151–160 of 184 posts
One might think that the importance of self-reliance with respect to essential resources is something to be learned from the past years. So, I'm not sure it's such a great idea to harm our local food production and import via the Atlantic ocean instead.
One might think that the importance of self-reliance with respect to essential resources is something to be learned from the past years. So, I'm not sure it's such a great idea to harm our local food production and import via the Atlantic ocean instead.
You of course say self reliance on essential resources and I still think for most countries that could be very expensive very fast. People are complaining about the high costs specifically of the essential products when their prices are raising. Without a serious rethinking of our society we cannot probably fix that. And nobody is willing now to vote and agree to suffer for a generation to fix this system.
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I just took a look at a McDonald's three blocks away from my home. A Big Mac with a big soda and big portion of fried potatoes cost AR$14,200 that is US$9.80 at the "blue" exchange rate. For US$18 you can buy a huge and fancy burger.
I flew from Asia to Buenos Aries after on a whim deciding not to return home to the US. I ran out of USD a while ago. Everywhere in the world I can withdraw cash with a small fee and whatever the exchange rate is. In Argentina it was a $10 fee plus the government set exchange rate and max withdraw was 60,000 pesos. So I was paying $10 to get $60 worth of pesos.
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The PRC doesn't even have free trade within itself. Probably a one sided deal, but the apparatchiks have somewhere to stow their money now.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free_trade_agreements_of_China
The eventual aim is to join all these blocs up.
Isn't the eventual aim of all of us on this planet that we all trade free, live peacefully and have our own prosperous lives?
It's not about all of us. It's about a select few who think they are better than the rest of us and form our political and business classes.
Those people don't want most of the world's population living untroubled lives. When work is almost completely automated the rest of us will be surplus to requirements.
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Quite a few people are willing to ruin their own lives and prosperity to make others worse off. Once you realize that, a lot of things become more explicable.
But I don't think their goal is explicitly to make others worse off, it's just the consequence of their actions. But in their mind, they're rightful, they're doing the best they can and they care about others on the level "you should". Most people think like this, including you and me.
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And it's already pretty cheap, how much cheaper can it get? Usually you'd pay somewhere around 1-1.2 EUR for an espresso, 1.5-2.0 EUR for "fancier" coffees, at least here in Spain (depends a lot on exactly where though).
You never make your own coffee at home then? Price of coffee as in the ingredient for making the espresso has about doubled since covid.
The main issue as I see it is that we need food security in the EU. Especially high quality nutrious dense food like beef. And EU farmers are subject to a ridiculous number of regulations and costs. The thing is, these may very well be good for environmental reasons, but it doesn't work if we just start importing from countries that do the opposite.
Food security is the last concern for Europe. How do you get that idea? > And EU farmers are subject to a ridiculous number of regulations and costs. Almost the whole EU budget is for agriculture subsidies. Countries outside EU have to comply with the same standards. The US could for instance export in bulk to the EU, if they would manage to bring food up to basic standards. It doesn't happen, but is not because the…
On the contrary, it is one of the main concerns of the EU. And has been since the beginning. The CAP still makes up 40% of the budget.
And frankly, for the first time I fully appreciate it. With the current state of the world it's nice that the EU isn't dependent on third parties for their food supply.
I am from a country (Ireland) that has a huge agricultural sector so I sympathise with the argument that this will be bad for European farmers. That said, food production in the EU is already largely kept alive by subsidies so if this deal makes life more difficult for farmers I can see the result being higher subsidies to compensate rather than the large scale closure of European farms. Which obviously isn't great b…
All in all, mercosur already has strong ties with western europe (Portugal, Spain, Germany, Italy), both historic-cultural and economic, I see this as a huge win
The main issue as I see it is that we need food security in the EU. Especially high quality nutrious dense food like beef. And EU farmers are subject to a ridiculous number of regulations and costs. The thing is, these may very well be good for environmental reasons, but it doesn't work if we just start importing from countries that do the opposite.