World’s poor lose out in western farm subsidy policy

Posted on October 6, 2002 by Other News Sources

Michael Campbell
Calgary Herald
October 6, 2002

Critics argue subsidies for western farmers are hurting those in the Third World.

You probably didn’t wake up this morning thinking about farm subsidies but that may just be the problem. If you’re debating what wins the award as the most ridiculous economic policy of the world’s richest nations, farm subsidies may get the nod.

Let me put it another way. Taxpayers and consumers, especially in Europe and the United States, are subsidizing the destruction of small farms in the world’s poorest nations, which has led to starvation and death.

Well-known economic and investment analyst Dennis Gartman provided a wonderful example of this insanity recently. Farmers in Germany, France and Great Britain are the largest exporters of white sugar in the world, yet, according to a recent report from Oxfam, they are also the world’s most expensive producers.

The cost of production for European producers is about $1,075 per tonne while the cost for countries such as Senegal, Ethiopia, Senegal and Mozambique is $450 per tonne. The European producers are supported above their production costs, which guarantees that they overproduce and keeps prices down.

As the Guardian newspaper points out, companies such as British Sugar are making huge profits under the European Union’s price-fixing deal that pays farmers and firms up to three times the world’s going rate for their sugar. The British government pays this small group of farmers and producers $2.5 billion a year.

As Oxfam concludes, Europe should be an importer of white sugar but only through the generosity of taxpayers can they destroy the livelihood of some of the poorest farmers on the globe.

Of course, it’s not just Europe that assures the world’s most impoverished nations can’t compete. The peanut producers of the southern states are supported at three times the world price and in a delicious irony the U.S. government then goes out and pays foreign buyers to buy the peanuts from the United States at or below the market price.

According to the OECD, European farmers on average get 35 per cent of their income from subsidies, which accounts for nearly half of all EU spending. When indirect subsidies such as price supports and tax breaks are factored in, EU farmers got more than $150 billion in aid in 2001, which was about twice what the farmers in the United States receive.

While subsidy levels in Canada are far below those in Europe, Japan and the United States, we still play the same game. As Lawrence Solomon, co-author of the book Agricultural Subsidies in Canada: 1992-2001, points out, Canadian farmers on average receive $3.56 in direct subsidies for every $1 of profit they produced. In fact, there was no profit without direct government subsidies that amounted to $3.752 billion in 2000.

On average, Canadian farmers receive about 11 per cent of their income from government aid, while their American counterparts receive about 21 per cent. New Zealand has managed a vibrant farm industry with only one per cent of their income coming from government.

What’s incredible is that this massive amount of money goes to less than two per cent of the population in North America and four per cent in Europe. The vast majority of the recipients have a much larger net worth than the taxpayers and consumers who provide the cash.

The latest farm aid recipients, due to the Bush administration’s new bill, include such hard cases as Ted Turner, one of the Rockefellers and 20 Fortune 500 companies.

But don’t hold your breath for change. The farmers have successfully intimidated politicians in every country and, when the WTO put the elimination of agricultural subsidies and tariffs in order to help Third World nations at the top of the list for Seattle and Quebec City, the anti-globalization protesters took to the streets.

Posted in Agriculture (Rural) | Leave a comment

‘Our dear departed’: guest speaker Maureen Hambrecht

Posted on October 5, 2002 by urbanrenaissanceinst

Ron Pullan

October 5, 2002

Wakefield and District Family History Society

How society has dealt with mortal remains in the past: as the nineteenth century progressed it was becoming obvious that the local churchyards could no longer cope in the growing towns and cities.

A meeting was held on Saturday the 5th October when the guest speaker was Maureen Hambrecht. Her topic “Our dear departed” dealt with death and how our society dealt with the mortals remains of those who had died in the past.

Churchyard headstones abound with euphemisms for death such as “passed on; passed away or passed through.”

Reasons for death were described in language that we would find strange today. For example parish registers might indicate that the deceased had “decayed by nature” or “decayed by evil.” Accidental deaths were “visitations by God.” While laudanum was sometimes used with disastrous consequences when used in order to keep babies quiet and not with the intention of killing a child.

The main causes of death, according to a Leeds Health Report in the nineteenth century, were from small pox, measles, scarlatina, typhus, cholera, tuberculosis, convulsions, pneumonia and bronchitis.

Last words or supposed last words of the dying often have an amusing ring to them. Lord Palmerston “Die, my dear doctor, that’s the last thing I want to do.” Or George VI “How is the Empire?” A general in the American civil war was told to keep his head below the parapet to which he responded “Nonsense they couldn’t hit an elephant from this dis……”

Churchyards have been used for burials for over a thousand years. The church being in the middle so that those entering the church would be for ever reminded of their own mortality.

The south side near to the church was first used then the east, the west and then the north. [The latter being in the shadow of the church was where the devil lurked].

Suicides, however, were often buried at crossroads for it was thought that suicides walked after death and so being buried in such a place would confuse the spirit of the the deceased so that they wouldn’t know the way home.

Coffins became more commonly used by the 1800’s before that a woollen shroud would be used. The body would be rested at the lychgate where it was inspected to ensure wool was used and not other material or a fine of £5 could be levied. [Protection of the wool trade?].

Funerals for the rich would often be sumptuous affairs but for the poor a paupers or a common grave was the result. A plot could hold ten or more bodies in order to economise. As recent as 1911 in Leeds a report noted how the insurance taken out by the deceased was 1s 9d short of the overall cost and that members of the family had to pay the difference and went short of food for the next two weeks.

As the nineteenth century progressed it was becoming obvious that the local churchyards could no longer cope in the growing towns and cities. Private cemetaries and then corporation ones were created.

Headstones are often a valuable source for family and local historians. The earliest that might exist are from the seventeenth century and could be highly decorative and have verses that were often sad but often humourous. For example one such “Opened my eyes to take a peak, didn’t like it so went to sleep.”

Scottish headstones are often informative carrying several names of women with their maiden names. Occupations are also sometimes given along with the address of the deceased.

The growing popularity of cremations has meant that headstones will become fewer although churchyards and cemetaries will carry small memorial stones.

Once again Maureen Hambrecht delivered a very enjoyable talk that informed as well as entertained.

Posted in Cities, Culture | Leave a comment

Health and the city

Posted on October 2, 2002 by Other News Sources

Lawrence Solomon
National Post
October 2, 2002

The farther we live from cities, the sicker we are and the sooner we die, Statistics Canada revealed in a series of recently released reports. The closer we live to cities, the healthier we are. Those who live in large urban areas – whether metropolitan areas such as Vancouver, Toronto and Montreal, or urban centres with populations of 500,000 or more – tend to be the healthiest of all.

In part, these bigger-city residents are healthier than small town and country folk due to clean living. Statscan placed different parts of Canada into one of 10 geographic groups, two of them citified (metro and large urban) and eight of them more rural in character, such as Maritime and Northern (see chart). Citified people are less likely to be smokers and drinkers, and less likely to be obese, than any of the other eight groups.

But clean living explains little of the salutary result of city living, let alone why some people get sick and others remain healthy. Neither does the availability of doctors, specialists, and hospitals in major centres explain the urban health effect. Says Statscan: “The variations between regions in the availability of these health-care services do not appear to play a role in accounting for individual health status differences.”

Instead, Statscan and the medical world agree, a dominant factor behind good health involves our social status. After adjusting for lifestyle factors such as eating and smoking, the health of the poor fares worst, followed by that of blue- and white-collar workers, followed by doctors, lawyers and other professionals. Even these professionals aren’t as healthy, and don’t live as long, as those who occupy higher-still rungs on the socio-economic ladder.

Why would highly educated, affluent professionals like doctors and lawyers fare worse than their socio-economic superiors? The best answer lies in the health effects of being in control. Study after study has shown that those who have most control over their lives are likeliest to live free and healthy. Thus individual empowerment, rather than the money, education or social status that tends to be empowering, may be the elixir that leads to a long and healthy life.

Statscan’s recent health studies support the empowerment hypothesis. The data describing small town and rural folk often paints an unflattering, devil-may-care portrait. Maritimers outside big centres are disproportionately big-time drinkers and smokers who are obese and rarely exercise. They’re also poorly educated and less likely to be employed. But while this live-for-today lifestyle harms their physical health, their mental health shows little sign of strain. Rural Maritimers are relatively stress free and unlikely to suffer from depression. Rural folk in other parts of Canada also broadly share these come-what-may characteristics.

In contrast, although urban residents tend to live high-stress lives, they’re more motivated to become well educated, they’re less likely to be dependent on government transfers, and they are much, much healthier. In the culturally diverse and commercially oriented city, even poor residents – the bottom 40% – outlive rural residents in most of the country, and the very poorest urbanites – the bottom 20% – outlive residents in Northern communities. Statscan doesn’t say why poor urbanites fare so well – they tend to be ill-educated and suffer from high unemployment – but the answer may well lie in empowerment. In the city, even the poor can be motivated by optimism, and have realistic prospects for a better life. In the more traditional countryside, change comes more slowly, and people are more often resigned to their lot in life.

Governments respond to the plight of rural residents with compassion, by providing rural residents with superior social safety nets. These safety nets have their benefits, but they also have their drawbacks. They encourage rural folk to stay put, preventing their horizons from straying from their fishing villages or logging towns, quashing thoughts that they may have of venturing out into the commercial world, with all its risks and rewards. In the rural areas, mother bird forces her young to leave the nest, knowing it’s ultimately best for her brood. Benevolent government, meanwhile, kills rural Canadians with its kindness.

Life Expectancy:
In yearsCanadian average: 78.3
Large cities (500,000+): 79.6
Metropolitan areas: 78.8
Smaller cities: 78.8
Ontario rural commuters: 78.3
Prairies (rural well-off): 77.9
Prairies (rural low-income): 77.8
Quebec rural: 77.7
Maritime rural: 77.0
Northern: 76.7
Northern aboriginal: 71.8
Source: Statistics Canada
Posted in Culture, Regulation | Leave a comment

The facts on immigration

Posted on October 2, 2002 by Other News Sources

Andrew Coyne
National Post
October 2, 2002

Martin Collacott proceeds apace. From the alarmism and selective quotation of his recent anti-immigration tract for the Fraser Institute, he has graduated to insults. Thus, for the crime of having provided what he professes most to crave, a debate, he responds by calling me “poorly informed” and decrying my “profound ignorance.”

Readers who wish to judge the depths of my ignorance for themselves will find a fuller statement of my views as they appeared in The Next City magazine. But let me just make a few points in the space I have here.

I noted previously that immigration is not especially high at present, as Mr. Collacott and his fellow restrictionists seem to believe, but rather is well below our historic average – about 1% of the population per year. In reply, Mr. Collacott claims I had “to reach back almost 100 years” to find the last time immigration crossed the 1% threshold. Wrong: In 1967, we admitted 223,000 immigrants, about the same as currently, into a population of little more than 20 million. Similar or higher numbers were admitted through much of the 1950s.

In addition to exaggerating the scale of current immigration, Mr. Collacott places heavy emphasis on the supposed steep decline in quality of recent immigrants, which he attributes to a politically motivated shift in favour of family-class immigrants, rather than economic-class. Worse, he claims, is the tendency of immigrants to use this provision to bring in their aged parents. Far from ameliorating the problem of an aging population, he points out, immigrants make up a higher proportion of those over 65 (18%) than do the native-born (10%).

Had Mr. Collacott taken greater care with his use of statistics, however, he would have noticed that this is entirely a function of a previous generation of immigrants, those who came here 40 years ago or more. Among recent arrivals, the proportion aged 65 and over is just 5%, less than half the proportion among the native-born. Oops.

That distinction, between recent immigrants and earlier cohorts, is critical. Mr. Collacott is greatly exercised that recent arrivals should make such a poor showing in economic terms compared to the native-born population. Indeed, immigrants in the 1991-96 cohort have higher rates of unemployment (18.6% versus 9.9%) and lower average incomes ($15,000 versus $25,000) than native-born Canadians. But that was always true. New immigrants, whether because of language difficulties, lack of contacts, or problems getting their credentials accepted, always underperform the average. Within about 12 years, however, they have caught up with the native-born population, eventually surpassing them by a wide margin.

Research by Professor Ather Akbari of St. Mary’s University shows that the average immigrant household pays more than twice as much in taxes as it consumes in public services. In 1990, he calculates that family would have made an annual net transfer to the native-born population of $1,813, or almost $100 per current resident.

It’s probable the size of that transfer would be less now – it does seem that today’s immigrants are taking longer to catch up than previously – but not its direction. For it isn’t only that immigrants, once established, tend to earn more than the average. They are also less inclined to be a drain on the public purse. They are less likely to be in jail, for one, as Mr. Collacott concedes. They are more likely to hold a university degree, to be self-employed, or to own their own home; less likely to be divorced, to have a chronic condition like cancer or to suffer from alcoholism.

Ah, but what about all those settlement costs, for language training and the like? Mr. Collacott again quotes from the Economic Council of Canada’s 1991 report on immigration, which he continues to misrepresent as supporting his position. In fact, the Council estimated those costs at just $20 per capita annually. By comparison, just the scale-economy effects of higher immigration would, according to the Council’s figures, add about $70 to the incomes of current residents for every million people admitted. At a population of 100 million, the Council estimated per capita incomes would be 7% higher than at present.

Mr. Collacott neglects to mention that, just as he overlooks the Council’s meticulous empirical proof of what economic theory predicts: that immigration has no impact on unemployment. Neither does he include the Council’s finding that, far from raising social tensions, attitudes to immigrants tend to improve the higher the proportion of immigrants in a given community. Rates of ethnic intermarriage, to take just one indicator, have been climbing steadily for decades.

One final point. Mr. Collacott seems most offended that I should have compared him to Enoch Powell, for raising the spectre of race riots if immigration is not severely cut back. But where’s the offence? Powell foretold scenes of bloody violence following from the admission of large numbers of black and Asian immigrants, and sure enough they followed – 30 years later, sporadically, for any number of reasons, but still, violence is violence. I’d have thought Mr. Collacott would hold him up as a prophet.

Posted in History, Immigration, Sprawl | Leave a comment

Immigration debate, unstifled

Posted on September 28, 2002 by Other News Sources

Andrew Coyne
National Post
September 28, 2002

For the record, I don’t think Martin Collacott is a racist. The Fraser Institute analyst complains in his recent paper (Canada’s Immigration Policy: The Need for Major Reform) that critics of current immigration policy are often accused of racism, thus stifling what he believes is a much needed debate. The National Post, taking up his cause in an admiring editorial, urged “proponents of mass immigration” to “debate the subject substantively rather than resorting to slurs and questioning motives.”

Quite right. So let me say again: I don’t think Mr. Collacott is a racist. I do, however, think his economics are shaky, that his paper is riddled with dubious assumptions and unsupported assertions, and that he quotes selectively from the literature to support conclusions already found in his voluminous previous scratchings on the subject. It is, all in all, a shoddy piece of work.

The argument may be summarized as follows. Canada is currently experiencing “large-scale,” indeed “massive” immigration. This is imposing a heavy burden on the native-born population, whether in terms of increased unemployment, lower wages, higher crime and social tensions, or simply in the direct costs of resettlement programs. Yet no corresponding economic benefit has been shown. Indeed, he complains, the government has “no comprehensive plan” as to “how large a population Canada should have.” He suggests throttling immigration back to levels in keeping with the country’s “absorptive capacity.”

Let us first unbundle the assumptions hidden within these lines. Are current immigration levels, at roughly 0.8% of the population per year, “high”? Compared to what? Compared to the early 1980s, yes. Compared to the peak years, in the early 1900s, when immigrants were adding to our numbers at a rate of 3% per year, no. In fact, taking the whole of our history together, the average rate of immigration is about 1%. Current immigration levels are, by that standard, low.

What rate of immigration, second, would correspond with the country’s “absorptive capacity”? Mr. Collacott doesn’t say, and I’d love to know how he proposes to calculate it. All he will allow is that it is less than where it is now: the corollary to the idea that immigration is “high” because it is more than where it was before. I can only guess that something of the same methodology would guide the government in its determination of “how large a population Canada should have.”

But the most fundamental assumption underlying Mr. Collacott’s analysis is that it is up to the proponents of immigration to prove that it is of economic benefit to the host population – that the onus is on the immigrants to show why they should be admitted, rather than on the nativists to show why they should be kept out. This is not how we typically approach such questions. Generally, when it is proposed to restrict someone’s liberty, we say the burden of proof is on their detractors to show the harms that would otherwise result.

At that, the evidence is not so scanty as Mr. Collacott implies. He quotes from the Economic Council of Canada’s 1991 study, New Faces in the Crowd, to the effect that immigrants, no matter what wealth or skills they bring, do not “contribute” directly to the incomes of the host population, since whatever returns accrue to their human or financial capital are retained by them. That’s true, and it suggests that efforts to recruit “investor” immigrants are a waste of time.

But that’s not all the Council said. Immigration increases population, and larger populations reap the benefits of economies of scale. Mr. Collacott dismisses as “very small” the Council’s estimate of the scale-economy effects of immigration – an additional three-tenths of one per cent of GDP for every 1 million immigrants. But 0.3% of a $1.1-trillion economy is $3.3-billion, or $3,300 per immigrant. And not just as a one-time payment, but every year, indefinitely. So just by showing up, the average immigrant makes a lifetime contribution to the Canadian economy on the order of $100,000.

Indeed, the Council also debunked the notion that immigration, by adding to the supply of labour, increases unemployment: the “lump of labour” fallacy to which Mr. Collacott appears to be a fully paid subscriber. This same slapdash selectivity crops up throughout the paper. In some places he complains that immigrants lack skills, and so depress wages in labour-intensive industries. In others he warns that a “massive influx” of skilled professionals is “helping to create an on-going brain drain.”

Time and again Mr. Collacott runs up against the facts’ embarrassing refusal to support his thesis. Somehow this is turned into further proof. “Although Canada has not yet seen the emergence of full-fledged ethnic ghettoes,” he writes, “there are indications that these could develop.” And, “while there is no evidence that any Canadian communities are on the verge of experiencing the tensions and riots that have taken place in a number of British cities . . . it would be folly to assume that such events could never happen in Canada.”

Race riots? I’d say he sounds like Enoch Powell (“Like the Roman, I seem to see ‘the River Tiber foaming with much blood'”), but then I’d be accused of stifling the debate.

Andrew Coyne is a columnist with the National Post and a member of Energy Probe Research Foundation‘s (EPRF) board of directors. Urban Renaissance Institute is a division of EPRF.

Posted in Causes, Immigration, Sprawl | Leave a comment