You'll all be glad to hear that Norway continues to fight the good fight for the world's poor. No diplomatic tool shall be left unused, no budgetary consideration stand in the way as we stand shoulder by shoulder in a war on poverty! Of course, charity begins at home. Home on the farm, to be precise:

Minister of Industry Ansgar Gabrielsen (Conservative) sharply criticized the new proposal for a ministerial statement at the WTO negotiations at Cancun Sunday morning. Gabrielsen stepped up the Norwegian rhetoric in a meeting with 145 other delegation leaders after the proposal had been made. - In short, our interests in agriculture has not been taken into consideration in the new proposal. The text, as it stands now, is therefore unacceptable to us, said Gabrielsen.

Norway has with Switzerland and Japan in the G10 group fought to prevent a tariff roof of agricultural products, but such a roof still remain in the proposal. Meanwhile, production subsdies will be cut by 85%.

Shame on you, third world countries! You just left our farmers' interests out of your selfish little "trade" scheme, didn't you? What about our needs? What about our farmers? They want their second cars as desperately as you want to go to bed with your stomach full. Ever thought about that, eh? Bet you haven't.

Of course, now would be a good time to point out the hypocrisy of a "conservative" Minister of Industry and a "liberal" Minister of Agriculture fiercely protecting some of the highest tariffs and subsidies in the world. Of course, they're in good (well, plentiful) company. That doesn't make it any less hypocritical.

(Update: Congratulations, hope you're proud.)

Via Zogby's blog:

...The finger pointing has begun for the collapse of the world trade talks in Cancun over the weekend, and indeed there are many perpetrators who must take a share the blame, including the United States, Japan, and even some of the less-flexible developing countries. But make no mistake: The chief responsibility for the failure rests squarely with France and its usual accomplices -- Germany and the Brussels bureaucracy -- in their continuing war against global cooperation whenever any progress toward a better world might conflict with the Chirac government's myopic view of its own short-term, narrow self-interest....

Sandy: while I agree with you and Zogby, I would like to point out the tremendous public relations opportunity the Bush administration would have if they would stand by their beliefs in free-market principles and take a stand against agricultural subsidies in the US. As much as I support Bush, it pains me to see such a golden opportunity slip by...

Only twenty thousand Americans, out of 289,000,000 or so, directly benefit from agricultural subsidies. Isn't it time we cut the crap and let the free market do its magic?

When farmers down south - in Mexico, Jamaica, Colombia, Brazil, Peru, Argentina - would finally figure out that they can make a decent living by selling to the Americans, not only would we have better relations with those countries, not only would we transfer wealth through trade and not through foreign aid, not only would we offer an easy alternative to the cultivation of coca leaves, but we would also have cheaper prices at our supermarkets.

As a nice bonus, we would be putting pressure on the frogs and krauts to do the same. And it would be a lot harder for them to sell it to the voters than it would be for Bush, since American voters appreciate free markets more so than the Europeans do.

All we need is a strong "bully pulpit" president that drives it through Congress. I wish Bush would pick up the ball from the Cancun fumble and run with it.

They have, Mark, I read awhile ago they wanted to reduce it to 15% during DOHA. (Not enough, I know, but we'll take what we can get). I for one would like to see the sugar subsidy, at minimum, lessened. Maybe Life Savers would come back.

I lost the link in a transfer to a new computer, but a bunch of professors(?) put together a comprehensive overview by state of subsidies. Congress didn't like being exposed.

And I agree w/you as to the bully pulpit.

And now Daschle wants "tax cuts" for mfg. Not for individuals, but they're good enough for mfg.

EIC? IEC? I can't remember. Made the rounds in 01 or 02.

Bjorn: The New York Times Business Section wrote today about the Norwegian state-owned oil industry bribery case with the Iranian government (apparently a Norwegian executive has funneled $5 million dollars to the son of Rafsanjani, in order to secure lucrative contracts with Iran).

How do Norwegians treat this news? Is it being discussed on a wider scale? How do Norwegians reconcile this with the human rights and civil liberties struggles of the Iranian people? And the fact that Iran sponsors terrorism?

You know, I hate as much as anyone the economic ignorance that forces politicians to sell tariff cuts as what we have to give in order to get other countries to cut theirs. It's just plain economic nonsense, ignoring the theory of competitive advantage. (With one exception-- domestic tariffs do produce revenue for the home government, while foreign tariffs don't. But most tariffs are not for revenue generation, rather for protection.)

However, it does generally work to sell tariff cuts. And the US will generally push to cut tariffs and agree to do so so long as other nations do the same. Which, sadly, isn't great (like New Zealand or Australia), but is better than some countries, like Japan, South Korea, or Norway.

Since I have so often criticized Europe, it's only fair that I add my voice now to those criticizing the United States for its refusal to drastically lower or eliminate the subsidy given to American cotton growers. That's an area where it seems we could have yielded to the demands of farmers in underdeveloped countries. And, like Markku says, won some plaudits, for a change. Perhaps we should unilaterally lower our agricultural subsidies where feasible. Why let WTO constrain us? An article in the New York Times today thinks that Presidential politics accounts for our refusal to be more generous here. In the last Presidential election, Gore took the cities, while Bush won most of the votes in between.

- Gill

Bjorn: the Aftenposten article on "the Bookseller of Kabul" is incredibly circumspect: it doesn't detail at all what exactly is upsetting the Afghan. What's going on? Is Aftenposten legally constrained not to discuss it, or is it that they don't have the details (which makes their journalism look really incompetent), or is it that the Afghan man has something quite embarrassing to say about this Norwegian writer he is suing, whom Aftenposten is trying to protect (perhaps journalists look after their own kind more than we think)?

How long has the hat been up there?

I like it, it's jaunty.

Markku: Re Statoil - well, it's being treated as what it is, a major corruption scandal. Haven't followed it closely, though.

Re bookseller - I mentioned some of it in a previous entry, http://www.bearstrong.net/warblog/000435.html. Several Norwegian newspapers have carried excerpts he's been provoked by, for instance http://www.vg.no/pub/vgart.hbs?artid=75792. There are accusations that the bookseller is rude to his wife, that a female relative was murdered for her honor, that some young family members actually have a love life, - and a few detailed anecdotes of relatives' sex life.

Sandy: The one in the banner? As long as the banner itself.

I've read in the following day's New York Times that the CEO of Statoil is allowed to keep his job.

If this were happening in the US, he would've been shackled and paraded in front of the TV cameras by now.

It's endemic to how corporations are run in Europe: people just expect them to be corrupt. Bribery is viewed as an acceptable cost of doing business, instead of a force which acts against free market evaluation and competitive practices based on merit.

A number of years ago, when the EU became upset at America's use of Encelon for possible tech espionage, the former head of the CIA wrote an op-ed piece in the Times giving their reasons: he said that it was the trail of terrorist money that lead them to discover just how many European corporations practice bribery. It was this information that they wanted to keep tabs on, and which they passed on to respective governments.

No wonder so many Europeans consider the bourgeois capitalist as an anti-social force. Their behaviour in Europe leaves much to be desired. In America, when corporations misbehave (such as Enron), heads will fall, - and the government will go so far as to let the company die. Painful, yes, - thousands lost their jobs and pensions - but it sent a stern message to corporate America. Such drastic action would never be dared across the Atlantic, where corporations can always count on the government and the public to eventually look away.

Given the lack of enthusiasm most Norwegians seem to have for this news item, it's not surprising that the practices will continue...

Markku: Why do you judge that most Norwegians are unconcerned by this? I'm not saying you're wrong or right, I just wonder how you know. _I'm_ not concerned enough to write about it, but there are many important things that happen here I never write about.

In any case, Norway is generally considered - at least by its inhabitants - to be virtually free of corruption. This may be an illusion, but your statement that Europeans just expect their companies to be corrupt does not apply to Norway. We expect _foreign_ companies to be corrupt, and our own to stay above that kind of thing, even when it costs. It's part of our national self-image.

[Oh, and I deleted two comments by one "Josef" containing only quotes from and links to two off-topic articles. Hey Joe, if you have anything to say, say it. You don't always have to be on-topic, and you don't always have to write something meaningful, but it's a good idea to try for one out of two, at least on your first post. This isn't a dumping ground for random links you think I should read.]

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