Accidental Farmer’s Remarks Bulletin (VII) Sarkozy’s war

Apparently, the heavy defeat in the regional elections convinced the President of the French Republic that rather than a change in tune he had to step up his rhetoric. Whereas in the beginning of the month, in his speech at the “Salon de l’Agriculture” he was ready for a compromise trading less farming budget for more protectionism, he announced yesterday he is prepared to go to war with Europe to rescue agriculture.
Trading farming for protectionism was quite a bad idea, to declare a farming war on Europe might be even a worse one.
Commodity markets – in certain respects like financial ones – tend to be volatile, and, as in many other economic areas, competition in agricultural products tends to be harsh. Agriculture, an activity largely based on family structures, suffers heavily from this situation. If the modern welfare state thought of employment benefits and a large set of social mechanisms to face negative market evolutions, its intervention in farming communities uses different instruments, but aims at similar objectives.
To insulate agriculture from international trade is the oldest and still the most common way to face these situations, an instrument whose scope was slowly but substantially diminished since the end of last century.
The present economic crisis led many in the Western World to have second thoughts on the liberalisation they promoted.
Can we really allow financial institutions to act as they wish only for the tax-payer to pay the bill when their decisions prove to have been reckless?
Does it really make sense to exclude currency policy from the framework of trade negotiations?
Can we consider the Asian economic giants as least developed countries exempted from trade liberalisation in food products and in assuming full environmental and other responsibilities at World level?
Personally, I am far from convinced that our Western leaders gave full attention to these problems or found the best way to address them. In my opinion, we need to consider stricter regulatory frameworks in some cases and more balanced approaches to trade, currency and financial matters in other cases.
However, it does not mean that going backwards is a possible outcome or that it might be conceived as a solution to our problems.
When Mr. Sarkozy despises any new deals at the WTO level and demands protectionism in agriculture he comforts Asian agricultural protectionism and refuses to consider changes to the rules of international trade!
A couple years ago, while in Taiwan, I got amazed with the impressive increase in the demand of dairy products. At the time the existing statistics revealed that the Taiwanese per-capita consumption of dairy products was something like 50 times the figure for mainland China.
Did Mr. Sarkozy ever thought what could this mean for the famous French hundreds of different cheese to have a real opening of the Chinese market?
And what does Mr. Sarkozy expect to keep out of the French territory by his closed borders policy? Brazilian soya beans and Argentinean beef?
Shouldn’t it be obvious that the more the French agriculture will be turned to the rest of the World, the more it can take advantage of its quality products with high value added?
Who, more than the French performing food industry will be hurt by a closed borders policy?
Not by chance, in the same speech where Mr. Sarkozy announced his will to trade a diminishing European budget for a fortress Europe, he announced another bill of 50 million Euros to the French farmers.
What is quite obvious in Mr. Sarkozy’s intentions is the will to renationalize ever more the European agricultural policy, replacing the European budget – that after a transition will have to be fully shared with new member states – by the French one.
Yesterday, Mr. Sarkozy reminded the 2009 terrible blow to French farmer’s revenue to conclude that he would wage a war in Europe rather than allow to a dismembering of existing Common Agricultural Policy.
The undoing of the oldest and more common European policy would be another blow not only to Europe but also to its agriculture, but does that mean we should leave it unchanged?
After all, wasn’t it under the existing CAP that farmer’s incomes tumbled last year in France?
Doesn’t it mean we really need to think it over again?

Brussels, 2010-03-25

(Paulo Casaca)

Accidental Farmer’s Remarks Bulletin (VI) Perfectible Storms

I suppose the most perfect kind of storm for a farmer is the non-existing storm, or the feared storm that transforms itself into a needed smooth rainfall. This is particularly so in the history of the CAP. For instance, those who wanted to undermine Sicco Mansholt structural reform proposal of 1968 did so by presenting it as a revolutionary event, carefully hiding the fact that the Mansholt’s proposals of 1968 were a redrafting of his own Stresa proposals presented in 1958 and that Mansholt always thought to be a tremendous mistake to replace structural needed reforms by market interventions.

Green Ray Over Iraq

Report commissioned by the “Commission to Study the Organisation of Peace”, USA

Research Team directed by Paulo Casaca, in cooperation with Jamila Abu Shanab, Kamal Batal

Link to PDF version (388 KB): http://tinyurl.com/groiraq or http://www.box.net/shared/hgkec5xytf

Link to PDF of printed version (866 KB): http://tinyurl.com/groi-pv or http://www.box.net/shared/u2rbmuagk3

Tolerance, peace and democracy in Iraq
What role for the international community?
Index
Foreword
Acknowledgements
Section I From cradle of civilisation to prey of barbarity
Section II, A thorny road out of Chaos
Section III From the green line to the green ray
Section IV München, Max-Pröbstlstrasse, 12
Section V UNIFIL in Lebanon by Kamal Batal
Section VI Elections in Gaza by Jamila Abu Shanab
Section VII Conclusions and recommendations
Annex Accounts

THE SLUTSKY MATRIX'S MYTH

THE SLUTSKY MATRIX'S MYTH*

Link to PDF version (154KB): http://tinyurl.com/SLUTSKYMM or http://www.box.net/shared/626e67lznn

Abstract; JEL reference A12, B13, B21, D11 and D61

Key words: Compensated demand function; Consumer’s surplus; Slutsky.


The neo-classic revolution of the XIXth century seventies applied the Newtonian Physics Algebra to economics and in so-doing was soon confronted with the ever-present problem of the value of money. From these days onwards several solutions to circumvent rather than to solve the issue were devised. The utility indifference and the functional approaches are shown not to be more realistic than the original Marshallian one. The most known solution to the problem is the "Slutsky Matrix", obtained through a device called "compensated demand function". In the present paper the compensation operation is shown - in analytic and experimental terms - to have no scientific support; the problem is restated in basic differential calculus language equating the central role of the value of money.

Resposta da Assembleia da Republica

Resposta A.R.

Carta de resposta da Assembleia da Republica realativa ao assunto tratado nos posts:

Jornalismo de encomenda
Ao Director do Correio da Manhã
Ao Presidente da Assembleia da República

Accidental Farmer’s Remarks Bulletin (V) Olive oil

"Acidental farmer" at http://capreform.eu/

Accidental Farmer’s Remarks Bulletin
(V) Olive oil

You will understand that – minor as it might seem – the point that got most of my attention in the paper presented today by the Presidency of the European Council on Agriculture was the one on olive oil.
After all, as an olive-oil farmer I have a vested interest on the issue, and therefore I was taken by surprise by reading that the Presidency considers “the authorisation of the private storage of olive oil in 2009, which contributed to a recovery in prices and subsequent market stabilisation” as an example of the success of the existing market control mechanisms.

Accidental Farmer's Remarks Bulletin (IV) Controlling Markets

Accidental Farmer’s Remarks Bulletin
(IV) Controlling Markets

This morning, the European Ministers for Agriculture will gather in Brussels mainly for “an exchange of views on the future of the Common Agricultural Policy as regards market management measures in the years after 2013.” As last week press agenda also informs “The Presidency will present a paper on this issue.”
The subject has been hotly discussed in and out of the official corridors of the European institutions and now Ministers will be called into expressing their views on whether they think the future CAP should be more or less driven by the market.

Accidental Farmer’s Remarks Bulletin (III) On Budget

Accidental Farmer’s Remarks Bulletin
(III) On Budget

In 1962 European leaders could not agree on a long-term solution for applying the agreed principle of financial solidarity, and the 1962 agricultural financial regulation was valid only for three years.
As an agreement had not been reached in 1965, Walter Hallstein, President of the European Commission, presented his bold proposal for a Community budget based on own resources rather than on contributions from the Member States in front of the European Parliament, instead of the Council.
Otherwise, it is also worth remembering that this bold act from the President of European Commission (that ultimately, made the Council refuse the renewal of his mandate) led to the “empty chair” crisis.
President De Gaulle did not find at all acceptable the idea of having what he considered being a vital interest of France to be dealt with this way, presented to the Parliament for a decision to be taken by a qualified majority in the Council.

Accidental Farmer’s Remarks Bulletin (II) Back in Brussels

Accidental Farmer’s Remarks Bulletin
(II) Back in Brussels

My first attempt to respond to the kind invitation shown in the CAP 2020 website by giving my contribution was rebuffed by a demand of the credentials of the institution on whose behalf I was speaking before I could submit a 500 words comment.
I tried to convince whoever is in charge of the website that I was the rightful representative of an Accidental’s Farmer NGO, created in this very same instant, but I guess the argument was not convincing since my contribution did not show up.
Being a member of an organisation that actually makes part of the environmental NGO consortia, and actually never being asked to give my opinion on the whole of these issues, I felt strongly how this Brussels spirit of “Pyramidal democracy” is so pervasive.
My mind got back twenty years from now when, courtesy of the German Marshall Fund of the United States, I was beginning a six-week tour of the United States by visiting the cabinet of the Republican Senator Arlon Spector from Pennsylvania.

Accidental Farmer’s Remarks Bulletin (I) Accidental meeting in Lisbon

Accidental Farmer’s Remarks Bulletin
(I) Accidental meeting in Lisbon
As the German Marshall Fund of the United States invited me to air my ideas on the future of the Common Agricultural Policy I started by “goggling” the name of Michael Tracy, my main academic reference when I was as a visiting professor in the Technical University of Lisbon on “Common Agricultural Policy”, fifteen years ago.
Surprise, surprise, no comments on the CAP but one fascinating, short and balanced article on the Lisbon Treaty that concludes by saying:
The Lisbon Treaty, unfortunately, resembles the camel that must have been designed by a committee. Provisions aimed at making EU decision-making more effective are counter-balanced by others seeking to limit its powers in the interests of greater democracy. As a result, it is questionable whether it will achieve either, or whether it will make the EU institutions more popular.
This is particularly regrettable since the lack of popular support means that there is no chance of any further treaty changes in the foreseeable future.