Posted on 02/15/2002 2:58:58 PM PST by RJCogburn
Farmers: Get a Job!
It kind of makes me wonder what country I'm living in when I pick up the newspaper and read this from the Associated Press:
"With crop prices mired near record lows, the government says farm earnings will drop 20 percent this year unless Congress enacts a new farm program or approves more emergency payments."
Hello? Is this free enterprise, profit-and-loss America, or have I crossed over into the Twilight Zone: Welcome to Cuba?
Before we dissect this "news," let's step back and appreciate the big picture. For many years the environmental movement has been warning that the out-of-control human race will imminently starve itself to death because of the Malthusian notion that population growth will outstrip food production.
Well, it hasn't quite worked that way. Instead of starving people and wealthy farmers (which is what should have happened if the doomsayers were right), we have fat people (see the recent Surgeon General's report) and farmers bellyaching about low crop prices.
The bad news, then, is good.
Getting back to the AP story: I'm a magazine editor, and I have yet to read in the newspaper that "editors' earnings will drop 20 percent this year unless Congress enacts a new editor program or approves more emergency payments." Do you know what I and my fellow editors have to do if our earnings drop to a level too low to live on? We have to look for higher-paying jobs! I assume that mechanics and real-estate salesman have to do the same.
But not the farmers. They have apparently been bestowed with the Divine Right to Farm. If they can't make enough to live on, they have the legal power to loot the rest of us so they can stay on the farm anyway. This sounds like insanity. Would someone please explain it to me?
Maybe the yeoman farmer, the noble man of the soil, is too busy lobbying for taxpayer subsidies to learn a little economics. But when a line of work won't pay a satisfactory income, it is the market's way of saying we have enough people doing that; go find something else to do. Why should farmers be an exception to a perfectly good rule?
An economist at Texas A&M was quoted saying, "Congress is looking at these numbers and saying, 'We can't live with that.'" Hah! He means that members of Congress won't let us taxpayers live with that, since they aren't planning to subsidize the farmers out of their own pockets. I can live with it, thank you. Besides, I gave last year, and the year before. I'm thinking it's time for the farmers to stand on their own two feet.
Do you realize that 30 percent of the wheat farmers' gross income comes from the government? Thirty percent! The guys that grow other grains and soybeans get 20 percent of their income from Washington. Can you say "socialized agriculture"?
I know how the farmers would respond. They need special treatment because they have to contend with the weather and price fluctuations. Like that's something new. Farmers have been plagued by drought, floods, and pests since biblical times. Uncertain prices are just as old. Guess what: the free market long ago evolved ways for farmers to transfer the risks to people willing to accept them in return for the prospect of high profits. They're called insurance and futures markets. The government has screwed up crop insurance because it thinks it can handle it better than private companies. The futures markets still work. The principle is simple. A farmer doesn't know what the price of his crop will be when he plants it. But there have always been risk-takers who are willing to bet that the price will be even higher than the farmer is happy to accept. So the risk-taker promises to buy the crop from the farmer at an agreed-on price. That gives the farmer a guarantee against a lower price and the risk-taker the chance for a real killing. Everyone is happy.
In other words, farmers don't warrant special treatment. Capitalist technological advances have made it possible to grow more food on less land and with fewer farmers. Why don't we face it already?
You could certainly pass for one.
Having grown up in NYC, I think I can recognize the type when I see it.
The Amish and Mennonites can farm without government subsidies and also have enough to sell outside of their communities.Why not suggest to Congress to ask them how it's done? LOL
Good idea. While you're at it, why not also ask Congress to figure out how to feed the whole country on the yields they get from their horse-drawn operations?
Interesting. There are farmers here who are forced by gov't edict to leave whole pastures idle because they're "close" (in my father inlaw's case, "close" seems to mean "a couple hundred feet") to a small creek.
You need to buy a bigger shovel. At the rate you're digging, you'll never find a clue.
The result (among other things) is piss-poor farmers in Michigan, and "Country Gentlemen" farmers in New England.
Exactly! I am for the total elimination of government from every aspect of production, from farming to high-tech. It would not solve all problems (there will always be problems) but it would eliminate all those problems that only exist because of government intrusion.
Hank
You dont see sarcasm when you see it??????
I don't understand this. If people are buying food from other countries because it's cheaper, then why would American farmers want American products to cost more rather than less? How do they intend to be competitive while offering more costly products?
So why not farmers? The rest of us are sick to death of welfare-farmers whining all the time. Run your damn business, or sell it to someone who can, period!
If you think you've got it so damn tough, try making a living in high tech, where your latest product goes obsolete in 9 months, the price you can charge goes down 20-30% every year and you can't stick excess inventory in some silo until things improve, because it'll be worthless this time next year.
Stop sucking on the taxpayer tit and let's see a real market function in farming too. Or go build your Soviet state someplace else.
Welfare farmer parasites make me sick.
Read before your bile starts to rise, It was sarcasm if you had looked. Geeeez
The Country backs republicans. The city backs democraps. That simple.
The price of cereal is a damn shame. Brand name stuff for $4.00+ box is ridiculous. Next to popcorn at the movies, cereal is probably the highest profit grain product out there.....wait, beer has to be in there somewhere also.
the price of milk is now more rationally based upon 3 factors: 1. the protein content, 2. the bacteria count, and 3. milk solids (lack of water addition).
there are still some anomalies, for example, california does not allow the import of milk from other states, thereby increasing the cost of ca milk, and i think the new england dairy compact engineered by jeffords still has some stupid government controls.
Maybe we can get a subsitdy!
To The Folks who are trashing farmers:
I know this is Free Republic, but I am somewhat of a loss at to the anger at some of the hardest working people in this counrty, when welfare for non-productive people is mentioned, no one says a word. Must be DU guest night.
AGAIN, I don't like any kind of welfare or govmint handouts, but American Farmers FEED YOU and WORK FOR A LIVING!
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