Re: coffee cartel again

2002-06-14 Thread Eugene Coyle
This makes it sound as if a price adjustment over time would raise demand enough to make things work for poorer countries. But coffee prices are so low that in certain countries -- in Central America for example -- it doesn't pay to harvest the crop. Hence workers get no work, and then The

Re: Re: Re: coffee cartel

2002-06-13 Thread Michael Perelman
Lou responded with the Oxfam proposal, but fair trade coffee is the sort of coffee that Global Exchange promotes -- it promises a 'fair' return to the workers and small farmers. On Thu, Jun 13, 2002 at 12:41:20PM -0500, Ian Hudson wrote: > > The disastrous price slump for coffee demonstrates the

Re: Re: coffee cartel

2002-06-13 Thread Ian Hudson
The disastrous price slump for coffee demonstrates the need for alternative arrangements for southern producers. One alternative that is being trumpeted is the alternative or fair trade, which is most developed, at least in terms of primary goods, in the coffee market. Does anyone have any

Re: coffee cartel

2002-06-13 Thread Eugene Coyle
It got much worse for the coffee producers. The World Bank made big loans to increase coffee production in Vietnam, now the world's 2nd largest coffee producer. This added to the world-wide glut and has driven farmers in Central America, Mexico, Brazil and in Africa to desperation. Roanld Reaga

Re: Re: coffee

2000-03-01 Thread Carrol Cox
It has been a long time since I read the material, and I remember neither sources nor many details, but coffee and choclate were at one time rather important in western european (and particularly british) cultural/intellectual/literary/political history. In the late 17th and 18th centuries each po

Re: coffee

2000-03-01 Thread Louis Proyect
>Has anyone read Mark Pendergrast's UNCOMMON GROUNDS? What do you >think? How does it compare to the other books about coffee that have >come out recently? > >(Personally, I have to admit that coffee is not my cup of tea.) > >Peter It's good, but it tends to mix colorful anecdotes that you can

Re: coffee

2000-02-29 Thread Martin Watts
Peter, Well unfortunately you may not be welcome at our Research Centre! Kind regards Martin Peter Dorman wrote: > The team I'll be teaching with next year is thinking about beginning our > political economy course with a case study of coffee -- its history, > relationship to colonial exploitati