Old McChirac Had a Farm, EU-EU-D'OH!

Goodness… I actually agree with the Grey Lady's editorial page on an economic issue. The Times blasts EU officials for their cowardly reluctance to meaningfully reform their Common Agricultural Policy, which massively subsidizes agriculture in the EU, shafting European taxpayers and impoverished third-world farmers all at once. To get your head around the scope and sheer insanity of the subsidy, consider:

Thanks mainly to research done by the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development [OECD], a Paris-based think tank, the effects of the panoply of government policies on the sector have been quantified, as have the costs to the people who pay for it. The most recent calculations show that the annual cost to consumers and taxpayers of its 29 member countries? support for agriculture and horticulture amounts to US$361 billion. Such a large sum is difficult to grasp, but it is large enough to pay for a first class, round-the-world air ticket for each of the 56 million cows in the 29-member OECD?s dairy herd, and to give each cow a further US$1450 spending money for her stopovers in the US, Europe and Asia. Or the cows could slum it in business class, and have US$2800 spending money. And they could have this sort of trip every year, thanks to the generosity of OECD consumers and taxpayers.