Kirk Smith: Business/Finance

Kirk Smith: Business/Finance
Business, economy and economics, finance, investment news and information.

Whos Paying For Your Fix?
PFONT face=Verdana size=2STRONGby Kate Duncan/STRONG/FONT/P PFONT face=Verdana size=2STRONGMay/Jun 2003 Issue/STRONG/FONT/P PFONT face=Verdana size=2Unless your morning latte was a fair trade blend, it probably cost more than what the farmer who picked the beans earns in a day./FONT/P PFONT face=Verdana size=2Conventional coffee prices are at their lowest in a century, even below the cost of production. Farmers have been leaving the fruit to rot on the tree, pulling the kids out of school, abandoning the family land and pouring into the cities to find non-existent work. That#146;s why, as the most heavily traded commodity after oil, and the most common beverage after water, coffee is a major focus of the fair trade movement. /FONT/P PFONT face=Verdana size=2If your morning latte was a fair trade brew, it means the person who farmed the beans is earning enough to support his family. This is all well and good, but the way fair trade is usually explainednbsp;- with prices, numbers and statisticsnbsp;- ignores it#146;s lasting benefits. The true point of fair trade is the cultural, communal, and environmental stability it bolsters./FONT/P PFONT face=Verdana size=2A farmer who sells through fair trade is a member of a cooperative that is a vehicle for community empowerment. And not just a neighborhood watch: The people typically organized via fair trade are those whom the free market has filtered to the lowest economic stratum. Rather than maneuvering them into a position where they#146;re forced to take what they can get, fair trade recognizes farmers as equal partners, a platform from which they can command more control over their business and lives. /FONT/P PFONT face=Verdana size=2Fair trade is a different kind of business relationship between the producer and buyer, which has been an inspiration to help these communities pull together instead of caving to the pressure of all the things trying to blow them apart, says Monika Firl. Monika heads up producer relations for A href=http://www.cooperativecoffees.com/Cooperative Coffees/A, and as such, led half a dozen coffee roasters and me (as a grateful representative of A href=http://www.untours.com/idf/Idyll Development Foundation,/A one of Cooperative Coffee#146;s funders) on a buying trip to farmers#146; co-ops in Nicaragua, Guatemala, and Mexico in February, where we were able to see the effect for ourselves. [EMA href=http://www.clamormagazine.org/Clamor/A/EM]/FONT/P
Sugar Giants Shove Their Sweetener
PFONT face=Verdana size=2STRONGby Chris Tenove/STRONG/FONT/P PFONT face=Verdana size=2STRONGJul/Aug 2003 Issue/STRONG/FONT/P PFONT face=Verdana size=2What does anybody know about the sugar industry? The people who put the frosting on the frosted flakes keep a low profile and are happy when folks are too busy eating to ask a lot of questions. Now, though, a dust-up with the A href=http://www.who.int/en/World Health Organization (WHO)/Anbsp;has flushed them into the limelight, where theyre pitting profits against public health./FONT/P PFONT face=Verdana size=2The conflict was inflamed by a new set of dietary guidelines drawn from two years of research by the WHO and the A href=http://www.fao.org/UN Food and Agricultural Organization/A. The guidelines are part of a worldwide strategy to tame the swelling epidemic of obesity, diabetes, osteoporosis and cardiovascular diseases. One recommendation is that free sugars (i.e. sugar added to foods) should make up no more than 10 percent of our daily caloric intake. The sugar lobby reacted to that suggestion like a toddler asked to hand back his Halloween booty.../FONT/P PFONT face=Verdana size=2It was particularly stupid for them to put in writing that theyre going to try to get Congress to take away WHOs money, says Michael Jacobsen, executive director of the A href=http://www.cspinet.org/Center for Science in the Public Interest/A. It gave consumers a chance to see the kind of bullying that is usually done behind closed doors. [A href=http://www.adbusters.org/EMAdbusters/EM/A]/FONT/P
There Was a Reason They Called It... The Casino Economy
PFONT face=Verdana size=2STRONGby Thomas Croft/STRONG/FONT/P PFONT face=Verdana size=2STRONG02 Jul 03/STRONG/FONT/P PFONT face=Verdana size=2In the last three years, a perfect storm of rising energy costs, record consumer and corporate debt and massive trade and current account deficits joined with unsustainable investment practices, and resulted in an economic collapse. The first recession since 1929 to be primarily caused by over-investment, these collateral damage investing schemes-in overseas boondoggles and sweatshops, extreme mergers, absurd dot-coms and derivative scams-all came home to roost. Enron used all of these investment tricks and more. The corruption scandals of 2001-2 completed the melt-down. Now, the world is probably in a double-dip recession, thanks partly to the scandal and continuing international disruptions./FONT/P PFONT face=Verdana size=2The problem with casino bets and Russian Roulette is that somebody always loses. [A href=http://www.counterpunch.com/EMCounterPunch/EM/A]/FONT/P

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