Any chance of the world agreeing what a "fair" global market actually is evaporated as the trade talks in Geneva end in disarray.
WTO head, Pascal Lamy confirmed the collapse, which officials have blamed on China, India and the US failing to agree on import rules. The main stumbling block was the fine print which would allow developing countries to protect poor farmers by imposing a tariff on certain goods in the event of a drop in prices or a surge in cheap imports.
Seven fecking years and they are arguing about the same fecking thing they did in the first session of the first meeting in Doha in 2001! Euroland and USia are waggling accusatory fingers at each other each blaming the other for not doing enough about farm subsidies. It would appear that this pissed off Ms Schwabb (the US chief negotiator) who is reported as saying that that Washington was giving no more ground on lowering their farm subsidies, and attacked the EU, India and Japan for not doing their part.
[sarcasm]
Is it just me or does all this seem fucking ridiculously simple to resolve, everyone stops subsidizing and let the market define the price from the products? I do apologise! I forgot that would be that nasty economic "free market" theory nonsense that the USA and European governments are so keen to avoid and actively discourage at every opportunity. I have flagellated myself with a cat of nine tails made from shredded copies of the works of Milton Friedman.[/sarcasm]
Shite I would so love "set aside" to be part of my department policy next year. Here says the Gov you can have this suitcase full of cash but ONLY of you do NO work or be even a little productive for the next 6 months and if you are good at doing nothing we will give you another suitcase full of cash next year.
This whole protracted nationalist flag waving and finger pointing nonsense leaves a really bad taste in my mouth! They take 7 years to argue about what would be fair, can't figure it out and end up calling each other names. It really is a sad incitement that humanity as a species have fucked it up again.
I have the strongest suspicion that this failure to agree will benefit no-one in the long term.
