>
> I'm not sure what you mean by this.
> There is no "fussing" because there is total protection for all EU
> members.
> There is total exclusion of Australian, Canadian, New Zealand, United
> States etc agriculture etc., except where there is no conceivable EU
> interest.
> There is total NATIONAL protection of French agriculture against that
> of other EU members, of German agriculture against French and others
> etc., etc.
> French farmers are more violent if any British or other livestock or
> agricultural products get through the barriers but that's only the
> more dramatic manifestation.
> The idea of free trade is a complete nonsense except for the
> Americans, the Europeans and others with "power" to get free entry
> into other markets and ban all trade of other countries that doesn't
> suit their national or sectional interests.
> Australia has gone to ridiculous lengths to open up its markets,
> agricultural and other, for the past nearly thirty years, with the
> result that everyone has easy access to Australian markets but the
> hope that this would encourage easy access for Australian exports into
> other markets has never been realised.
> Let's not be naive in these matters.
> Let's look behind the rhetoric.
> To hope for anything better in the future than selfish exploitation of
> the weak by the strong and gross deception of the vulnerable by the
> smart operators is vain.
> The time has come for the weak to do more than lie down and let the
> strong walk all over them.
> They must protect their interests as powerfully as they can - and with
> the same craft and determination with which the strong go about
> protecting and promoting theirs.
> That is, in the end, what the Quebec protests are all about. We must
> be against the violence and the anarchy; but - in everyone's interest
> - we must strongly support the drastic reform of the world economic
> system - and the treatment of the more vulnerable domestically - that
> the protesters are trying to bring about.
> The protesters may be woolly-minded. Their articulation of what they
> are after may be poor. But those with whom their patience is fast
> running out will need to do more than build wire fences to keep them
> at a distance and smother them with tear-gas when they get too close.
> The only solution is for the so-called "policymakers" to scrutinise
> very closely their past policies and the directions in which they are
> now going. If they do not do that and take the necessary action, then
> - much as we might regret it - the protests will get ever more
> violent, as hurt and frustrations and distress grow among those who
> are being "abused" and "molested" and disregarded in a variety of ways
> by current policies.
>
>
> James Cumes
> The Bookshelf of James Cumes
> http:/members.chello.at/schulte-baeuminghaus
>
>
>
>
> ----------
> >From: "J. Barkley Rosser, Jr." <rosserjb@xxxxxxx>
> >To: "Peter Dorman" <dormanp@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
> >Subject: Re: Quebec Protests
> >Date: Wed, Apr 25, 2001, 12:38 am
> >
>
> > Although there is still
> > some fussing in agriculture, I do not hear of any
> > calls by the traditionally protectionist French to
> > re-erect barriers to German imports,
>