Ray, Where have you been since you left the reservation? Paying subsidies to farmers and fixing prices high is one of the pretty little functions of most governments - maybe all governments.
Both subsidies and fixed prices create the mountains of butter and cheese we find over there and over here (I think in North America we put the surplus in caves.) We also give poor people food stamps over here, Ray. This is not charity - it's a way to get rid of the mountains. Also, we can preen ourselves with self-satisfaction as we freely give food to the third world (also, it gets rid of the surpluses). I talked in an earlier post about the government milk supports that are intended to make milk expensive to poor people (and everyone else). You'll recall that the Los Angeles discount store Cosco found that the government had fixed a lower wholesale price over the mountains in the San Joaquin valley. That looked good, so Cosco sent trucks to the San Joaquin valley to buy milk at lower prices. This milk they then sold at a lower price to their members in Los Angeles. At least they did until the Feds found out about it. Under threat of prosecution they had to stop getting the cheaper milk. Their members now have to buy the high fixed price milk. Trouble is that when you fix the price of something high, consumers buy less of it. So, a $100 million advertising campaign to persuade people to buy the surplus milk was launched - and it's still going -probably for another $100 million. (Americans will know it as "Got Milk?") Where did the corporate farmers get all that money? They didn't. This is being paid for by the taxpayer. Consensus? The money is being spent for nothing. People don't watch TV, then run out and buy more milk. So they probably pour it down the drains. Not the government - the farmers. All the government does is pay for the milk whether or not it's poured down the drains. The sugar story is delicious. The sugar quota stops most of the sugar imports into this county. That's the government's policy intended to keep the price high. It's successful. Americans pay from 2-3 times the world price of sugar (it's been up to 4 times the world price). No doubt billions of bottles of soft drinks are drunk every year. They are sugar, water, and a trace of flavor. A little under half pound in one of those big 2 quart bottles of Pepsi. Then there is ice cream - a staple of the American diet. During wartime, a story of an American destroyer stopping in the Atlantic to take on a large supply of ice cream for the crew had British heads shaking in disbelief. You didn't stop in mid-Atlantic in wartime. Anyway, Americans like ice cream - and the sugar it contains. Then there are cookies and candy. An ad appeared on television pointing out that only 2 cents worth of sugar was in a chocolate bar. Well, two cents in (say) a 40 cent bar isn't bad. However, 2 cents as part of the manufacturing cost of materials (perhaps half the cost) is a different matter. The government didn't pay for that ad. It's interesting who did. Not the sugar beet growers - fewer than 11,000 of them. It was the corn syrup manufacturers! The price of sugar was so high, it was possible for the coke bottlers to use corn syrup - normally too expensive for them. So to keep the business, the corn syrup manufacturers spent a lot of money on TV commercials praising sugar and its cheapness. Not finished yet. Sugar producing countries complained they were in economic distress, so the government sprang to action. So, the government helped them by sending lots of food surpluses to them (remember the mountains, Ray). All this free food ruined the farmers not ruined by the Sugar Quota. I suppose they had to turn to coca or some other profitable crop. And by the way, the Sugar Quota has caused more unemployment than there are beet sugar farmers. Canada has benefited from the nonsense as American companies have fled north of the border where sugar is cheaper. Governments, Ray, make the "Law of Unintended Consequences" an art form. Don't bristle because I slam governments. They deserve far more criticism than I have time for. Now we can go, one by one, through the other 8,500 US tariffs and the damage they cause! Well, perhaps not, but you might investigate these things about which your knowledge is a little weak. After all, you apparently think that farmers are responsible for the butter and cheese mountains. Also, that they then proceed to pay the costs of this overproduction and the costs of storing it. But, you couldn't believe that. It goes against common sense. So, who is responsible for the food mountains, Ray? Why don't you ask the Spice Girls, or Harrison Ford? Harry - (CEO The Coldwater Group) _____________________________ Ray wrote: >The Coldwater Group stated: > > It's built because the government(s) pay the farmers to overproduce. Then > > the overproduction is piled into mountains. Of course consumer prices are > > kept high for the people have to pay for this nonsense. > > > > (We have our butter and cheese mountains over here. Because we have > > governments too.) > >(To be read in the spirit of the Spice Girls) > >Boys, what kind of thinking is that? "Economic speak?" It reads >like the kind of "nonsense redefining" that constitutes what John Warfield >calls "polluting the language." Do any of you seriously believe that >the intent of the government is to pay people to over produce? And the >reason is? Because "that is what governments do"? Harry, does the >George school accept such logic from its students? If it does we should >call it Henry George and the PIPs? (Poor Intellectual Productivity) > >But the sad truth is that economists make this kind of general statement >all the time and get by with it. It is bad thought, bad policy and bad >English. Yesterday Ayn Rand, (the reciever of the Alice >Rosenblum paragon of English Language Award) in her book Anthem, equated >artists with candlemakers in an electric society, today we believe our >food producers are the "new candlemakers" in a brave new virtual world. > >I propose no answers because the questions about these issues and the >relationship to the Future of Work for farmers and others have not been >asked. Like the GE company's PCBs in the Hudson River, the only answer >is "Laisse Faire." If we ignore it, it will go away because "nature, >i.e. the market, is good." Or the best one of all is "the market is just >the market!" Really? Or maybe we should quote that piece of market >intellectual philosophy as spoken by the character played by Harrison Ford >in the movie "Sabrina." After he had just screwed someone royally, >he said: "Don't take it so personally, it's just business." What was >yesterday's Ford in entertainment is today's Skilling (Enron) in more >entertainment. Wasn't it Russert that said "Its all >entertainment!"? Maybe the answer is there IS no future in work! > > >Ray Evans Harrell, Performing Artist >New York City > >reharrell, cherokee, on a sunday morning after dealing with the european >american irs and checking his bank account being blamed on the wtc >disaster by the local yokels. "it's not amerika it's the terrorists!"
