Posted on 04/21/2014 12:04:02 AM PDT by Vince Ferrer
What kind of a warped rationale have you spun for yourself to justify your government-forced subsidy of your business?
Nobody at FR is against ethanol mandates because they want cheaper meat. They are against a) the distortion and coercion in the market and b) being forced to put stuff in their cars that is bad for their car engines.
And how has the government structured the market for artificially low corn prices? The norm for decades has been price supports and massive subsidies.
Here’s an article talking about the idiocy of our policy:
What kind of warped rationale does it take to think that just because I point out a lobby for a different kind of govt subsidy, that that means I want to keep it for ethanol? I won’t take either false choice thank you.
The govt yes, did put a floor under prices, a very cheap floor. Just enough to keep farmers from going out of business en masse, but so low as to promote the cheap meat angle. The low subsidy creates the best of both worlds, a permanent and some would say addictive incentive to produce something, but not enough to prevent cheap meat from being produced. By doing so along with other policies, they perpetuated that business model.
What do you think the fools here are saying when they chant ‘burning our food, burning our fooooooooooooooood’ - they are really saying ‘we hate added value ag because we won’t have cheap meat’. Take off the rose colored glasses for a minute. They aren’t just against ethanol, they are against any type of added-value ag, whether the govt is propping up the market or not. They are more than happy with the farm policy of past years cultivated and maintained by the Feds - so they can have their cheap meat.
“Added value ag”? What kind of a euphemism is that?
Again, I’ve no idea where you get the idea the feds are enabling cheap meat. They’ve been propping up corn prices, which ads to the cost of meat. Now that they’ve piled ethanol on top of that, yes, more expensive meat is another distortion of the market lining the pockets of the favored few from the taxpayer and general public many.
There is no reason in the world for the feds to be monkeying with the market for agricultural products. A free market that’s good enough for the rest of the country is good enough for American farmers.
*adds*
A commonly used ‘euphemism’ in the farm belt. How can you possibly be ignorant of it?
Again, you don’t understand farm policy. You subsidize just enough for farmers to keep producing but keep the prices cheap. Then no one goes out of business and there are no radical industry shakeups, and the grain keeps flowing. The meat stays cheap, and the rural economy stays afloat, but never really prosperous.
That keeps urban economies dominant, with the young people streaming into them because they can’t get a job back home in the sticks.
Again, if you subsidize a crop, you are increasing the price over what it would yield otherwise—or else there’d be no point or value to the subsidy. The impact of a subsidy is to raise the product’s price.
So farm subsidies do not cheap prices cheap. They increase prices. And the reason they do it is very simple: political pressure. Voters in farm states have a massively outsized impact on Congress because even very low-population states of course have two US Senators.
And referring to subsidized ethanol as “added value ag” is a euphemism. The idea that people are against “any kind of added value ag” is, again, warped.
Oh no! Another liberal Utopian dream is dashed. The fights at the charging stations, the smart cars being cow tipped, now this.
That fuel gets less gas mileage, I won’t use it if I know it’s in the pump.
The “other side of the argument” is that A) unlike motor fuels, meat is not a ‘must-buy’ item for the vast majority, however much they want it; B) there is no mandate to buy meat; C) there is no mandate allowing only grain fed meat to be sold.
Added value ag can mean anything, not just ethanol. It is used commonly here in the farm belt, and everyone knows what it means. That many of the policy makers and urbanites are against it for the social justice goals is not exactly secret.
You don’t understand Federal farm policy and it’s history. It’s about perpetuation and stability, but not necessarily prosperity. Splitting the middle to keep the grain flowing, but cheap enough to keep meat cheap. Keeping farmers just profitable, keeping consumers well stocked.
If grain were to fall too low, the farm belt would go bankrupt and that’d create a cascade effect of instability and shortage and economic downturns. So they created the best of both worlds so to speak, and they did it that way for over 60 years after it was started by FDR. Keep a floor, and keep prices as close to that floor as possible.
Telling me that subsidies increase prices is like telling me that 2+2=4. It does, but so what? If ‘4’ is the sweet spot that gets two birds with one stone, it’s better than a different set of variables which add up to ‘2’ or ‘6’ which are not the best of both worlds. Trying to get the best of both worlds with a subsidy floor was the govt goal for decades after the depression. They gave a little to get alot, and the deal worked for them.
True, but meat was the traditional add-value ag, and the govt perpetuated that with their farm policy. The only other alternative for decades was putting it on a barge and sending it overseas.
They locked the farm belt into that market with the accompanying infrastructure for many years because that’s the way they wanted it. There are still those that do, some of them on this forum. There should be more choices to farmers than govt supported ethanol or cheap meat.
I know the subsidies, like a lot of big government policies, go back to FDR. Back in the day some argument could be made for milk because of the inability to keep it for more than a couple of days or so.
But lots and lots of bad economics came from FDR. American farmers would not shut down business—well, okay maybe a few of them would—without price supports. They are there because they are bought with votes.
“Value added ag” covers a wide range of stuff, from things consumers wouldn’t like and don’t want to things that they very much do like and want. Suggesting that people are against them as a class is obscuring, among other things, noxious ethanol policies. And it is used to cover some unpopular ideas.
Yep, they’ve got us by our short hairies at the pump.
Most farmers want crop insurance, that’s it. If they have any skill at all they can make money down to $2 corn or slightly less.
What they really want is to make multiple products from ag commodities, not just the false choice of meat and ethanol. I wish the govt would get out of both, but also restructure to set the market and investment free.
Crop insurance? Do you mean the new federal form of subsidy?
What do you think are the most promising additional products for corn?
No. They would pay premiums like any other insurance based on actuarial tables. Technically it’s a form of subsidy, but a great deal closer to free market than what’s going on now.
The most promising model is to take farm products, separate the protein, oil, and carbs from each other up front, then either refine those to other products from there or sell them outright.
You can come out with a very high vitality, high usability protein that can be fed to livestock or even higher end uses like dogs or zoo animals. Even humans, things like high end sports drinks, etc.
The oil if defatted property can have properties close to cold pressed, giving it high marketability and valuable to the food industry for it’s nutraceutical properties.
The thing though is the sugars. You can ferment that to anything, such as high end biochemicals. That’s where the magic would be because there’s no end to where the chemistry could take you. In that scenario ethanol is on the low end of the profitability chain.
That’s much better than how we do it right now. They break down all the carbs, then run them, the fat and the protein thru, make ethanol, then sell the DDGS as livestock feed. Very inefficient.
If the govt would just get out of it all, I’m convinced things would change in this direction once the govt allowed the market to change. That is if the govt would just get out of the way. They keep things locked in a certain mindset and no one wants to move in another direction.
Interesting, thanks.
I could have told anyone that at the beginning.
And it destroys small internal combustion engines in lawnmowers, chain saws, etc.
Dems and RINO’s.
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