Nothing Sweet about It (The outrageous U.S. sugar regime)

National Review Online ^ | July 16, 2007 | Frances B. Smith

[etcb]

I am curious to see if the president and those representatives who believe we must have unlimited foreign labor will support unlimited sugar imports. After all, it will only be used to sweeten those products Americans won’t sweeten!!!

[doc30]

During passover, you can get kosher coke with REAL sugar. It tastes so much better than the junk they make now with the HFCS that I can’t stand to drink the HFCS version anymore.

I believe Red Bull is not made with HFCS.

[SAJ]

You've put your finger right smack on it, m'friend. ADM (world's largest HFCS producer) and the sugar lobby are, and have been, in an unholy alliance for decades. Further, between them, they own more 'Critters and Senators than any other single lobby. Bought and paid for, fee simple.

Their push for higher imported sugar tariffs and higher floor prices right now is due almost entirely to the (government-ordered, via ethanol) price increase in corn. HFCS isn't competitive @ $4.00 corn with the sugar tariff where it is now (although, to be fair, corn is limit down today, and I don't fancy corn staying at $4.00 continuously for any great period of time, absent a really bad crop some year).

Thus, increasing the already artificially high sugar price in the US is tailor-made for ADM's purposes.

[SAJ]

See post #23.

[ikka]

Some of you may remember during the Clinton Era of Fraud and Deceit, that they correlated Monica's memory of phone calls made while she was in the Oval Office with phone records.

One of the big shots Clinton was on the phone with that Monica remembered?

A member of the Fanjul family, they make millions per year from Florida sugar.

[TLI]

as it means more high fructose corn syrup used in everything.

That stuff will make you fat as a cow.

[manic4organic]

I don’t buy products with HFCS. I also try not to buy anything with added sugar. It’s in the goofiest things like salsa, salad dressings, etc., where it is absolutely unnecessary.

[Marie2]

“Lard with sugar makes great sandwiches!”

Aren’t those called oreos?

I love the double stuff.

[montag813]

Aren’t these “poor” farmers making a killing over the price of corn and the ridiculous mania over Ethanol? Why should we feel sorry for them?

[Vinnie_Vidi_Vici]

You are exactly right ADM & Cargill would never let this happen.

[cinives]

That net worth is based primarily on their land.

[gunservative]

Gee, I thought annexing Hawaii in 1898 was going to keep the cost of sugar down! (/sarc)

[GeorgefromGeorgia]

It nothing more than corporate welfare. We should eliminate all farm subsidies. Barry Goldwater had it right over forty years ago.

[ChiMark]

So we should have super expensive sugar because why?

In Chicago i can tell you of all the small candy companys
including Brach’s which had to close.
Makes no sense. Higher prices=loss of jobs.

[JustaDumbBlonde]

Aren’t these “poor” farmers making a killing over the price of corn and the ridiculous mania over Ethanol? Why should we feel sorry for them?

No. The price of seed, fuel, fertilizer, storage and transport are also way up. The farmer is the last person that is 'making a killing', as is almost always the case.

[anglian]

In a dramatic bit of political engineering, ADM has managed over the last 25 years to rig up lucrative markets for two related products that would never have gained traction in a free market: corn-based ethanol and HFCS.(High Fructose Corn Syrup) Both thrive by grace of a baroque and related set of government subsidies and quotas.

At least 43 percent of ADM's annual profits are from products heavily subsidized or protected by the American government. Moreover, every $1 of profits earned by ADM's corn sweetener operation costs consumers $10, and every $1 of profits earned by its ethanol operation costs taxpayers $30.

Archer Daniels Midland A Case Study In Corporate Welfare

http://www.cato.org/pubs/pas/pa-241.html

Perverse subsidies

http://www.brocku.ca/envi/db/envi1p90/readings/Perverse%20Subsidies%20Executive%20Summary.pdf

Today, these dubious goods deliver more than half of ADM's operating profit, combining for about $290 million in operating profit in the third quarter of 2006 alone. And the political edifice that protects ADM's corn-based empire looks intact.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) spent time during the fall campaign stumping around Minnesota pledging her allegiance to corn ethanol as the fuel of the future. The purpose of her trip was to reassure the constituents of Rep. Collin Peterson (D-Minn.) that voting Democratic wouldn't mean an end to ethanol subsidies. Peterson, a virulent ethanol booster, is now set to take over the House Agriculture Committee, which will wield tremendous influence over the 2007 Farm Bill.

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2006/08/06/MNGQJKC8081.DTL&feed=rss.news

Nor will ADM encounter much friction in the Senate, where Sen. Tom Harkin (D-Iowa) looks set to regain the chairmanship of that body's agriculture committee. Harkin's enthusiasm for corn-based ethanol is nearly boundless. This is the man who, facing down critics who dared question ethanol's environmental value, once took a swig of the corn-based fuel on the Senate floor, evidently to demonstrate its salubrious qualities.

[Toddsterpatriot]

The farmer is the last person that is 'making a killing', as is almost always the case.

All these subsidies and trade restrictions aren't helping the farmers? Then the farmers wouldn't mind if we ended these welfare programs.

[maine-iac7]

Myself, I’d rather pay a little extra for good old fashioned sugar in soda’s, candies, cookies and just about everything that now contains the poison, fattening man=make concoction, High Fructose Corn Syrup = the studies on it are alarming - but you won’t hear the FDA or any other government entity warn you =- because it’s big money for Big Business - High Fructose Corn Syrup has an almost ‘forever’ shelf life = that’s the bottom line. (But, even those HFCS is less expensive for the manufactures, when did ever notice that savings was passed on to us?

Here’s a couple links - but do your own research. (If you drew a chart showing the climb of the use of HFCS in the past 2-3 decades and a chart of the increase in obesity, diabetes etc = they would be pretty identical..

http://www.sprol.com/?p=236

http://www.lewrockwell.com/alston/alston13.html

http://www.newstarget.com/001054.html

[Toddsterpatriot]

Here’s a couple links - but do your own research. (If you drew a chart showing the climb of the use of HFCS in the past 2-3 decades and a chart of the increase in obesity, diabetes etc = they would be pretty identical..

If you eat more calories and exercise less, it doesn't matter what you eat. You'll still get fat.

[expat_panama]

I’d rather pay a little extra for good old fashioned sugar...

--but you don't and nobody else does.  What really happens is that everyone's buying cheaper foreign candy; like the article said, "restricting sugar imports led to a loss of 10,000 jobs in candy manufacturing and noted that for every one job saved in the sugar industry, three jobs were lost in the confectionery industry".

Import taxes are welfare for the lazy rich.