"Government screws up everything. If government says black, you can bet it's white. If government says sit still for your safety, you'd better run for your life!"
--Wayne Allyn Root
www.rootforamerica.com
www.FairTax.org
There wasa piece on TED about it.
"Government screws up everything. If government says black, you can bet it's white. If government says sit still for your safety, you'd better run for your life!"
--Wayne Allyn Root
www.rootforamerica.com
www.FairTax.org
Got too much money? Become a pig farmer.
Read more - http://www.thepigsite.com/articles/2...north-carolinaEconomic Disaster in the US Pork Industry and Implications for North Carolina
Kelly Zering, Associate Professor and Extension Specialist in the Department of Agricultural and Resource Economics at North Carolina State University explains why the current economic climate has hit the state's pig industry particularly hard. The article is published in the University's Swine News.
US pig producers have lost an average of more than $21 per hog marketed on every hog sold since October, 2007 (Lawrence, based on USDA data). More than 195.6 million market hogs have been slaughtered in the US during that time (USDA NASS), so pig producers have lost more than $4.1 billion in equity in the last 21 months. The equity loss is more than 50 per cent of the estimated equity in the US pig farming sector at the beginning of October 2007 (Meyer, 2009a).
If you also agree that an animals suffering should be avoided rather than encouraged, consider what steps you can take.
stop and consider for a moment the purpose behind subsidies.......the government subsidizes farmers to grow certain products which would not be profitable to grow but which are needed.......if fruits and vegetable are not subsidized it is likely because they are profitable to grow without subsidies.....if, for example, the government wanted farmers to grow corn instead of soybeans (a more profitable crop but more damaging to the soil) they offered a subsidy to encourage farmers to grow corn and rotate their crops.....of course, since they've discovered that they can make ethanol out of corn the amount the government pays in subsidies has dropped to something like 10% of what it was back in the 90s.....
...full immersion.....
when I was growing up the hog market was more cyclical......nearly every farmer in Iowa raised some hogs.....the growth cycle for hogs is short, about nine months from farrowing to sale.....if the price was high all the farmers increased the number of hogs they raised.....thus the supply would be high nine months later and the price would drop.....so people wouldn't raise as many hogs and the price would go up.....nowdays most hogs are raised in huge confinement setups and the supply is more constant
...full immersion.....
That would be well and good, if meat was needed, which its not. People may like it, they may want it, but it is not a need, and to burn money the way the gov is, billions of dollars, on something that is not needed is a bit silly IMO. But hey, who needs a free market to decide whats best, when the government can spew your money at it.
If you also agree that an animals suffering should be avoided rather than encouraged, consider what steps you can take.
Hey noir, are you familiar with the economic principle of comparative advantage? In a nutshell, it where specialization is encouraged because the opportunity cost (the cost of not doing something else) is less than the gains of doing one thing, alone. Take, for example, the US/Japan trade relationship. The us can raise beef and produce cars cheaper than japan. Free market, no trade. However, Japan does produce cars we demand, so we need somehong to trade with them. As we've the capacity to produce far more wheat than we need; export that wheat, right? Wrong. Other countries can produce wheat cheaper than we can. In a free market, we'd have nowhere to sell our wheat; not even at home, despite our vast agricultural lands. However, if we subsidize that wheat, controlling the price, we manipulate the trade advantage compared with other countries to our favor. Now, I'm not saying this is the most ethical thing to do in a global sense, but it does make sense from a domestic standpoint.
If you're looking for someone to blame, blame Keynes and the heads of state following world war two who formed the IMF trade policie. Of course, those policies also brought about postwar growth without the burden of excessive reparations. Which we learned about how reparations from the treaty of Versailles, combined with free market conditions, led to the pitfalls of hyper inflation, which then enabled the nazi party to gain political traction. Thats no hyperbole either, that is exactly how that happened.
Modern subsidies are of course the inverse of those first implemented by the new deal; though both stabilize prices. Now we pay down the price; keeping it artificially low. Whereas new deal subsidies actually kept the price up to foster stable prices, as the depression had caused a fallout for everything; with no money to pay for commodities, the price dropped, farms went under, and without crops on those lands, the topsoil blew away; then when the market actually did stabilize, as markets will do, on their own , the lands were no longer arable. I could on and on if you'd like, I haven't even got to the price of tea in China yet.
Anyways, my point is that it's easy to blame lobbies and meat- murderers, but the relationship of subsidies on regional production, manufacturing and service sector money multiplier effects and the strategic role that plays in the technological advantages our economy now excels at is quite complex. If it were as simple as you premise; wouldnt we already be doing that way??? Just saying, every opportunity costs man. Nothing is as simple as it seems.
He who learns must suffer. And even in our sleep pain that cannot forget falls drop by drop upon the heart, and in our own despair, against our will, comes wisdom to us by the awful grace of God.AeschylusRead more at http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/qu...zeMUwcpY1Io.99
but you see, that's sort of my point....the federal government doesn't subsidize meat......never has.....this whole lame argument stems from the fact that the government subsidizes corn, which can be used as an animal feed but which is subsidized for a totally different reason (crop rotation and soil conservation)..........
...full immersion.....
Well every article i find states the meat and dairy subsidies are around 60-70%, however i've got an american friend to mail their representatives to get a breakdown of meat, dairy and grain subsidies. Ofcoures i'll post the replies her as soon as i get them (:
If you also agree that an animals suffering should be avoided rather than encouraged, consider what steps you can take.
and when I googled meat subsidies all the hits that said there was such a thing came from the same place.....now perhaps they are including the meat that the school lunch program purchases (school lunches actually being a part of the agricultural budget).....but they aren't subsidies.....I assume, though, that the claim results from including corn subsidies under "meat" instead of under "grain".......
...full immersion.....