wrote in message
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In article you write:
Haven't you noticed, the UK farming industry is being closed down. It
is cheaper to buy GM grain from the US, because they can produce it
more efficiently with their greater mechanisation and irrigation
schemes powered through lower fuel prices.

This is so OT I took it to private email, but I am interested in this
statement. I thought farmers paid the market price for their fuel - i.e.
they don't pay tax. That should make it a level playing field.

I am not sure about OT, it may be OTT!

You are probably correct about farmers getting tax free diesel for
their tractors, but wheras we pay £4 a gallon for petrol, in the US
they pay only $1 a gallon. This reduces the US farmers costs for
everything except tractor fuel. Basically it is a waste of time us
trying to stop global warming with high fuel taxes. What is needed
is world wide agreement on fuel taxes so that no one country can
take advantage.

I had heard that the US government subsidises fuel. I don't know if this
is true or not, but if so we should put an extra tax on their imports to
compensate for this. Unfortunately that's probably not politically
realistic.

To be honest, I do not know all the details of the British and US
tax ploys. What I am aware of is the double standards that are
employed by accountants/economists to justify the staus quo. I'll
only give one for instance, but here it is.

If taxpayer's money is given to keep open a railway line in North
Wales, that is described as a subsidy, but if money is given to a train
company to provide a commuter service into London, that is called
a franchise! IRONY ON Of course the London commuters are
providing a vital service to the community by collecting and spending
our taxes, whereas the Welsh are only providing us with food. IRONY
OFF Does the London commuter work harder than a Welsh farmer? I
doubt it, yet his salary is two or three times as much as the Welsh farmer's
income, and his transport is subsidised by the Welsh farmers tax. This is
not a new discovery made by me. The exploitation of the rural populations
by the urban was pointed out by Adam Smith in his book "An Enquiry
into the Wealth of Nations" written in 1780.

In the 1960s the nationalised coal board found that it cost more to
extract coal in Scotland, so the price there was raised. When oil
was found in the North Sea, the benefits were spent equally
throughout Britain. The system is very much what's mine is
mine, and what's yours is ours! This sort of thinking is universal,
so the same principle is applied by the US when it comes to
free trade. If the UK had a monopoly of computer software, the
US would be the first to complain, but they are loath to break up
Microsoft because it is such an important dollar earner for their
economy.

Because capitalism won the Cold War against socialism, everyone
thinks that it is the perfect system. Free trade, as it is now called
has major problems, not least "The tragedy of the commons."
This is where the fishing fleet increases in size because of the
profits that can be made, until the stocks are destroyed. There
is nothing to prevent the oil companies from extracting fossil fuels
and promoting their buring. Only when the climate changes
catastrophically will it end.

Have I got back OT? Have I gone OTT?

Cheers, Alastair.