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Path: utzoo!watmath!watarts!cdanderson
From: cdanderson@watarts.UUCP
Newsgroups: net.politics
Subject: Re: The Joy of Starvation***New Subject, also***
Message-ID: <2082@watarts.UUCP>
Date: Mon, 30-Jan-84 00:25:24 EST
Article-I.D.: watarts.2082
Posted: Mon Jan 30 00:25:24 1984
Date-Received: Sun, 5-Feb-84 10:23:12 EST
References: <854@ihuxl.UUCP>, <355@rayssd.UUCP>, <249@pyuxss.UUCP> rabbit.2437
Lines: 43

       Ah, to jump boldly where none have gone before.
       One of the ways in which the U.S. in particular has been exploiting 
the 3'rd World (as we call it) and causing starvation is by setting up an 
elite to elite trading pattern in which the 3'rd world is a provider of 
raw materials, especially agricultural ones, and labour to supply  
ourselves with "luxury" goods. For example, we have turned much of Mexico 
into a grower of peppers and (of all necessary foodstuffs) carnations.
Before, it was cotton, but a major epidemic among the crops and a soft 
market killed most of this, and many peasants. 
       As well, as the 1'st world's M.N.C.'s have introduced (often under
direction from the World Bank) 1'st World, i.e. capital intensive, technology
into these countries, two problems have been made manifest; 
              1) the small-area farmers have been pushed off their land
due to increasing taxation and a higher over-all expense for goods in 
relation to the purchasing power of the agricultural produce. This means
that they usually enter the already strained "work-force" of the urban 
centres (witness the barrios around Mexico City and most other capitols
in the 3'rd World) and starve as jobs are extremely difficult to procure
and the cost of staples relatively great, in part due to a decreased supply.
In this case, the taxes and land prices rise due to the greater earning potential, for
some, of the land.
They tend to not eat many carnations or cotton (maybe they haven't read 
Catch-22).
                2) as the M.N.C.'s have a much better ability to provide 
collateral, they drain the local money markets. As was pointed out by 
someone earlier, they tend to extract $3 for every $1 they put in.
This, as well, increases interest rates or inflation, depending on the 
economic model followed, to the detriment of the local farmer. It is 
a myth that our companies provide great infusions of capital into these
areas, they merely mobilize existing monies.
             **************************
        Regarding proceedings of the U.N. etc., this is likely a futile 
exercise as it will come down to the point of "Well,do you believe what 
was said by the U.S. or by country X?". If one takes the views of one 
country, and the other person, of the other, to be correct, not much 
is going to come of it.
         For example, some people beleived the U.S. when at first it denied
any involvement in the Allende coup in Chile, etc. or feel, still that it 
had any right to invade the Phillipines, Costa Rica, the Dominican Republic
(to ensure a steady supply of pineapples and profit), Grenada,....Nicaragua (?),etc.
        Have fun, I've had lots of practice as a fire-eater,
                     C.D. Anderson
                     watarts!cdanderson