Oh, and I found this post which says exactly what I was trying to say yesterday (in the third paragraph, anyway), but I ran out of time. This is really one of the most important international issues out there, though not the most visible to the mainstream media...I hope something good actually comes of this...I also used to think I was a good writer until I started reading blogs...everyone else is just so...direct and eloquent:
Agricultural subsidies are bad because they distort domestic and international markets, contribute to environmental destruction, and misallocate scarce government funds. Domestic markets are distorted by the improper allocation of factors of production to dreadfully inefficient sectors of the economy. The international market is distorted because subsidized first world goods destroy the economic foundations of agricultural produces in the third world, thus creating widespread dislocation and poverty. Subsidies contribute to environmental destruction by encouraging excess production on marginal land (although some kinds of subsidies escape this problem). Finally, subsidies represent a general waste of money and a more specific redistribution of government funds from urban to rural areas and from the middle class to large corporations (the latter eat up most of the government money).
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