We live in a complex world, yet we are trying to make it simple as president Bush says "with US or against US" that is Bush is visualizing a world which is either "black or white" or in other words a world which is either "rich or poor." We cannot take simple and static dual approaches to solve our social and economic problems as these problems are complex and dynamically changing all the times. Bush has stated that the Free Market is the answer to end poverty, and I say that Bush is hypocritical as he is pushing the Free Market with the colonizing power of his money and the colonizing power of his weapons of mass destruction.

There is no such a thing as a fair Free Market as conceptualized and implemented today in our globalized economies. The Free Market is inherently unstable, and there is no such a thing as a natural equilibrium theory of "supply and demand." The Free Market has been debunked rationally by most intelligent economists, and today's Free Market cannot absolutely be a model for economic and social growth when its effects are an increasing gap between the rich and the poor, when there is starvation and poverty while resources are spent for waging wars, when the power of weapons of mass destruction and money are used to subject people around the world.

I am talking about the United States and their imperial colonization of the world under the fake banner of their Gallup Poll democracy while they pursue the vested interest of Corporate America and their priestly fortunate sons, under their fake fair rationalization of the Free Market while they use their money to protect their standard of living rather than our freedom, under their fake compassion for the predicament of the poor as they spend some $400 billion per year for military purposes including weapons of mass destruction while half the world of nearly three billion people live on less than two dollars a day.

Just recently, the United States slapped a 30% tariff on imported steel while at the same time slapping another tariff of some 27% on Canadian softwood lumber . And today, the House has passed a farm bill to provide subsidies to American big farmers. If this farm bill is passed by the Senate and signed by president Bush, American agricultural production would increase and the further supply in the world market will further depress prices with disastrous economic consequences for Canada, Europe and above all the developing countries.

Former president Jimmy Carter has stated "I wished I had known then [when I was president] what I know now about the third world" and has continued to say that in agricultural protection alone, "we cost the developing world three times as much as all the overseas development assistance that they received from all sources". And Hans Koehler, IMF managing director, has asserted that the $2 billion the United States alone spends on cotton subsidies is worth more than the total cotton production of sub-Saharan Africa.

President Bush is simply an hypocrite as instead to alleviate poverty he pushes the power of his markets with the power of his money and the power of his guns.

References

Pertinent articles in Ensign

Bush says Poverty Reduction to be Focus of G-8 Meeting. President calls for increased grants from development banks U.S. Department of State's Office of International Information Programs, 17 July 2001 http://usinfo.state.gov/topical/econ/group8/summit01/wwwh01071700.html

Poverty Facts and Stats, Global Issues That Affect Everyone, site managed by computer scientist Anup Shah, http://www.globalissues.org/index.html

US farm aid threatens new trade row. Farm states matter in mid-term elections BBC News, 3 May, 2002 http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/business/newsid_1966000/1966047.stm

Softwood duties upheld, but not retroactive. CBC News, 03 May 2002 http://www.cbc.ca/stories/2002/05/02/softwood_020502

PRESS CONFERENCE BY FORMER UNITED STATES PRESIDENT JIMMY CARTER, United Nations, 19 March 2002 http://www.un.org/News/briefings/docs/2002/carterpc.doc.htm

IMF calls for farm subsidy cuts, by Andrew Walker, BBC News 29 April 2002 http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/business/newsid_1957000/1957488.stm