05-12-2007, 01:37 PM
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Banned
Analyst
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Join Date: Nov 2006
Location: Stoke-on-Trent
Posts: 2,287
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More profit in the home market.
When the Cows Come Home
Quote:
Jamaica. Sun, sand, rum and reggae. Tourism is Jamaica’s largest foreign exchange earner, underpinning the entire economy of this tropical island.
Professor Michael Witter, Chairman of Jamaican Agricultural Board, who represented the Jamaican Government in the negotiations with the IMF, explains the thinking that has created the current situation: “As a part of that liberalisation [insisted on by the IMF] comes the removal of taxes and the removal of special concessions to local producers. The philosophy behind that was this neoliberal notion that markets know best, and if we remove the protection, our producers would be made more competitive as a result of competition with external, more efficient producers.”
But these producers also turn out to have subsidies, which are mysteriously allowed to remain in place. “In reality we had to buy into what is called a level playing field policy when there was no level playing field.”
Wolfensohn admits the logic of this: “I think everyone believes that a free market is probably in everyone's best interests. But what you cannot have is subsidies and tariffs on one side, and freedom on the other because it just doesn't work.”
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http://www.tve.org/lifeonline/index.cfm?aid=1438
Somebody has to pay for the subsidies. Once the international competition is done in by the use of subsidies the only way to make more profit is the home market.
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