Posted on 11/13/2010 7:41:21 PM PST by Halfmanhalfamazing
I don't know how many of you go digging around in the progressive church bulletins, but check this out: (from the above link)
What is Fair Trade?
Fair trade seeks to transform the lives of the poor in the developing world by enabling them to use their skills and resources to trade their way out of poverty. It seeks to challenge injustices in trading structures and practices that so often lead to the exploitation and marginalization of poor people.
. It is a sustainable and systemic approach that gives people independence and dignity. It’s not charity, nor pity, but it’s a sustainable way to break cycles of poverty and dependency.
http://www.google.com/search?q="social+justice"+site%3Afairtradefederation.org
The term "economic justice" appears 31 times.
http://www.google.com/search?q="economic+justice"+site%3Afairtradefederation.org
Thomas Sowell was right:
Don’t fall in love with html too much. I’d love to address the topic but I can’t stay on this thread because the flashing is annoying.
‘fair trade’ is emotional robbery.
It’s just paying over the market price for a commodity so “you and your liberal friends” can feel self-righteous about yourselves.
Of course, if you or your liberal friends really gave a damn, you could give the extra to a charity of your choosing, and maybe one that would help those in greatest need, rather than one which skews the economic climate - bwana style.
It’s the same reason libs don’t buy hybrids that look like normal cars. It’s just a social thing for them.
I would think that buying imported goods that are made by people who are paid a wage that while low by our standards, provide the workers with a far higher standard of living than they otherwise would have, is far more closer to being Godly than insisting on “fair” “trade.”
The key is this:
With progressives it’s a good rule of thumb to ask the question “who does this empower the most” and nearly 100% of the time the answer to that question is government.
If trade is to be made “fair” by a bunch of leftists then you know someone’s gonna get screwed because it’s ‘good for the collective’.
Someone has to arbitrate this ‘fair’ness. Progressives have made it clear that they believe that you and I are too stupid to do it on our own. So have big brother do it.
This social justice stuff is so dangerous................
We need to have an equal market access around the world and can profit from more fair trade - it needs to be both ways, not just guilt tripping Americans into buying even more expensive imported items.
The “Fair Trade” movement wishes to organize the coffee farmers into their own cartel, which (among other things) will then organize them politically. The movement disguises its political aims, the better to seduce the naive Gringos and the poor peasants; but even in disguise, it is clear that the movement leaders are hostile to ordinary market principles.
It’s all about making money for the movement, and gaining political power.
Can’t remember where I read it... but whenever you see calls for “social justice”, beware because it is just socialism in sheep’s clothing.
I’ve never seen the blink tag before, and have been doing HTML for a long time.
It IS paying more so you and your liberal friends can feel self-righteous. Forget it.
‘fair’ trade = less trade = fewer jobs for everyone
In America, America comes first. It’s that simple.
Our progressive friends need to realize that what was once true, like America being “rich” is no longer necessarily true, especially after they decided to jack the financial system to give houses away.
I think I would find it very difficult to sit through a sermon, after having gone through the financial scare of my life and listen to how we need to redistribute to backward countries that are still backward in this day and age despite aid in all forms flowing in from all directions for decades. If it hasn’t worked by now, it likely won’t; and they are the prime example of how just handing things to people doesn’t work.
Bring the thought of redistribution in foreign countries back home and you have a failed Johnson legacy. No matter how much money in pumped in to ending poverty, until the attitude is changed - nothing is changed. There will never be ‘the right people’ in charge as Robert Reich reasoned why the Soviet experiment failed. Social justice is a pipe dream. There is no ‘constant’ when trying to put people’s psyche in a mathmatical equation.
What progressives either forget or don’t bother to relate is that at one point practically every country in the world and all the world’s citizens were dirt poor. Wealth doesn’t bubble out of rocks or rain down from the skies. It is created. About two or three hundred years ago everybody except a tiny percentage were impoverished . Then capitalism and the industrial revolution occurred. Millions of poor people began to earn wealth that lifted them out of day to day survival. That development is still going on. The ideas incorporated in free market economics are available for all the world’s citizens to take advantage of. The only thing practicing “social justice” will do is delay the day when poor people begin to become unpoor.
This is a use of the term “fair trade” very specific to a particular church group, or other group with so called social justice goals.
When most people use the term in discussing international trade in general, they simply mean that each trading partner has equal access to the others markets, something that seldom happens with the US and and many of its trading partners, particularly in Asia.
When anything says “fair” hide your wallets.
I agree.
To clarify my point, we’re all smarting economically and for them to ignore that and talk about expansion of redistribution, to other contries no less, is completely absurd. There comes a point where they have to realize they’ve done way too much, which is the main reason we’re in this economic mess, and its time to back off what has proven to be an utter failure that has bankrupted the nation.
socialism is stealing
Fair Trade...you see this on things like coffee, herbs that come from certain areas of the world that depend on their produce, and ‘fair trade’ means that the growers, the native producers, get a fair price for their goods.
‘Sustainable’ is another word that sometimes goes with ‘fair trade’. ‘Sustainable’ harvesting of herbs in the Amazon rainforest supported by ‘fair trade’ results in preservation of the rainforest because the return to the natives is greater than if the rainforest is cut down and turned into agricultural production. In my opinion, this is good.
In Ohio ‘fair trade’ means that the state has established minimum prices on certain things, especially alcoholic beverages and tobacco products, to protect the smaller retailers from the ‘Walmarts’ and supermarkets. In my opinion, this is evil legislative involvement in commerce that should never be state business.
In general, the phrase “social < x >” means the opposite of < x >.
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