[Vision2020] Food/gas prices

[lfalen]

There was a small biodiesiel operator in Genesee for about a year. He was using used vegetable oil. He has filed for bankruptcy. One was proposed at the port of Wilma. That plan has been withdrawn, but I think a different company is looking at it, I don't know where  the closest plant in operation is. Biocke Bros. at Kendrick  are working with Canola as an energy source.
On trade with China I think it is a plus and hopefully will speed their attention to human rights. We should however, improve the inspection and regulation of incoming good to prevent the kind of problems that have ocured the last couple of years. 
The embargo on Cuba has not improved any thing there and has probably made it worse. Trade has a better chance of working than embargoes. Keep the pressure on in regard to human right and inspections but still trade.
Roger
-----Original message-----
From: Donovan Arnold donovanjarnold2005 at yahoo.com
Date: Tue, 25 Mar 2008 21:18:21 -0700
To: Garrett Clevenger garrettmc at verizon.net, vision 2020 vision2020 at moscow.com
Subject: Re: [Vision2020] Food/gas prices

> Garrett,
>    
>   I am afraid that I don't see economics the same way you do. 
>   I think Wal-Mart increases the quality of life for people in China, and here at home. I think the reason that so many Chinese people compete for jobs at factories that contract with Wal-Mart is because they are better than the other jobs in China.
>    
>   A factory worker in China lives higher on the economic scale in his country than I do in mine. A factory workers in China gets $300-$400 a month, plus there housing and medical care are provided. $300 in China, will buy a lot more than it will here. Add to this fact that they don't own automobiles, and your life is comparatively better than the average Chinese person. 
>    
>   A good reason why China has such poor human conditions has to do more with their overpopulation and lack of resources to provide for them all than it has to do with willful human rights and environmental abuses. 
>    
>   The United States had just as bad of a human rights record just as little as a 100 years when we were in our industrialization age. We had children working in coal mines. We had women working in inhuman and unsafe working conditions. We denied people jobs on the basis of gender, age, disability, race, and religion. We are only better because we grew wealthy and were able to slowly change the working conditions one issue at a time.
>    
>   I think China will eventually get there. But if we all stop buying from them, they will take longer to get there. It costs money to update and make all factories safer for workers, the only way they get that money is through the labor of its workers and landing big US contracts. 
>    
>   I believe, if you wanted to help the US workforce, both in wages, and working conditions, you would start by shutting down companies that employ illegal immigrants. We need to lead by changing our own working conditions first. 
>    
>   The reason why oil prices are high is because environmentalism will not allow us to drill here at home. If we could drill off our own shores, maybe drill for oil in Mexico and provide jobs there, we could drive down prices. I think we should also look to the long term and start finding alternative sources of energy, in a very serious way.
>    
>    
>   On a side note, can you tell me where the closest biodiesiel refinery plants are located? Thanks.
>    
>    
>   Best Regards,
>    
>   Donovan 
>    
>    
>    
>    
>   
> Garrett Clevenger <garrettmc at verizon.net> wrote:
>   Donovan writes:
> 
> "This is why you need a Wal-Mart Super Center in
> Moscow, the competition keeps the prices low."
> 
> Donovan,
> 
> I wonder, do you not see the problem Wal-Mart poses to
> not only our local economy, but of the unsustainable,
> and exploitative, nature of Wal-Mart's leverage? 
> 
> I ask this because I assume you would have a problem
> with the ethics of a company that seems to violate
> moral reasoning, such as exploitation of workers in
> China who, no matter how deserving of earning money to
> live, are still treated as expendable. 
> 
> These Chinese companies Wal-Mart purchases from, on
> top of competing with American companies, do not have
> to follow the same environmental, labor or other
> regulations that the US makes American companies
> follow, so are thus at an unfair competitive advantage
> as they dump their wastes into their rivers, and send
> their pollutants into the air that the US Park Service
> is now able to sample in our National Parks.
> 
> How many poisoned products do we have to import before
> you say this isn't right? 
> 
> How many small businesses that go under because they
> can't compete with the buying power of Wal-Mart do you
> think is acceptable?
> 
> Will you recognize that Wal-Mart is a major instigator
> of Chinese trade, and thus our trade deficit? That
> the Wal-Mart/China relationship is a major factor in
> the down-turn in the US economy? After all, it's
> reported that China is holding $1.5 trillion of our
> dept, a lot of it for the Iraq War, which has caused
> oil prices to increase as you recognize. The hundreds
> of billions of dollars Wal-Mart spends in China on
> cheap goods is now being lent back to us to support
> the war machine. Kind of ironic, I think.
> 
> It seems if we focused more on our local economy, and
> limited the amount of foreign made products we could
> be providing for ourselves, we would in the long run
> be keeping prices low. After all, as fuel prices
> continue to escalate, we are only going to find how
> important it is to reduce transportation costs. What
> better time to start that than now?
> 
> I believe in the long run Hawkins, and Super Wal-Mart,
> will be more of an expensive burden on Moscow than if
> we were to start using those resources to build our
> local economy in a more sustainable way, rather than
> subsidizing the wealth of China.
> 
> gclev
> 
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