Tuesday, May 20, 2003


THE WICKEDNESS OF CHEAP COFFEE

Where you get your coffee beans from seems to have become something of a cause among Leftists looking for something with which to inflate their claims of “compassion”. Now that Vietnam has become a big producer of coffee-beans, the worldwide supply has increased greatly and the price, of course, has tumbled. So lots of coffee-bean producers in poor countries have had drastic cuts in their already low income. The big brains of the Left blame the problem on the coffee-roasting companies of course and try to heavy them in various ways.

In this report, however, the real solution to the problem is left to a single sentence at the end: Coffee-growers have to start diversifying into growing something else. Unforunately, however, even if they do, the determination of Western governments (USA, EU, Japan) to protect their own high-cost farmers with huge subsidies and tariffs makes it difficult for third-world farmers to get ANY of their their produce into our markets. So bring on free-trade! THAT is how to help third-world coffee growers. But how often do you hear of Leftists pushing for free-trade? The anti-globalizers are certainly dead against it.

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