Diplomacia e Relações Internacionais
Um editorial do Washington Post, deste domingo, preconizando o fim dos subsídios absurdos pagos aos produtores americanos de açúcar, e o fim do protecionismo também, duas coisas que eu tenho absoluta certeza de que NÃO ocorrerão...
Paulo Roberto de Almeida
Break the sugar addiction
Editorial - The Washington Post
Sunday, January 30, 2011
CONGRESS AND the Obama administration are in the market for fresh ideas to create jobs. Or so we are told. So far, however, we haven't seen too many specifics - but that may be about to change. Two senators, one from each party, have introduced legislation that would phase out the costly, job-destroying federal sugar program. Democrat Jeanne Shaheen of New Hampshire and Republican Mark Kirk of Illinois call their bill the Stop Unfair Giveaways and Restrictions (SUGAR) Act. Despite the cutesy title, it's a seriously necessary proposal.
Current law is a pastiche of protectionist measures that drives up prices for consumers in two ways. First, 4,700 U.S. sugar cane and sugar beet farmers share a government-guaranteed 85 percent of the U.S. market; the remaining 15 percent gets divided among some 40 lucky sugar-exporting countries, plus Mexico, which recently started exporting here under the North American Free Trade Agreement. Second, the government guarantees minimum prices for both raw cane sugar and refined beet sugar. The combined effect of these measures has been to keep the U.S. price well above the world price. According to Ms. Shaheen, consumers pay an extra $4 billion for their food because of these policies.
When food costs more, consumers buy less of it, and processors must cut production. Therefore, U.S. sugar policy costs jobs among bakers, candy makers and other food processors. Estimates vary; Promar International, an agriculture consulting firm, produced a figure of 112,000 jobs lost between 1997 and 2009. In 2006, the Commerce Department estimated that the sugar program cost three manufacturing jobs for each job it saved in sugar growing and harvesting. And, by the way, job preservation in U.S. sugar growing and harvesting came at the expense of agricultural employment in poorer sugar-producing countries.
Ms. Shaheen and Mr. Kirk have offered President Obama and the Republican leadership in the House a common-sense way to keep their promises to get rid of unnecessary government regulation and liberate the job-creating energy of the market. As such, it's also a good early test of the sincerity of those promises.
- The Sugar Trade - Daniel Strum (book Review)
Este resenhista, Christopher Ebert, reclama que o autor tenho usado o livro dele sem dar o devido crédito.Paulo Roberto de Almeida BOOK REVIEW Daniel Strum, The Sugar Trade: Brazil, Portugal and the Netherlands (1595–1630). Translated by Colin...
- Acucar No Comercio Internacional: Fim De Uma Distorcao De Tres Seculos Na Economia Mundial?
Improvável que aconteça. Em todo caso, se trata da primeira vez, em praticamente três séculos de história econômica mundial, que um produto primário, dos mais importantes no comércio internacional desde a baixa Idade Média, e um dos mais importantes...
- Ajuda Alimentar Dos Eua: Uma Hipocrisia Parcialmente Corrigida
Não elimina o viés assistencialista, mas é menos distorcivo que o esquema anterior. EDITORIAL Food Aid Reform By THE EDITORIAL BOARD The New York Times, April 27, 2013 Food aid is one of the most important tools of American foreign policy. Since the...
- Latin America And A Food Price Shock - Imf Blog
Latin America and the Caribbean: Dealing with Another Food Price ShockIMF blog, October 25, 2012 by iMFdirectBy Luis Cubeddu and Sebastián SosaWorld food prices are on the rise again owing mainly to global weather-related...
- Venezuela: A Maneira Cubana De Fazer Filas...
Já que o coronel está construindo o "socialismo do século XXI", com a ajuda dos cubanos, que tal solicitar aos cubanos o know-how para organizar filas, algo que os cubanos aprenderam com o seu próprio "socialismo do século XX", inteiramente baseado...
Diplomacia e Relações Internacionais
Drogados em acucar: sim, existe, nos EUA
Um editorial do Washington Post, deste domingo, preconizando o fim dos subsídios absurdos pagos aos produtores americanos de açúcar, e o fim do protecionismo também, duas coisas que eu tenho absoluta certeza de que NÃO ocorrerão...
Paulo Roberto de Almeida
Break the sugar addiction
Editorial - The Washington Post
Sunday, January 30, 2011
CONGRESS AND the Obama administration are in the market for fresh ideas to create jobs. Or so we are told. So far, however, we haven't seen too many specifics - but that may be about to change. Two senators, one from each party, have introduced legislation that would phase out the costly, job-destroying federal sugar program. Democrat Jeanne Shaheen of New Hampshire and Republican Mark Kirk of Illinois call their bill the Stop Unfair Giveaways and Restrictions (SUGAR) Act. Despite the cutesy title, it's a seriously necessary proposal.
Current law is a pastiche of protectionist measures that drives up prices for consumers in two ways. First, 4,700 U.S. sugar cane and sugar beet farmers share a government-guaranteed 85 percent of the U.S. market; the remaining 15 percent gets divided among some 40 lucky sugar-exporting countries, plus Mexico, which recently started exporting here under the North American Free Trade Agreement. Second, the government guarantees minimum prices for both raw cane sugar and refined beet sugar. The combined effect of these measures has been to keep the U.S. price well above the world price. According to Ms. Shaheen, consumers pay an extra $4 billion for their food because of these policies.
When food costs more, consumers buy less of it, and processors must cut production. Therefore, U.S. sugar policy costs jobs among bakers, candy makers and other food processors. Estimates vary; Promar International, an agriculture consulting firm, produced a figure of 112,000 jobs lost between 1997 and 2009. In 2006, the Commerce Department estimated that the sugar program cost three manufacturing jobs for each job it saved in sugar growing and harvesting. And, by the way, job preservation in U.S. sugar growing and harvesting came at the expense of agricultural employment in poorer sugar-producing countries.
Ms. Shaheen and Mr. Kirk have offered President Obama and the Republican leadership in the House a common-sense way to keep their promises to get rid of unnecessary government regulation and liberate the job-creating energy of the market. As such, it's also a good early test of the sincerity of those promises.
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- The Sugar Trade - Daniel Strum (book Review)
Este resenhista, Christopher Ebert, reclama que o autor tenho usado o livro dele sem dar o devido crédito.Paulo Roberto de Almeida BOOK REVIEW Daniel Strum, The Sugar Trade: Brazil, Portugal and the Netherlands (1595–1630). Translated by Colin...
- Acucar No Comercio Internacional: Fim De Uma Distorcao De Tres Seculos Na Economia Mundial?
Improvável que aconteça. Em todo caso, se trata da primeira vez, em praticamente três séculos de história econômica mundial, que um produto primário, dos mais importantes no comércio internacional desde a baixa Idade Média, e um dos mais importantes...
- Ajuda Alimentar Dos Eua: Uma Hipocrisia Parcialmente Corrigida
Não elimina o viés assistencialista, mas é menos distorcivo que o esquema anterior. EDITORIAL Food Aid Reform By THE EDITORIAL BOARD The New York Times, April 27, 2013 Food aid is one of the most important tools of American foreign policy. Since the...
- Latin America And A Food Price Shock - Imf Blog
Latin America and the Caribbean: Dealing with Another Food Price ShockIMF blog, October 25, 2012 by iMFdirectBy Luis Cubeddu and Sebastián SosaWorld food prices are on the rise again owing mainly to global weather-related...
- Venezuela: A Maneira Cubana De Fazer Filas...
Já que o coronel está construindo o "socialismo do século XXI", com a ajuda dos cubanos, que tal solicitar aos cubanos o know-how para organizar filas, algo que os cubanos aprenderam com o seu próprio "socialismo do século XX", inteiramente baseado...