Why does America regulate the trade in raisins?

The Economist ^ | April 14, 2013 | The Economist Explains

[Tolerance Sucks Rocks]

The nannies are everywhere!

Nanny State PING!

[WriteOn]

FDR policy? Commie. He loved Mussolini...

[madison10]

1943? Did they confiscate the raisins as part of the war effort? Rationing?

[JRandomFreeper]

Look. You can't have people just growing stuff and selling it for whatever price the market will bear. That's... untidy. Best to have some schlub in DC decide what the price is, how much is needed, and what your profits will be. That's the American way.

Do I really need the /s?

/johnny

[mnehring]

What don’t we regulate trade in?

[Jack Hydrazine]

An NRA (National Recovery Act) holdover?

This sounds as idiotic as paying farmers not to farm their land.

[PGR88]

Agriculture was to Roosevelt, what Health Care is to Obama. Both viewed it as a field where Gov’t control and progressive ideology was absolutely necessary,

[Conservative4Ever]

I heard it through the grapevine...

[Sacajaweau]

There’s a new wrinkle in this...

[Vermont Lt]

Why wouldn’t you regulate raisins?

[logitech]

WTH ping

[Uncle Chip]

No wonder a box of raisins costs so much — the Sun Maid is living high off the grape.

[cripplecreek]

Remember.

[gov_bean_ counter]

Either you regulate the raisins or the raisins regulate you...

[dr_lew]

This wasn’t something that originated with FDR. I recall, from years ago, a film shown on TV of Hoover citing the cause of the farmers’ woes as “overproduction, overproduction, and overproduction.” The farmers themselves dumped cans of milk in protest of the low prices.

[PieterCasparzen]

The Roosevelt and Delano families had longstanding ties to Wall Street, and FDR himself was Wall Street through and through.

You’ll simply have to dig a little to find out about what firms he worked for or sat on the boards of, because the 1920’s section of his biography is all but deleted in most accounts.

Of course, as a new world order minion, like the “powers that be” on Wall Street, he favored statism/communism/socialism/etc., as the political structure front to be implemented where possible (which ensures the dominance of the global elite money folks).

[TChad]

Perhaps (raisin farmer) Victor Davis Hanson should weigh in...

[TigersEye]

He who controls the raisins controls the universe!

[WXRGina]

We should be raisin hell over this.