Why aren't kidneys for sale?

This article is brilliant. I quote:

Maybe one day people will regard it as repugnant that other people hold their moral views on kidney sales so strongly that they are willing to cause innocent people to die for them.

When I can sell my brains, my arms, my energy, my voice, my acting, my back, and and and, why cant I sell my kidneys? And no, just because some will be forced does not mean that I cannot sell my kidneys, just like just because some people are sold into slavery cannot mean that I cannot work like a labourer.

bah!

Buying and Selling tickets

Here's a good question for you. If you have purchased a ticket to a concert, does the ticket belong to you or to the company which sold it to you? Assuming that there are no other issues (such as safety reasons, you don't want to sell a Manchester United = Arsenal ticket willy nilly otherwise you might have 2 ManU fans stuck in the middle of the bank of Arsenal seats and they will be spat upon at best and could be thumped at worst), there is no issue in selling on your tickets if you don't want to go there.

But till now, specially in the west, concerts did not allow tickets be sold on after the first sale, mainly on the grounds that the sell on was usually at a much higher price than the original sale price and the promoters of the event do not get a cut of the second sale. Well, so? You don't expect the iron manufacturer to get a cut of the price of the toaster being sold, do you?

But seems like we have a break in the current industry. See here. I quote:

Madonna is endorsing the sell-on of concert tickets, condemned by some concert promoters as scalping or touting, by making two leading companies in the secondary ticket market official partners for her forthcoming Sticky & Sweet tour of North America and Europe.

She is such a big industry figure that she can, conceivably, drive a stake through the heart of this pernicious practice. Would be quite interesting indeed. I, for one, would be very happy to purchase such second hand tickets, if I can pay for it, then why not? let the markets determine the right price of the tickets, not some poxy promoter.

Technorati Tags: Free Markets,Music,Entertainment

Argentine farmers announce fresh action

Remember what I said before about Argentina heading into economic problems? The problems for Argentina and rest of the world just went worse. I quote from the FT>

Argentine farmers yesterday announced a return to their roadblocks just over a month after a crippling 21-day strike sparked by a rise in export tariffs, causing an immediate spike in international grain prices.

News of another strike in Argentina, the world's third-biggest exporter of soyabeans and biggest of soya oil, immediately pushed soyabean futures up 2.5 per cent in Chicago to $12.96 a bushel.

Analysts say anything more than a few days of action by Argentine farmers, combined with strong buying by China ahead of the Olympic Games, would be enough to send prices back to record levels, as happened during the earlier Argentine farm strike in March.

The impact of the farm turmoil could also be more far-reaching: despite record world prices, Argentine farmers are already cutting back on wheat planting by up to 15 per cent this season because of the impact of tariffs and the government's decision to periodically close exports in a bid to keep domestic prices low.

There will be trouble ahead....

Only hope is that the WTO takes a stance on this very quickly, no other body has the governance or the authority to step in because individual country action will make matters worse.

Technorati Tags: Argentina,Agriculture,Inflation,Labour

The GCC - Common Market takes place

A quiet step took place on 1st Jan, 2008 when the Gulf Cooperation Council formed a common market. This promises to be great news for many reasons. You see, more international and supernational bodies are formed, the more individual country idiosyncratic behaviours are exposed and removed. For example, take the mentioned issue of free movement of labour of GCC citizens. Now let me ask you a question. Can a Christian Citizen Doctor of say UAE practice in Saudi Arabia? At this moment, nope, not officially at least, but it would be difficult to stop in the next few years and decades. Think about the financial regulation system or labour disputes, which Islamic school of jurisprudence would be used? or would you use say the London Centre of Arbitration? Or what? This kind of economic structure can also help absorb (if the assorted royals take their finger out) the armies of under and unemployed native youth. But very good news and bears watching.

 

JEDDAH, 1 January 2008 — The six-member Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) with a combined economy of $715 billion makes history today with the launch of a common market, which is expected to draw more foreign investment to the region.
GCC Secretary-General Abdul Rahman Al-Attiyah described the launch of the Gulf Common Market on Jan. 1 as “historic”, adding that it would ensure “economic equality” among GCC citizens.
The GCC, which was formed in 1981, groups Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Bahrain, Oman, Kuwait and the United Arab Emirates.
The decision to launch the common market was taken by the group’s leaders at their last summit, which was held in Doha on Dec. 3 and 4. They also announced plans to achieve a currency union by 2010.
“The Gulf Common Market aims to create one market... raising production efficiency and optimum usage of available resources and improving the GCC’s negotiating position in international economic forums,” said a final communiqué issued at the end of the two-day summit.
The market offers equal opportunities for all GCC citizens including the right to work in all government and private institutions in member states, buy and sell real estate and make other investments, move freely between the countries, and receive education and health benefits, the communiqué said.
GCC economic chief Mohammad Al-Mazroui said the common market would increase investments and trade between member countries. “It will also strengthen the position of member states in free-trade talks,” mainly with the European Union, Agence France Presse quoted Mazroui as saying.
Some 35.1 million people live in the GCC, although citizens of the member states represent around only 60 percent of the total population, the remainder being guest workers.
In addition to allowing the free flow of capital, the common market gives GCC nationals freedom of movement, residency and employment — in both private and public sectors — in all six countries, Attiyah said.
“The common market... will allow the citizens of GCC member states to benefit from opportunities offered by the Gulf economy and will open important areas to GCC and foreign investments,” he said in a statement.
The GCC states also represent more than half of the oil reserves of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (484 billion barrels).
Trade between GCC member states currently account for just around 10 percent of overall foreign trade. But this should increase to 25 percent in the next two years, said Issam Fakhrou, president of Bahrain’s Chamber of Commerce and Industry.
According to statistics on the organization’s website, GCC foreign trade was $282.8 billion in 2005, a figure which predates the sharp surge in oil prices which boosted revenues for the six countries. “The launch of the market will mark an important step in GCC economic integration,” said Eckart Woertz, program manager in economics at the Dubai-based Gulf Research Center.
He said the new move demands opening of GCC markets and harmonization of regulations, ranging from labor laws to pension schemes and social security entitlements.

Technorati Tags: Labour,Arabs,Economics

The prospects for an EU-India bilateral trade agreement

This article talks about an EU-India bilateral trade agreement but says that the prospects are uncertain. Damn right they are uncertain. You see, trade agreements are usually confused by free trade agreements or customs unions. They aren't free, they aren't mainly to do with trade and they usually don't show any signs of unions. They are not, they basically entrench bad economic habits on both sides. But for what's its worth, a good overview.

Read and ponder. Some extracts:

Prospects for an agreement appear good but there are potential obstacles. The optimism comes form the fact that the EU is India’s largest trade partner and is an important provider and buyer of services and FDI. Moreover, as far as goods trade is concerned, there is little overlap in trade structures or comparative advantage between India and the EU, so liberalisation should trigger little of the sort of sectoral readjustment that can be so painful politically. Likewise, neither party is likely to ask for difficult agricultural liberalization – another standard source of conflict. More positively and perhaps decisively both sides are anxious to increase the access that their service provider have to each others’ market.

Potential obstacles stem from India’s domestic politics. There is a general suspicion of trade liberalisation in the ruling Congress party (as opposed to the government), and downright hostility to trade from other parties in the governing coalition such as the communists. The European Commission wishes the free trade agreement to address deeper integration issues such as competition policy, the rights of foreign investors, open government purchasing practices as well as environmental, social and human rights clauses. The latter in particular may cause problems in India, which may suspect that such clauses may create pretexts for future protection. India may also simply consider them patronizing given that Indian democracy is older than that of many EU member states.

The final stumbling block may be an unbridgeable expectation gap. The EU’s trade strategy commits it to ambitious and far-reaching agreements. India’s current idea of a free trade agreement is the India-Singapore deal which, though “comprehensive” in name, contains rather less liberalisation than the EU desires.

Finally, an EU-India agreement will inevitably be complicated given the very different stages of development and the size and intricacy of the two economies. The sheer complexity of the negotiations may mean they are not completed by the time of the next Indian elections. They may get held up and perhaps repudiated by any new government, particularly if dominated by left wing parties.

 

Technorati Tags: India,EU

How the Shrimp Tariff Backfired

This is a brilliant exposition of how the law of un-intended consequences works when governments try to protect certain sectors against market standards and rules of economics. I have talked about this law many times, but not in this case of shrimps.

So lets see what happened? by taking this action, the taxpayer spent more money on subsidies, the targeted countries got upset with USA, more shrimp came in anyway, and the domestic producers got hammered even more, the reputation of USA as a principled free trader took a knock and at end of the day? USA lost on all counts. Are the democrats listening?