I haven’t seen you about here much recently, DSYoungEsq. Nice to see you around.
To the input-output tables!
So we want to take a necessity, food, and work to make sure everyone pays more for it, in some attempt to boost local economies? Is that about right? So we can have bison?
Food is a necessity just like everything else we consume, no more and no less. What we want is for people (the “market”) to decide what it is really worth to them and not for the government to distort the domestic and international economy by subsidising the production of one thing by taxing other things. if government subsidies disappeared then farmers in poorer countries would have a chance to compete and possibly prices would not go up much. But that is not the point, the point is that an economy is most efficient when people pay for things what they really cost. We do not subsidise other insdustries and I cannot see why farmers are any different.
I don’t know, sailor, I can imagine going without my PS2. I’m happy to let market forces do whatever they want all over it. I would like to think that food is a little more secure.
I have heard that argument a million times and it is nonsense, palin nonsense. the USA is not securing its own supply of food, it is subsidizing farmers and in the process producing a huge surplus of food it does NOT need and for which it has to find uses. One of the ways of getting rid of the surplus is dumping it abroad and depressing world markets in the process which means unfair competition for the rest of the world. The idea that the government is securing domestic supply is nonsense.
In the energy industry, companies are paid a fee to maintain the capacity to produce more energy than is normally needed. The reason for that is that you want that capacity available during peak demand periods. Simply left to market forces, you would likely experience brown outs during peak and off-peak periods as companies are unable to meet demand or decide that demand is too low to maintain operations.
I imagine that it is similar in agriculture. Crops, like power plants, take a long time to make. They can’t react to market forces as quickly as a Playstation factory that can increase or decrease production by turning a machine on or off. A farmer can’t pull a lever and just create more grain.
You want to have more food than you need for those times when demand is higher than normal. The downside is that you have more food than you need the rest of the time.
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Who cares? If Third World people can get food more cheaply by importing it than growing themselves, what’s the diference?
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You’re dreaming if you think a bunch of peasent farmers with rusty tractors can compete with industrialized American farms.
Anyhow, as DSYoungEsq suggested, only a lunatic would suggest damaging our own economy a lot for the sake of marginally improving (maybe) the economy of third world countries.
Well, I do think that it’s perfectly reasonable to want to play it safe with the food supply. After all, a couple years of widespread drought will lead to drops in production that will be extremely difficult to make good. (Look, for example, at what’s happened to grain stocks over the past couple years, which have been dismal in terms of production. Now imagine what might have happened if the usual level of production weren’t rather higher than the market would dictate in the absence of subsidies.) However, I don’t think subsidies are a good way to go about safeguarding the food supply. A far more productive way to do this would be for the government to simply maintain a strategic stockpile of various foodstuffs - primarily cereal grains, I think, due to their relatively long storage life. Simply buy up enough grain to cover the shortfall on something like, say, 3 years of 20% below average production. Buy primarily in years with above average crops. Cycle the grain back into the market after it begins to degrade in quality, selling it as animal feed.
Done right, this encourages a degree of over-production to be on the safe side (because, like erislover, I’m not in the least interested in their being a critical shortage of wheat), but it won’t result in a vast surplus that will be dumped on the global market, depressing prices.
How is this different from a subsidy?
Instead of increasing production by creating an artificial export advantage, depressing global prices, it would increase production by increasing overall demand (not by a lot, mind you, since most of the grain would be resold, though at a lower grade - basically it would shift a bit of production from feed grains to milling varieties), inflating global prices (though again, not by a lot).
Do you view the strategic oil reserve as a subsidy?
Forgive me if me if I was misunderstood.
The idea of the Buffalo Commons is a controversial but interesting one. (And I am taking no sides on this issue.)
But if the Right and Left Coast of the US decides enough is enough and rebelled against more city tax money going to bail out farmers, then farming in much of the Great Plains would collapse.
OK, if we presume that happens, what the heck are we supposed to do with (say) South Dakota?
Buffalo Commons merely describes one possible (and perhaps likely) scenario.
You gotta take your hat off to somebody who can introduce a strawman into a debate on cereal crops.
Well I was talking about the main grains that the US exports with the assistance of EEP, of which corn isn’t one but after the unguided tour through US agribusiness your point is 2% is consumed as food, 8% is made into food additives, 50% is converted into food by feedlots and piggeries, 20% is exported as food to other countries and most of the rest is kept in case you run out of food. This changes the justification of the subsidies?
No argument from me, and it applies to US/non-US farmers and consumers equally.
Can’t recall arguing that anything other than market forces should determine allocation of production resources. Set-aside might be cheaper and less distorting than subsidised production and export disposal, but it’s still a subsidy and still agrarian social engineering.
I guess one could, if you think the only mechanism that can increase production is increased subsidies … nothing like being consistent in a argument.
oh dear, for a crescendo, that was disappointing. You really need to to work more on your shrill hyperbole. Sorry, can’t give you more than a B- for that effort. Fair dinkum? I think you’re confusing me with other posters advocating that the entire corn belt should be turned into a eco-theme park. Who’s going to provide the bulk carbohydrates required to feed your ground beef production system? Let’s just wind back the subsidies that create your 20-30% excess production that gets dumped overseas.
I’ll see your :rolleyes: and raise you :rolleyes: :rolleyes:
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Subsidies are created initially to protect against disaster. The fact that they outlive their initial intent is irrelevant to the point about decreased production; threaten the potential supply and all you will do is promote the concept of increasing subsidies. Reduce crop acreage significantly and you will threaten potential supply. It should be fairly obvious where this would lead.
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Although he has since modified his initial post to emphasize the subsidy issue, the OP, and the original efforts at debate, were focusing on the question of whether we should accomplish reduced production through forced fallowing of lands, in particular to provide for some grandiose concept of a bison wild park. Say what one wants about reducing subsidies (which would, presumably, affect production overall, not just in one general location), but attempting to reduce production by eliminating it in a specific geographical area is lunacy. As I stated. I would hope you agree; it was the only point I was making.
Not that you seemed to be paying attention. :rolleyes:
Now, if one wants to debate subsidies, be my guest. It’s a stupid debate: the issue is more sacrosanct than foreign policy regarding Castro and Cuba, which is saying a lot. In short, we will NEVER stop subsidizing farming; suggestions along those lines are always political suicide.
I suggest we restore this continent to a period slightly before the one in question. Some animals I’d like to see: smilodon, American lion, Harlan’s ground sloth, mastadon, and dire wolf. Please vacate the plains ASAP.