Wednesday, March 31, 2010
Tuesday, March 30, 2010
Clinton Finally Gets It
Free trade harms poor nations.
Decades of inexpensive imports - especially rice from the U.S. - punctuated with abundant aid in various crises have destroyed local agriculture and left impoverished countries such as Haiti unable to feed themselves.
While those policies have been criticized for years in aid worker circles, world leaders focused on fixing Haiti are admitting for the first time that loosening trade barriers has only exacerbated hunger in Haiti and elsewhere.
They're led by former U.S. President Bill Clinton - now U.N. special envoy to Haiti - who publicly apologized this month for championing policies that destroyed Haiti's rice production. Clinton in the mid-1990s encouraged the impoverished country to dramatically cut tariffs on imported U.S. rice.
"It may have been good for some of my farmers in Arkansas, but it has not worked. It was a mistake," Clinton told the Senate Foreign Relations Committee on March 10. "I had to live everyday with the consequences of the loss of capacity to produce a rice crop in Haiti to feed those people because of what I did; nobody else."
Better late than never, but will Clinton now turn into Mr. Protectionist?
Decades of inexpensive imports - especially rice from the U.S. - punctuated with abundant aid in various crises have destroyed local agriculture and left impoverished countries such as Haiti unable to feed themselves.
While those policies have been criticized for years in aid worker circles, world leaders focused on fixing Haiti are admitting for the first time that loosening trade barriers has only exacerbated hunger in Haiti and elsewhere.
They're led by former U.S. President Bill Clinton - now U.N. special envoy to Haiti - who publicly apologized this month for championing policies that destroyed Haiti's rice production. Clinton in the mid-1990s encouraged the impoverished country to dramatically cut tariffs on imported U.S. rice.
"It may have been good for some of my farmers in Arkansas, but it has not worked. It was a mistake," Clinton told the Senate Foreign Relations Committee on March 10. "I had to live everyday with the consequences of the loss of capacity to produce a rice crop in Haiti to feed those people because of what I did; nobody else."
Better late than never, but will Clinton now turn into Mr. Protectionist?
Why Private Health Insurance Companies Need to Disappear
It's good that they have now (I guess) decided to close the loophole about denying child coverage. But the fact they contemplated finding loopholes and that only after shaming from the Obama Administration they've changed their minds doesn't make them humanitarians. Private industries will always find ways to make as much money as possible. While on the surface that isn't wrong, but when dealing with health or public good, it's wrong. As long as we trust our health in the hands of private health insurance companies, they will always find ways to circumvent the system and deny coverage to make more money. That is wrong and it's time for government-run single-payer health insurance.
Sunday, March 28, 2010
Idiot of the Week
Jim Hoft
Non-violent my ass. This was a death threat, this coffin was saying to Russ "us teabaggers will kill you if you keep it up."
I feel really sorry for Russ Carnahan, his dad and brother die in a plane crash, his sister gets breast cancer, and now this bullshit. I hope for the congressman's safety and hope Hoft stays the fuck away.
Non-violent my ass. This was a death threat, this coffin was saying to Russ "us teabaggers will kill you if you keep it up."
I feel really sorry for Russ Carnahan, his dad and brother die in a plane crash, his sister gets breast cancer, and now this bullshit. I hope for the congressman's safety and hope Hoft stays the fuck away.
Friday, March 26, 2010
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