Thursday, July 31, 2008

What? SUV and Doha?

How to explain the Doha collapse to a kid ... (of course with much, much, much simplification)

  1. OK, so you want a big, sport jeep...
  2. That SUV needs lots of gasoline
  3. Fossil fuel are running out, substitutes are needed
  4. Governments encourage biofuel and biodiesels production
  5. Big subsidies on biofuel/biodiesel
  6. Less incentive for farmers to plant corn for food, more incentive to plant corn for biofuel
  7. Less incentive for farmers to produce palm oil for cooking, more to produce it for biodiesel
  8. Massive acreage switch from corn-for-food to corn-for-biofuel
  9. Likewise in palm oil production
  10. Massive migration from producing wheat to producing corn for ... biofuel
  11. Less quantity of wheat and corn-for-food and palm-oil-for-cooking-oil in the world market
  12. Soaring prices of those wheat, corn, palm oil
  13. India, the wheat eaters, panicked
  14. India banned its rice export to induce consumption switching from wheat to rice
  15. Vietnam thought it should also ban its rice export following India
  16. Philippines had a bad luck: from rice exporter now is a rice importer
  17. Philippines put high tender on rice
  18. World rice price surged due to (14),(15),(16), and (17) above
  19. China grew faster, needs more energy (and so start again from (1) above)
  20. Developing countries are much worried then ever with food security
  21. Bring the concern in (20) to Geneva
  22. US and EU are still stubborn with their farm subsidy (see also (5))
  23. Doha collapses .... (i.e (21) vs (22))
  24. Countries lose hope on multilateral trade agreements
  25. Back to regional and bilateral negotiations
  26. Spaghetti bowl effects are coming
  27. Protections are on the rise again
  28. Less gains from trade
  29. ... (this is where the kid can't take it anymore. Treat him/her with a good dose of ice cream)

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

Wah, koq seperti penjelasan waktu seminar Perempuan dan Kemiskinan Kalyanamitra, so you think the audience in that seminar are kids?

Aco said...

i didn't talk about doha at that time, did i?

Aco said...

oh, also, i don't prepare nice, rigorous power point presentation to kids (like i otherwise did in that seminar). so don't get offended.

Anonymous said...

Yeah, but some part of your explanation in this posting pretty similar with your explanation in that seminar.

Aco said...

are you a kid?

Anonymous said...

Congratulation,
As long as I can understand, I don't care it is for kid or not,
It is damn easy to understand.

and get ice cream... hahaha

from different anonymous than above :-)