> Preserving jobs by subsidizing farms is just about the most inefficient
> way to do so. And we are talking a lot more money than "a couple of
> billions". The bottom line is that we (both the US and Europe) have a
> system where the ordinary worker's taxes are used to subsidize mostly big
> farms, and to add spite to injury, the food prices are higher than they
> need to be as a result.
Is there a solution?
Is a free and open market the total answer? What kind of ripple
effects would that trigger?
My wife's brother farms. He and his wife are into high-value farming.
They are masters of cost containment and adjusting their three
commodities to the changing markets. They bring in a little income
from setbacks and a couple other minor programs, but those generally
go to paying property tax. You see huge amounts of money from setback
income, but that's a little misleading because 80 acres in setback
might be all that a 1500 acre operation can afford to do. In the past
couple of years, a ton of setback acreage has been put back in
production because of crop prices. Friends of ours farm 6000 acres
and various programs that they participate in bring in somewhere
around $100000-150000 per year. They always roll that into buying a
tractor, combine, planter, etc. That helps John Deere out. John Deere
employs tens of thousands of people. Corporate welfare? Absolutely.
But last I checked, corporations are made up of a whole lot of people
that work there and companies like John Deere are owned by huge mutual
funds, which are funded by people's retirement savings.
I'm a free market kinda guy, but I also see how our economy has
evolved to this state we are in today. Everything is so intertwined
that social and fiscal engineering is pretty critical.
--
Ken Norton
ken@xxxxxxxxxxx
http://www.zone-10.com
--
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