Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
I do have one minor objection, regarding the blame game. You say the fault lies with "You and I." I hear this sort of rhetoric an awful lot, but I have trouble understanding it.
How am I at fault? Can you clarify?
When I say you and I, it is a general statement, I do not know what level of civic responsibility you personally have shown; perhaps you have been active in local politics and do your diligence as a Citizen to be informed and to vote accordingly.
As a people we do not. I would venture to say most citizens have never taken the time or effort to write to their representatives or even to spend the time to really study and understand the issues and the people they vote for.
The problems we are facing now did not just happen; they are the result of two decades of government and central bank mismanagement. The fact that there has been no public outrage over that period is proof that the people in whom the power and responsibility rest (according to the Constitution) have been asleep at the switch.
Hard to give credence to some one when people lie to introduce them, and each seems to have the precise same grandiose title from Wharton...they have to be getting it from somewhere.
Farmers would not grow food for the price the market would drive it to in a completely free market. Thats exactly why there are farm subsidies.
Research from Brian M. Riedl at the Heritage Foundation showed that nearly three quarters of subsidy money goes to the top 10% of recipients. Thus, the large farms, which are the most profitable because they have economies of scale, receive the most money. The discrepancy is only widening. Since 1990, payments to large farms have nearly tripled, while payments to small farms have remained constant. Brian M. Riedl argues that the subsidy money is helping large farms buy out small farms. "Specifically, large farms are using their massive federal subsidies to purchase small farms and consolidate the agriculture industry. As they buy up smaller farms, not only are these large farms able to capitalize further on economies of scale and become more profitable, but they also become eligible for even more federal subsidies—which they can use to buy even more small farms." Critics also note that, in America, over 90% of money goes to staple crops of corn, wheat, soybeans and rice while growers of other crops get shut out completely.
There was also a very good article on the folks that receive those monies and guess what..they are not "farmers" living on their farms.
Here's a link to a farm subsidies database. Pick the state and see who got the money.
Not fully up to date but enough to let you see that "Joe Farmer" is NOT the one getting the money.
Joe Farmer is going under due to high debt and sinking commodity prices.
Farmers would not grow food for the price the market would drive it to in a completely free market. Thats exactly why there are farm subsidies.
Looking at the farm bill passed not long ago; it actaully benefits people that don't farm or even attempt to. Millions each year go to landowners in this country.
Hard to give credence to some one when people lie to introduce them, and each seems to have the precise same grandiose title from Wharton...they have to be getting it from somewhere.
To be fair, he claimed he wasn't a professor. These say that the is the director of strategic planning. I don't know that these are the same thing.
There was also a very good article on the folks that receive those monies and guess what..they are not "farmers" living on their farms.
Here's a link to a farm subsidies database. Pick the state and see who got the money.
Not fully up to date but enough to let you see that "Joe Farmer" is NOT the one getting the money.
Joe Farmer is going under due to high debt and sinking commodity prices.
Though net farm income reached a record level of $88.7 billion in 2007, propelled by high market prices for major crops, Washington still sent out over $5 billion of taxpayers' money in "direct payment" farm subsidies to over 1.4 million recipients," said Ken Cook, president of EWG. "Over 60 percent of the subsidy was pocketed by just 10 percent of the recipients-the largest and generally wealthiest subsidized farming operations in the country."
america could be a great farming country again, without the government taking money away from workers to give to farming corporations. america has a lot of tangible assets and great potential if the government would get out of the way.
Research from Brian M. Riedl at the Heritage Foundation showed that nearly three quarters of subsidy money goes to the top 10% of recipients. Thus, the large farms, which are the most profitable because they have economies of scale, receive the most money. The discrepancy is only widening. Since 1990, payments to large farms have nearly tripled, while payments to small farms have remained constant. Brian M. Riedl argues that the subsidy money is helping large farms buy out small farms. "Specifically, large farms are using their massive federal subsidies to purchase small farms and consolidate the agriculture industry. As they buy up smaller farms, not only are these large farms able to capitalize further on economies of scale and become more profitable, but they also become eligible for even more federal subsidies—which they can use to buy even more small farms." Critics also note that, in America, over 90% of money goes to staple crops of corn, wheat, soybeans and rice while growers of other crops get shut out completely.
What anyone does with the subsidy money is completely seperate from the economic issue.
Farms are the least capital intensive operation you can possibly imagine. Sure, big farms have 100's of thousands of dollars of equipment, but all you really need is a horse, a plow, seeds, a water source, and couple acres, and you have a commercial farm. Therefore, you have the potential for the market to be seriously overburdended with produce. The US produces many more times what it consumes already, and there are literally tons of food destroyed in any given year to simply keep it off the market.
The US, and most industrialized countries on the globe, combat this by subsidies. They attempt to artificially manipulate the free market to keep farmers producing the correct food, and not overproducing others.
Now, is it a problem that corporate farms are benefiting largely now? Yeah. Is it a problem that agrobusiness is now a major Washington lobby? Yeah. However, in itself, I believe farm subsidies are very neccessary.
Though net farm income reached a record level of $88.7 billion in 2007, propelled by high market prices for major crops, Washington still sent out over $5 billion of taxpayers' money in "direct payment" farm subsidies to over 1.4 million recipients," said Ken Cook, president of EWG. "Over 60 percent of the subsidy was pocketed by just 10 percent of the recipients-the largest and generally wealthiest subsidized farming operations in the country."
america could be a great farming country again, without the government taking money away from workers to give to farming corporations. america has a lot of tangible assets and great potential if the government would get out of the way.
Again, the problem is the corporate farming operations, not the subsidies.
We already saw what happened without farm subsidies (see agriculture right before Great Depression, Dust Bowl).
Farms are NOT going to produce food for less then it cost to grow it.
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.
Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
