THE US SUBSIDIES AND THE GOOGLE/WB MASHUPS

On 1st August 2007, the former US Secretary of Labor during President Clinton administration, Professor Robert Reich (Photo below) visited CMU – Australia. He was the guest presenter during the bi-monthly convocation normally organized by the School. I realized with great interest two things about Professor Reich. One, he is a blogger on economic and political issues. As we approach the World Blog Day on August 30th, his blog at the link http://robertreich.blogspot.com may be your next site to explore. Second, he is against the US farm subsidies, as they do not provide a level ground for fair competition in the global agricultural commodity market. Prof. Reich therefore, lubricates the wheel being rolled by individuals and organizations like Oxfam, Make Poverty History, IFAT and others towards the world market void of distortions, void of unfair trade and the better welfare of farmers throughout the globe.

In a few months ago, the weekly World Bank (WB) newsletter had a link to the “global business rank”. The page showed the countries by their speed to create the favorable environment for business and investment. As for any good citizen would do I hurriedly searched for ‘Tanzania’. Wow!! It was among the top 10 reformers in the World. However, in a surprising situation, the same WB in collaboration with Google has recently released the Mashups which rate a country in terms of how easy or difficult it is to do business. I expected the same Tanzania to be among the top 10 easy category. However, it is different. Click here to see the ratings!!!