This note provides a general concept of how the conflict of interest between credit rating agencies and financial entities that hire them to rate issues can be severed. The concept stresses addressing the conflict with minimal government regulation. Only a skeleton concept is offered -- the goal...

Multilateral trade rounds have stressed converting non tariff barriers to simple tariffs. The WTO Agreement on Agriculture includes the "price-gap" method that was prominent in the Uruguay Round. Many agricultural products, once considered commodities, are in fact differentiated products with...