Wednesday, October 22, 2003


the world bank catches a clue

"today, markets for organic, eco-friendly, and fair trade products are measured in the hundreds of millions and even billions of dollars, and are among the fastest-growing segments of the food industry,” the world bank today suddenly discovers.

since the current world-price depression known as the coffee crisis -- now in its fourth year -- was probably started by the bank's insistence that vietnam pump out as much cheap, no-quality coffee as possible, you'd think it's about time they noticed. but when will they 'fess up?

i don't mind the idea of globalization so much, except that the globalizing isn't being done by the people, normal people making decisions about how they want to live and what they want to eat, on a equal playing field. it's being done by these clueless wonders with ph.d.s in economics who apparently haven't heard about the law of supply and demand and how that affects price.

when i was young and read dissent, what i found attractive about lukacs-style socialism was the insistence that the technocrats and apparatchiks were the real problem. i however disagreed with his solution -- basically, shoot 'em all -- but i think there are probably a lot of coffee farmers and workers who would like to storm the world bank!

actually the real problem with all that is that those guys seemed to have a strange hatred of jazz, and later, rock-n-roll. it just showed that they were very anti-life and anti-pleasure.

long-time readers know i'm a pro-pleasure person. rosa is my godmother -- i want an all-dancin', coffee-drinkin', head-standin', fair-trade market revolution!

and speaking of head-stand, you also know how i feel about the importance of yoga in dealing with the global public health threat known as the obesity epidemic. junk food peddlers are partially to blame -- and not just in the u.s.a.

this applies to those starbucks-style super-sized beverages mentioned previously. make your own coffee drinks at home or the office. not only are they healthier and higher-quality, but you can consciously support the kinds of stuff i know you as bccy readers believe in!

posted by fortune | 9:49 AM | top | link to this | email this: | | | 0 comments