Farmers fight back against free trade
By Walden Bello

The 20th century was a terrible blight on small farmers everywhere. In both wealthy capitalist economies and in socialist countries, farmers paid a heavy price for industrialization. In advanced capitalist countries like the United States, a deadly combination of economies of scale, capital-intensive technology and the market led to large corporations cornering agricultural production and processing. Small and medium farms were relegated to a marginal role in production and a minuscule portion of the work force.

The Soviet Union, meanwhile, took to heart Karl Marx’s snide remarks about the “idiocy of rural life” and, through state repression, transformed farmers into workers on collective farms. Expropriation of the peasants’ surplus production was meant not only to feed the cities but also to serve as the source of the so-called “primitive accumulation” of capital for industrialization.

Today, perhaps the greatest threat to small farmers is free trade. And the farmers are fighting back. They have helped, for instance, to stalemate the Doha round of negotiations of the World Trade Organization (WTO). This tug of war between farmers and free trade is nowhere more visible than in Asia. FULL ARTICLE

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Posted by stan as Analysis at 4:51 PM PDT

Jephraim Gundzik writes for Asia Times on financial matters; and he is one of a handful of investment advisers who seems to maintain some connection with Planet Earth. This is not an optimistic assessment; and this site has been saying for some time that the magic carpet of the housing market had faulty aerodynamics. The crisis of accumulation that has swallowed billions for decades is turning toward the metropolitan middle class now to “externalize” the costs of all that fictional value.

Investing in a fool’s paradise
By Jephraim P Gundzik

The rapid slowing of America’s economy has been shrugged off by stock markets worldwide, which continue to vault higher on the increasingly misplaced notion that corporate profits will grow perpetually.

In sharp contrast, currency markets have grasped the idea that the US economy is falling into recession, punishing the dollar. As economic weakness intensifies in the months ahead, expect FULL ARTICLE

Posted by stan as Analysis at 6:11 AM PDT