Are you serious?
Yes, I’m serious. The collapse of MF Global could potentially have a significant impact on US food production next year. The Agriculture Dept. could start up a low-cost government loan program in just a few weeks. They don’t need to set up a new system. Instead, they can just pay a small fee to Bank of America and JP Morgan Chase to administer the program. The only real administrative effort by the Agriculture Dept. would be verifying that farmers have a significant amount of money frozen at MF Global. The rest of it is simple and inexpensive—just electrons moving around in bankers’ computers, and the benefits to America in lower food costs could be substantial.