Person Career
India's War on Vegetables
IPN Opinion article
India is, after all, a country with little effective regulation of many high-risk activities, such as public transport and occupational hazards; and its expenditures on public health are woefully inadequate. It is not unusual, for example, to observe pre-teens performing welding or using dangerous machinery with no protective gear and wearing only a loincloth. Malaria, filariasis and other viral diseases, which have been all but eradicated from industrialized countries, are epidemic there.
However, rather than address those problems, Indian bureaucrats reckon that what the nation really needs is a public-health apparatus for detecting those crops and foods made with a new and superior technology. It's "like offering swimming lessons to people in the Sahara," according to Calestous Juma, director of the Science, Technology and Innovation Program at Harvard University, referring to a conceptually similar United Nations-based initiative.
Oxfam is full of beans
IPN Opinion article
To round out the stereotype, Oxfam\'s campaign is calling for governments to spend up to $100 million to destroy \"surplus\" coffee and prop up prices, and wants the International Coffee Organization to force multinationals to abide by \"fair trade\" coffee standards. Yep, Oxfam wants taxpayers to cough up in order to pay more to drink coffee...
Far from the intended consequences, government intervention and \"fair trade\" standards would only worsen the problem for coffee farmers, however. Though it is trendy to blame multinationals for every ill, the real problems that poor farmers face are caused by a lack of infrastructure, distorted EU and U.S. agricultural markets and unheeded economic signals. [For WSJ subscribers http://online.wsj.com/article/0,,SB1033601496319159033.djm,00.html]
A challenge for compassionate conservatism
IPN Opinion article
Shlaes argues that George W. Bush should follow his free market instincts and resist pressure to protect America's steel industry
Land Title is the Problem
IPN Opinion article
The two main political opponents on Zimbabwean land reform, British Prime Minister Tony Blair and Zimbabwean leader Robert Mugabe arrived in Johannesburg Monday. And after Saturday\'s march by the landless in South Africa and the destabilizing occupation of farms in Zimbabwe, it should have been a great topic for debate.
Do Not Disturb the Profit Sharing Revolution
IPN Opinion article
"The loss suffered by Enron employees shows that ownership restrictions on pension plans should be reduced"
Workshop on globalisation & the WTO
IPN Opinion article
A one-day workshop on Globalisation and the post-WTO scenario
Organized by Bazaar Chintan and IIPM, New Delhi
Overhaul Aid to Boost Trade
IPN Opinion article
Certainly, the combined $70 billion or so in yearly farm subsidies from the U.S. and the EU choke off export markets and growth opportunities for mostly rural countries with little to send abroad other than cotton or coffee. But too much gets said about rich-country protectionism: trade barriers between poor countries themselves are more formidable and a greater deterrent to growth than that from the rich countries. (On average, tariffs are 13% in poor countries, 3% in the rich). "Just as charity begins at home, so exports begin with a good domestic policy," trade economist Jagdish Bhagwati wrote in the Economist recently. The EU, an example of a successful common market, has just started to help African countries set up their own customs unions. A good start, but more is needed.
The invigorating effect of America's pink slips
IPN Opinion article
"Countries that envy the US ability to bounce back from economic setbacks should take note of its labour policies"
Our environment is healthier than the green lobby claims;
IPN Opinion article
Acid rain, global warming, polluted rivers, species loss, deforestation, falling sperm counts, desertification - everywhere the world is going to hell in a hand-cart and only radical changes in our lives and major population reductions can halt the decline. Or at least that\'s what the mainstream green groups tell us. But former Greenpeace member and Danish academic Bjorn Lomborg says that\'s a load of old rubbish - the environment is doing much better than ever before.
Power of free trade can unshackle Africa
IPN Opinion article
\"Free exchange of goods is good for all. It is absurd to regard exchange of goods and services as not beneficial to all parties. The arguments that rich countries are out to expand their markets cannot hold water, because a market without the purchasing ability is not a market; not unless it will be some form of altruistic free donation...What Africa needs are \"responsible governments\" that enforce rule of law and create an enabling environment for vibrant economic activities...\"
