How many times do you find yourself saying "Wrong!" while reading this short piece on fair trade coffee?

Here's a comment from a reader of the Daily Texan Online.

I found 11 places where I said to myself...Wrong!

"Poverty is definitely a problem that the world needs to address, but "fair-trade" and "living wage" policies are not intelligent ways of doing it ("Destitution in your cup," Oct. 2). Oversupply of any commodity will cause that commodity's price to plummet; these are the simple workings of supply and demand. Any policy that attempts to undermine them will also undermine any impetus for real change in the world.

Artificially rising the price of coffee so that farmers will earn wages that we deem "acceptable" will remove any motivation for these workers to learn new skills and for their children to focus on education. A better use of our time and resources would be to promote commercial and industrial development in the world's poorer nations, and then connect the indigent with these jobs. With fewer farmers providing coffee, the price of coffee will naturally increase. Furthermore, former farmers will find themselves pursuing high-tech jobs that pay better, offer better upward mobility and produce both products and knowledge that benefit the entire country.

Abandon those candy-coated yet noxious notions of "fair-trade" and "living wages" - we can do much better."