A nuanced and thoughtful economic analysis on the impact of fair trade on Mexican farmers at Trade Diversion, illustrated with graphs and everything. I took ECON 101 back in the day, but this undergrad blogger seems to really know his stuff –
And notice my super-long comment at the bottom –
His argument is nuanced, but not for an economics graduate student like me. I have a love/hate relationship with Alex Singleton’s blog. I understand well the economic gains from globalization but I’m infuriated that unquantifible political losses result from it as well. It seems that the dominant free trade ideology in academia and elsewhere ignores these. Mr. Singleton and his crew have an ideology to defend, so it’s difficult to really cast doubt on it. I don’t have that burden which is pleasant. Free trade and globalization work in some ways and fail in others. Fair Trade is one of the few programs out there that I think shifts resources from distributors to producers of these commodities. It’s a shame that such a program isn’t broader in scope and scale – covering more retailers here in the rich world and more commodities produced in the developing world.
Comment by Fletch — August 21, 2005 @ 11:31 pm
Yeah — It’s only a handful of products, now including fair trade rice. And everything seems really tough to find locally. Because it’s so hard to find, most people don’t really see it as an option. I feel like if more people could access it, more people would want it — a real catch-22…
Comment by Siel — August 23, 2005 @ 1:03 am
I’m glad that the fair trade movement has spread beyond coffee. No matter what commodity is discussed, however, the issue is expropriating the profits of distributors for local producers and consumers abroad. As I commented in Trade Diversion, the issue here is one of monopsony (“few buyers” of a commodity). And, hey, I’m glad your blog has finally elicited commentary. I started out that way, eliciting comments. When none flowed forth, I quit soliciting them. Incidentally, what branch of poetry (if the term “branch” offends, I apologize) do you study? As a budding economist, I don’t pretend to know anything about poetry or why it’s important. I’ve found that poets offend easily, thus, none of my words are meant to offend…really.
Comment by Fletch — August 23, 2005 @ 11:48 pm
Just went to your site again — I didn’t notice last time that you didn’t even have a comment button! Do people email you about your posts?
I’m mainly interested in what’s broadly termed “experimental” poetry — mostly contemporary, but older stuff like Mallarme too. Poetry that looks for alternatives to traditional narrative –
Comment by Siel — August 24, 2005 @ 4:46 pm
Thanks for visiting my site. It’s new, like yours, having been invented on June 28. I normally don’t allow comments for two reasons. You’ve discovered the first yourself. Nobody comments. Even those who routinely visit my page don’t. So I’m content that others merely read my perspective. This works incidentally. John at detroitblog is an expert blogger, having attracted hundreds to his site daily and he’s never allowed them.
I must confess that I’m a black hole when it comes to poetry. “Experimental” poetry sounds rather exotic, however. My favorite authors are either muckracking journalists (hence the tag “Fletch”) like Greg Palast and Thomas Frank, or public intellectuals like Christopher Lasch.
Tell yuh what. I’ll blogroll your site as we share an interest in Fair Trade. My latest post will be on Michael Moore. I’ll leave the comments thread open.
Comment by Fletch — August 24, 2005 @ 9:20 pm
Cool — I have a lot to say about Michael Moore :) I’ve added you as a green friend.
What about Hunter S. Thompson?
Comment by Siel — August 24, 2005 @ 10:22 pm
I’ve never read any of his works, unfortunately. Incidentally, I’ve just been told by another friend that tried to comment on my site that I stupidly restricted comments to “team” members of my blog. I don’t know if you’ve tried, but it’s open to anyone now. I feel like my grandfather trying to program his V.C.R.
Comment by Fletch — August 26, 2005 @ 8:53 am
I was actually gonna let you know about the comment issue too when I discovered it last night, but glad to hear you’re on top of it :) Is this perhaps the reason why you didn’t have comments back in the day when you allowed comments on all your posts?
Comment by Siel — August 26, 2005 @ 9:22 am
Could be. Let me know of any other suggestions you may have.
Comment by Fletch — August 26, 2005 @ 6:17 pm
Maybe you could add an RSS feed to your homepage. I use Bloglines so I can find out if the blogs I like to read actually have new posts before going to the sites…
Comment by Siel — August 26, 2005 @ 10:19 pm
Thanks for the advice. I’ll head over to Bloglet for more information. Have you been getting comment spam lately? I note below you’re now using word verification.
Comment by Fletch — August 27, 2005 @ 1:05 pm
I’d gotten comment spams once in a while before, but yesterday I got like five within an hour and decided to turn on the word verification thing…
Comment by Siel — August 27, 2005 @ 6:06 pm