by frog
These two letters in The Press caught my eye today:
Heh heh. And on a more serious note:
Incidentally the preferential trade agreement with China comes into force tomorrow (1 October). From that point on provisions that make it easier and faster for China to get its goods through our our customs and biosecurity take effect. This includes provisions I have mentioned earlier such as Article 57 (Release of Goods) which guarantees that New Zealand will release Chinese imported good from customs within 48 hours of their arrival.
For me the issue is not that the food is Chinese. I’m sure Chinese food is as safe as food in many other parts of the world. In fact, after having read a bundle of books recently about industrially farmed and manufactured food in the United States, I’m now more worried about what that potential trade agreement holds for our supermarket shelves. The real issue is one of food security, food sovereignty and the right to know what we are eating and where it is from. It’s embarrassing that we are signing trade agreements that actively undermine our own consumer rights to determine what we eat.
Published in Campaign | Economy, Work, & Welfare | Health & Wellbeing by frog on Tue, September 30th, 2008
Tags: , billboards, China, Free trade, letters to the editor, melamine
on the trolls and those who are unable to keep on topic
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- “The real issue is one of food security, food sovereignty and the right to know what we are eating and where it is from.”
Food security is best ensured through diversifying sources, which means more trade not less.
Food sovereignty, if Wikipedia is to be believed, is a collection of witless drivel so laughable and feeble I’m inclined to believe it’s a student joke.
And as for “the right to know what we are eating and where it is from,” well, you just made that up, didn’t you. There is no “right” for you to force other people to label their goods to enable you to indulge your specific prejudices. Let’s call it your Yellow Star legislation.
- “It’s embarrassing that we are signing trade agreements that actively undermine our own consumer rights to determine what we eat.”
If you were at all concerned with our rights you’d be arguing for complete unilateral free trade so all of us could treat with whoever we wished on whatever terms we found agreeable. That’s real freedom. As it is you employ the old trick of using the word “rights” when you are in fact talking about taking away our freedoms and imposing still more conditions and restrictions upon what should be our private lives.
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wat, True, there is no “right? for you to force other people to label their goods to enable you to indulge your specific prejudices.
That is actually a responsibility imposed on manufacturers and importers by the Theory of the Perfect Free Market – to provide perfect information. It is the Government’s sole legitimate role to ensure that manufacturers and importers are acting in a perfectly free market manner.
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Kevyn,
- “That is actually a responsibility imposed on manufacturers and importers by the Theory of the Perfect Free Market – to provide perfect information.”
This is something you just made up, isn’t it. And just what is “perfect information”? Surely any attempt to provide such a thing would involve documentation the size of an encyclopedia attached to each and every item you bought. After all, why should we be forced to pander just to the Green Party’s particular prejudices in this regard and not everyone else’s?
-”It is the Government’s sole legitimate role to ensure that manufacturers and importers are acting in a perfectly free market manner.”
Exactly. And a perfectly free market manner means just that – allowing a buyer and a seller to freely reach whatever deal they find mutually profitable and not dictating conditions to either side. Vendors are free to label their goods any way they wish provided it is not fraudulent.
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Wat,
ahh, right…
so following the logic of that first sentance in that paragraph; why should the labeling not be fraudulent?
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wat, You haven’t read the works of Leon Walrus?
Vendors are free to label their goods any way they wish provided it is not fraudulent or deceptive . The former is, of course, a condition currently dictated by statute whereas the latter is merely a condition dictated by God, assuming the english translation of the ten commandments is correct. Not being one of those with a direct communication line with God I can’t claim to be perfectly informed on this matter.
Perfect information is the perfect quantity and quality of information required to achieve perfect competition and to satisfy a perfectly rational decision maker. It’s easiest to understand this concept in doctor’s surgery. The perfect information is precisely the information that leads to the correct diagnosis. No more and no less.
The three preconditions for a perfect free market (perfect competition, perfect rationality and perfect information) will never exist in the world outside of academic economists minds so, naturally, it is entirely unreasonable to expect the free market to work perfectly. Unfortunately democracy has the same failings, so that government rarely provides governance of the quality required to identify and adress the shortcomings in the marketplace.
To paraphrase Churchill “The free market is the worst system of economy – except for all the rest.
Here are the lecturers notes for the economics lecture you slept through…
http://www.business.unr.edu/faculty/parker/ec301/ec301s03lec5.pdf
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Walras
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The problem seems to be consumers. If they are silly enough to think that something labelled as ‘food’ is edible, it’s their own look out. Why should the government baby-sit the gullible?
People have to realise that in a free market nobody can be trusted. ‘Trust’ and ‘safety’ are marketable commodities – if you want them, you have to pay for them. It’s just the same as me charging you $20 a week not to kick your windows in.
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Sam, You are describing a modern corporate free market. ‘Trust’ and ’safety’ aren’t inherently marketable commodities in a free market. That they have become so is merely a sign that the new robber barrons, the corporate raiders, have pushed their conception that ‘Trust’ and ’safety’ are transaction costs into the mainstream of corporate management and governance. The whole purpose of corporations is to minimise transaction costs. But once shareholders become the end rather than a means to a greater end, you no longer have genuine capitalism because, in reality, the “shareholders” pushing this view are actually share “traders”. They aren’t holding shares in a venture that they believe in, with the possibility of sharing in the value added if the venture is successful, like the investors in Britains railways did. That’s when the purpose of business was progress, today shareholders (including managers with share “bonuses”) insist that the purpose of business is to make a profit. Actually the business of business is business. The jobs, profit, progress and public good that come from that are simply the cherries on top.
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- “Trust’ and ’safety’ aren’t inherently marketable commodities in a free market. ”
Huh?
I’ve trusted banks and other financial institutions to handle large sums of money for me from the other side of the world. Intermediaries I’ve never met. And I’ve never had a problem. And nobody came round and broke my windows either.
I think you’ll find that the National Bank, to pick an example at random, builds its entire business on its reputation for trust and safety.
- “today shareholders (including managers with share “bonuses”) insist that the purpose of business is to make a profit. Actually the business of business is business. The jobs, profit, progress and public good that come from that are simply the cherries on top.”
Where to start with such nonsense?
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“Where to start with such nonsense?” Start with some brain exercises. When you have developed sufficient intellect all those concepts that currently defeat your ability to make sense of them will be revealed as the uncommonsense that they are. It worked for Einstein so it just might work for you too.
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