I got this from a friend, who is passionate about Economics very much like me.
A hen and a pig are negotiating to solve the food shortage. The hen makes a suggestion: “I will supply the eggs if you will supply the bacon.” The pig ponders this for a moment and replies: “But yours is a contribution, mine is a total commitment.”
– Kofi Annan
This makes me think of many Economic-related things all at once… where to begin.
There’s the food crisis, which I am reading about in ‘The End of Food’ and will review for ERPZ.net soon. The book proposes a crunch in our food supply thanks to many factors that primarily revolve around our current unsustainable practices, and the hen and pig remind me of what the developed countries (the hen) are telling the developing countries (the pig) to do in terms of international food trade: open up your markets to our agricultural and food products, and we can practice comparative advantage to everyone’s benefit. But for the developing countries, to open up their markets would be akin to the pig giving itself up as bacon while the developed countries just contribute a “by-product” (the egg).
More when I finish the book!