Posted on 02/15/2002 2:58:58 PM PST by RJCogburn
Farmers: Get a Job!
It kind of makes me wonder what country I'm living in when I pick up the newspaper and read this from the Associated Press:
"With crop prices mired near record lows, the government says farm earnings will drop 20 percent this year unless Congress enacts a new farm program or approves more emergency payments."
Hello? Is this free enterprise, profit-and-loss America, or have I crossed over into the Twilight Zone: Welcome to Cuba?
Before we dissect this "news," let's step back and appreciate the big picture. For many years the environmental movement has been warning that the out-of-control human race will imminently starve itself to death because of the Malthusian notion that population growth will outstrip food production.
Well, it hasn't quite worked that way. Instead of starving people and wealthy farmers (which is what should have happened if the doomsayers were right), we have fat people (see the recent Surgeon General's report) and farmers bellyaching about low crop prices.
The bad news, then, is good.
Getting back to the AP story: I'm a magazine editor, and I have yet to read in the newspaper that "editors' earnings will drop 20 percent this year unless Congress enacts a new editor program or approves more emergency payments." Do you know what I and my fellow editors have to do if our earnings drop to a level too low to live on? We have to look for higher-paying jobs! I assume that mechanics and real-estate salesman have to do the same.
But not the farmers. They have apparently been bestowed with the Divine Right to Farm. If they can't make enough to live on, they have the legal power to loot the rest of us so they can stay on the farm anyway. This sounds like insanity. Would someone please explain it to me?
Maybe the yeoman farmer, the noble man of the soil, is too busy lobbying for taxpayer subsidies to learn a little economics. But when a line of work won't pay a satisfactory income, it is the market's way of saying we have enough people doing that; go find something else to do. Why should farmers be an exception to a perfectly good rule?
An economist at Texas A&M was quoted saying, "Congress is looking at these numbers and saying, 'We can't live with that.'" Hah! He means that members of Congress won't let us taxpayers live with that, since they aren't planning to subsidize the farmers out of their own pockets. I can live with it, thank you. Besides, I gave last year, and the year before. I'm thinking it's time for the farmers to stand on their own two feet.
Do you realize that 30 percent of the wheat farmers' gross income comes from the government? Thirty percent! The guys that grow other grains and soybeans get 20 percent of their income from Washington. Can you say "socialized agriculture"?
I know how the farmers would respond. They need special treatment because they have to contend with the weather and price fluctuations. Like that's something new. Farmers have been plagued by drought, floods, and pests since biblical times. Uncertain prices are just as old. Guess what: the free market long ago evolved ways for farmers to transfer the risks to people willing to accept them in return for the prospect of high profits. They're called insurance and futures markets. The government has screwed up crop insurance because it thinks it can handle it better than private companies. The futures markets still work. The principle is simple. A farmer doesn't know what the price of his crop will be when he plants it. But there have always been risk-takers who are willing to bet that the price will be even higher than the farmer is happy to accept. So the risk-taker promises to buy the crop from the farmer at an agreed-on price. That gives the farmer a guarantee against a lower price and the risk-taker the chance for a real killing. Everyone is happy.
In other words, farmers don't warrant special treatment. Capitalist technological advances have made it possible to grow more food on less land and with fewer farmers. Why don't we face it already?
The farmers need them. Who do you think is paying for the subsidies that feed them.
Hank
So you don't deny that the farm subsidies might be a rip off,
rather your defense of the program is that I should relax
because there are other programs that are also ripping me off?
Oh, and by the way, you don't know "Jack"
After you've managed to make money while competing against chinese slave-labor and NAFTA-shafta imports, and found a way to sell your crops outside the rigged "market" system now in place, I'm sure you'll find no end of willing ears sitting on top of bib-jeaned dirt-diggers.
Until then, well, I won't say, because if I did, I'd get banned in a heartbeat.
I know this is going to shock you, so steal yourself:
There are actually many families without a single farmer in them.
I warned you!
Hank
I've worked on farms in Vermont, and with farmers in North Dakota. These "thugs", especially in the Dakotas and other midwestern states, can barely scrape by. Rates of suicide have gone up, family farms are being auctioned off every week from men who can no longer make ends meet. Sound like thugs? I think not.
No, I don't deny that farm subsidies "might" be a rip-off at all. I do know that farmers work there ass off for not much of a return. I know they feed the counrty, and you too I might add. No subsidies for ANYONE would be my preference. Think that will happen soon? Doubtful, but you can bet working farmers will lose thiers before welfare recipients.
This is an old article, but principles do not change. The farm subsidy scam has been going on for a very long time. Only those who have something to gain from it would continue to support this parasite's paradise scheme.
Ignore my comments and read the article. If you still disagree, show how these good people were wrong.
Hank
Obviously something strange is going on when a store sells foreign "fresh" produce and US produced produce is hard to find.I dont buy from roadside stands, when there are no farms in sight!Who knows where that stuff came from. At least they are required to label foreign produce here.Do they do that in your state?
Last name is Daniels, right?
Hank
My, my, my, aren't we the snotty one today, Hankie. Then again, you did select an appropriate handle, so one should not be too surprised when you act out your monicker.
Ah, but I digress, Snot-rag (that is the appropriately casual dimunitive for "handkerchief", I presume?)
To bring things back into focus, I would suspect that your florid fantasy life notwithstanding, the farmers in question would be more apt to hand you a shovel, a pail of seeds, and point you in the direction of a one-acre plot of dirt with your name on it, as they smiled and said, "here ya go, smart-ass city-boy -- now go feed yerself and show us all how it's done."
Great idea! Lets turn all our wheat farmers into welfare recipients and turn thier land into national parks. That way we can be more dependent on other countries, and pay more in taxes to buy food we can produce. What other productive industry do you want to shut down and depend on other countries?
Sheesh, it must be socialist night on Free Republic...
Oh, that's just brilliant thinking there Einstein.
But why stop with mere food?
I bet we can contract out our national defense to China and Cuba for a fraction of what we're currently paying for our subsidized military!
Just think of all the money we'd save! And after all, there aren't any considerations that really matter other than short-term (read: "immediate") CBA, right?
The Amish and Mennonites can farm without government subsidies and also have enough to sell outside of their communities.
Why not suggest to Congress to ask them how it's done? LOL
Ah, you think I'm a "city-boy?"
Oh well, presumption knows no bounds.
Thank you for that wonderful demonstration of reason and decency. We certainly ought to be supporting farmers if your chatacterization is typical of them all. Just the kind of people we need a lot more of.
Hank
Did you know that there are tons of fruit and berry farmers who are obligated to destroy every n'th row of their crops? They are even prohibited from feeding their own families with it, feeding it to animals, or even donating it to the starving.
The system is rigged top to bottom, and your "cure" is to yank the IV tube out of the barely-clinging-to-life farmer.
Go ahead, see what you'll get. You'll make a very nice pawn for the globalists who are waiting semi-patiently for the USA to be completely incapable of feeding itself. Enjoy your mayheekan asparagus, sold retail for less than it costs an American farmer to produce. Enjoy your chinese canned goods, and so forth.
When the USA is no longer able to feed itself, I'm sure you'll have ample opportunity to determine just how friendly our foreign "friends" really are.
I'm sorry if my answer appeared that way, that was not my intention.
I live in Florida.There is definately not "plenty" of US produce in the chain grocery stores.Yes, I can find some if I go to health food stores,but not at the big stores.
Well I can only relate as to what I have out here, We do have grapes from Chilie, but great citrus from Florida and Texas. Who knows? Maybe they move this stuff all over to keep the truckers unions happy.
Obviously something strange is going on when a store sells foreign "fresh" produce and US produced produce is hard to find.I dont buy from roadside stands, when there are no farms in sight!Who knows where that stuff came from. At least they are required to label foreign produce here.Do they do that in your state?
Yeah, most everything is lableled.
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