Ta very much, now I can wile away some time. I may need to pop out for a coffee first ; )

Several in fact. Thanks indeed Don and others, this is discussion has been typically interesting and this material looks like good reading. The PA community is in good…

I quite like this article, Fairness in International Trade, which makes a good stab at identifying "fairness" without necessarily supporting my comment about FT coffee. Recognition that the analysis has to be much deeper than a simplistic western accreditation regime is a pretty good start and really…

I was concerning myself with the various legal status of the workers and their freedom to move to better their condition, as I can if I so wish without a loss…

Off Topic (as I think we can all agree we've done it or ourselves to death).

This link might…

Appetite Stimulants for the Starving

Nasty, but nothing new. When the artificial sweetener sodium cyclamate was banned in the US in the early 70s, after being conclusively proven to cause birth defects, multinationals received tax credits for offloading their stockpiles of tainted soft drinks as foreign aid to Vietnam.

There's…

As far as the bloody bourgeoisie goes, I found a fun wordy article about the coffeehouse on Arts and Letters Daily.

Now I will try to link, although I will not do it…

I must be idle becuase my knowledge of the coffee trade (at least) comes from seeing a rather brilliant film at the film…

Tarnished Philanthropy: China Questions Recent Medical Supply Shipments from U.S.
http://www.worldwatch.org/node/3863

Appetite Stimulants for the Starving
http://www.charitywatch.org/articles/starving.html

Joe & Sue
Have you spoken to any producers to check their reactions to fair trade?

Not lately – but should I feel the urge to dump on some misguided do-gooding idle-rich straw-person I guess I ought to clear it with a producer first.

The theoretical model of competitive equilibrium is a formidable intellectual construct. A similar situation arose, for example, in the Middle Ages, when the belief that the sun revolved around the Earth led…

The unintuitive concepts and jargon of economics alienates a lot of…

Sue
Your own example shows fair trade is a maketing ploy that does a lot of good for the conscience of the idle rich & limited good for the desperately poor.

I'm sure there is more…

But it's also equally fair to hold Trade Aid to the same standards as any other corporate – is this real change or marketing 'greenwash', does the rhetoric line up with reality?

Indeed, it is important to guard against the old greenwash.

I was curious about the economics of it…

The merits of Trade Aid et al are surely that they're attempting to encourage the development of competitive industry to replace the need for aid . . .

. . . and to demonstrate a willingness, on the part of the volunteers, to work towards an equitable form of globalisation.…

so to me that's something
and why spend all your energy banging fair trade, when they do better than most. they don't profess to be perfect but it's better than not fair trade

Or becuase it's fair trade & does some good it…

Labour, under Moore, nearly won the 1993 election, and one of the reasons they didn't was Clark's backers downed tools in the last week of the campaign and did sod all. They didn't want to win under Moore.

Whoa Nelly! That really is dark.
And Clarke may well experience similar treatment…

The merits of Trade Aid et al are surely that they're…

See it's very easy to point fingers when someone or a company is doing a little bit of good, becuase oh gosh it's not doing everything everything perfect so it must be evil.

Um, it might help if everyone stopped throwing around the E-word. But having said that, Sue, it's…

Volunteer for who ever you like. Our world is a better place for it. But the after mass cuppa at my parish doesn't claim to be a…

Trade Aid might not be perfect, but it's a step in the right direction. It's a better more ethical business model than say supre.

See it's very easy to point fingers when someone or a company is…

Trade Aid business model transfers the under payment of workers from Timor (if you believe their hype)…

And my little gripe. Trade Aid business model relies on volunteer (slave?) labour of little old grannies

My mum volunteers at the Raglan Trade Aid. While she is kind of little and old (though not a granny, which is all my fault), most of the Raglan volunteers are much younger.…

If you volunteer you can leave. Period. I know I have.

Disclosure: I volunteered for Trade Aid on Krd many moons ago. I did about two shifts and then didn't go back. I was young, unreliable and selfish.…

Trade Aid Coffee would have to be pretty good, at least morally. They claim to pay 50% more than others but that doesn't mean it is fair. The Timor Leste speaker at Parihaka 06 had a real issue with so called fair trade…

It would probably help to have had a fly-on-the wall's account of the Labour caucus's late-80s Ashburton retreat, where an imported 'facilitator' ran role-playing sessions in a desperate bid to get the squabbling factions…

Moore was at the heart of Labour's infighting for years, whether or not he made PM, so he does have some insight into what's going on.

Yeah, I think a lot of what he wrote was hypocritical. Not sure he was essentially wrong though, [although the…

But Moore was a lawful and legitimate Prime Minister, and I don't see how the length of his residency atop the greasy poll, or the way he got there, bears any relationship to the quality (or otherwise) of his piece in Wednesday's Herald.

It's his biggest claim to any credibility,…

I thought we were agreeing on some things, and respectfully disagreeing on others – which, blessedly, is the norm around here rather than the depressing exception.

Anyhow, time to go torture some lamb chops into something approximately in the vicinity of an edible evening mealr...

What is wrong with Fair Trade coffee?

Sorry, I missed all these question. FT coffee isn't evil, it just isn't all that great either. The rules have been made up in the West to suit Western feelings of guilt over some pretty shonky ROI models to producers.

As a result…

and I think Moore is wrong, just like you

Fine, you're not going to change my mind, and I'm not going to change yours

It took me a little while to figure out what happened there, but I think Stephen meant that he agreed with Craig, and not that he…

That is sooo Wellington. Oh my god that is what is going to happen to me living here!

You say that like it's a bad thing!

They've always had enough for me.

True, but the common usage is to say that the PM was 'elected' if they were the leader of the party at the time of the election. So it's not really snide – it's a distinction that's not less important because it is less formal.

Well, it is snide -…

Also elections could do with more beer.

At the last election, whilst whooping and hollering at every .01 increase for the Light Side, we had vodka jelly shots – red for Labour, lime for the Greens and Orange for the election enrolement people.

Also elections could do with more beer.

Voting for the Prime Minister is actually one of the few things we feel like we're doing during our tri-annual "act like we're a democracy" festivities.

Nice.

I think if it is going to be a festival we need dancing and colourful outfits.

All PM's are 'unelected' by the public, even HC. The only people to elect PMs are party caucuses.

True, but the common usage is to say that the PM was 'elected' if they were the leader of the party at the time of the election. So it's not really snide…

We don't have a presidential system. All PM's are 'unelected' by the public, even HC. The only people to elect PMs are party caucuses. Moore's tenure or method of…

I don't think Peters is a racist either.…

Fine, you're not going to change my mind, and I'm not going to change yours so it's time to agree to disagree and move on. But I don't see any reason to change my view that Peters is a shameless, habitual and pathological liar who has built a (disgracefully…

I don't have an opinion one way or the other on this approach but it does foreground the fact that we have choices to make and that those choices may entail trade-offs.

Not being a dismal scientist (and questioning whether economics is a 'science' at all, in any meaningful sense…

The problem is that cost-benefit analysis relies on contestable projections and parameters. Goodstein's review points out that other economists believe Lomborg might be lowballing the economic costs of climate change and exaggerating the economic costs of addressing it (in comparison to, say, Stern or Stiglitz).

Economics is an inexact science,…

First, let me make it crystal clear that I'm no way implying that your reading is offered in bad faith. I just didn't interpret it the same way. Moore is, for want to a better way to put it, pro-globalisation. And while I think there are any number of…

It's Moore who's making the insinuation here.

Sorry, Stephen, still not seeing it I think there's plenty to criticise in Moore's piece – and, to be honest, a lot of the reaction just goes to show Moore isn't the only one who has a little problem with re-writing history to…

The…

Bjørn Lomborg, born January 6 1965.
M.A. in political science (Cand.scient.pol.) 1991.
Ph.D. at the Department of Political Science, University of Copenhagen. 1994.

But the thing that bugs me is: where's his authority?

He's a statistician, which isn't totally irrelevant to the issue.

Take energy, for example. I don't think one can understand the concept of energy without an understanding of statistics. And energy is mostly what global warming issue is about.

But…

Going on form, Winston's main objection with banks is that they are all foreign-owned?

BTW, anti-semitism is not worse than racism just because of Hitler.

Ditto the other two above. As someone who has defended fair trade elsewhere I would love to know what is wrong with it.

"Code word"? Is he accusing Peters of anti-semitism? Is there the slightest bit of evidence of this?

Steven: Can't speak for Mike Moore, but I wouldn't call Peters an anti-Semite. I don't even think he really believes half the immigrant-bashing, 'Fortress New Zealand' economic nationalism that comes out of his…

No Right Turn picked up another:

Exactly what does the "consort" Judith Tizard and the legion of Ministers outside Cabinet actually do?

The dykeocracy again ... and Moore has previous here. You'd think the commentators would point out his own history of personal…

What is wrong with Fair Trade coffee?

I missed that meeting.

He has driven a few trucks through some of the environmental claims. I hope this works to strengthen the environmental movement by being a bit more honest in their work.

Can I humbly suggest that you read Quiggin's review. While there were Nobel laureates, and very fine economists, in the Copenhagen consensus, the make up of the group provides reason to be suspicious. Of economists who got to do the prioritising , the majority were right wing,…

Where I differ with Lomborg is simply this: he thinks that the right path is to go light on a carbon tax (no more than $2/ton) and go heavy on government R&D subsidies for renewable technologies. I think we should have a somewhat…

Oh, all those Nobel prize-winners are just scare-mongering to get more research grants.

My point was to suggest that Moore was asserting Peters was attacking Key and his investment-banker-ness, and not asserting Peters was attacking Key and his Jewish-ness.

Isn't John Key's mother Jewish? This would make him Jewish, at least to orthodox Jews; although not to reform Jews (who would, I think, rely on Key's own identification).

Not that that matters at all, but, if Moore has tangible evidence of anti-semitism, on Peters' behalf then he should…

"Code word"? Is he accusing Peters of anti-Semitism?

I assumed it was code-word John Key (investment banker, not Jew).

Okay, that's an interesting perspective, worth discussing ect ect. But virtually every climate change denier I've ever argued with has enthusiastically recommended Lombergs book to me.

'Read this. It proves that global warming is just a big communist hoax!'

Totally. From Leighton Smith at the bottom of the intellectual pile…

Wired editor Chris Anderson got an advance copy of Bjorn Lomborg's upcoming book Cool It: The Skeptical Environmentalist's Guide to Global Warming, and his summary is: read it, but don't follow his advice.

There is an earlier video of Lomborg over at TED…

I've no time to read the Salon review, but this review by Australian economist John Quiggin is both graceful and makes all the right points about Lomborg's previous book.

The following quote explains clearly the deception involved

The selection of projects is another fundamental problem. Even if, say,…

He can't speak about hospitals without talking of Third World diseases and Third World people, the Central Bank policies are about, he claims, promoting speculation and money-lenders (code word), Dubai investment in New Zealand is naturally bad, but at least…

Former PMs really need help controlling themselves. I can think of very few who've gone quietly and remained so – Bolger perhaps…

John Key just has to keep his head down, and is happy to campaign as "Labour with tax cuts"...

was originally drafted as:

John Key just has…

That's a pretty miserable misrepresentation of Lomborg's views.

Goodstein also takes issue…

Moore proves that old habits die hard.

However, he is tapping into a fairly widespread mood of disenchantment with the current Govt, from all over the spectrum.

Three terms in and it does undeniably look very frayed around the…