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Farm bill itself part of farmers’ ‘disaster’
Regarding the lead story in Monday’s Gazette (“Farm bill inaction could turn clock back to 1949”) describing “nightmarish scenario is looming for Iowa’s agriculture industry” if a farm bill is not passed in five weeks.
Dale Moore of the U.S. Farm Bureau warns of the evils of a “market-based approach.”
Iowa’s Sen. Tom Harkin says farmers need “the certainty that comes from enacting a new five-year bill.”
Rep. Bruce Braley, Iowa 1st District, says lack of a farm bill would “move us backward — 63 years backward.”
Iowa’s Sen. Chuck Grassley says lack of a bill is inconceivable and suggests corn might reach $18 a bushel — as if that might be bad for farmers.
Rep. Dave Loebsack, Iowa 2nd District, notes that Republicans will bear the blame if there is no farm bill.
These politicians say lack of a farm bill would have the disastrous effect of giving Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack the authority to set price controls, production limits and prices processors pay for corn, soybeans and wheat. The likelihood of Vilsack doing any of that is zero.
It is no wonder the public has such a low opinion of our Congress. It seems to me that farmers would be better off without subsidies, mandates and the quagmire of regulations already enacted by Congress. I’ll side with the farmers who can better and more profitably run their business without federal government intervention.
So perhaps the “disaster” might not be lack of a farm bill, but indeed, the bill itself.
Dick Roggensack
Waukon
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Then I presume you are also in favor of closing all speculation on agriculture futures, closing all agricultural commodities trading, and allowing producers to set their own prices, based on their costs and a fair return for their labor and investment, Mr. Roggensack?
Let us know how that works out for you.
The farm bill has nothing to do with trading futures commodities. And sellers dont set the price of anything. Buyers do.
While it is called a farm bill, it is mostly a food entitlement bill.
Well, now, y’see, Mr. Antony, that’s not quite accurate.
While buyers decide whether they want to purchase a product or not, it is the producer of that product who determines the cost of production, adds a profit of some sort, and then sets the price. If the product does not sell, the price is too high or, more likely, the potential purchaser doesn’t want it enough to buy it. So the producer goes back to the drawing boards. The most extreme model of this paradigm may be the pharmaceutical market, where producers set the price, and those who may need the drug (or their insurers, who can and do negotiate prices) either pay the price or go without. Don’t even try to tell me that every drug is covered in insurers’ formularies.
Farm commodities follow the opposite model. There it’s more like eBay. At the simplest level, the farmer produces a product, and the buyer (or the buying market) offers a price the producer can either accept or decline. But woe to the producer who keeps livestock or even row crops too long!
you tell me I’m wrong then go on to explain exactly what I said. Buyers set the price. “What ever the market will bear.” Drugs are just like that too. The cost of any medication has little to nothing to do with the cost of research and production, but everything to do with ‘what the market will bear’ A drug that is widely and wildly used may be marketed at 1000x its cost of production…….because demand to BUY the drug is high. Conversly a drug that has great efficacy may never come to market because the cost is too great to recoup enough to even cover cost.
And commodities are pure supply demand. Demand (buying) goes up, so does the price.
The value of everything is determined by what a willing buyer is willing to pay.
Good. Then go into farming, and try to set the price for your corn crop.
So what happens when the cost of producing food is higher than some people can pay? That’s the case for many of the world’s hungry.
And if you go supply and demand to drive price, farmers will make the most profit if there is some degree of “food scarcity”, meaning some people go hungry. If the government steps in to artificially lower prices, either you end up paying farmers not to produce (think set-aside acreage) or they have to maximize production to try and survive, meaning a supply glut leading to the inevitable bankruptcy of many farmers… which leads back to food scarcity.
Its one of those things that no matter how many times I work through it I can’t find a good solution. Either the government subsidizes farming in some way, or we say a certain level of hunger and farming bankruptcies are OK.
Maybe I’m overthinking it all, but is someone has a rational solution, fill me in. Because I don’t.
It is a real conundrum. While it is always referred to as the ‘farm bill’ The largest share of the spending is food entitlements and not much in actual payments to farmers.
Of course the Obama administration is always re- purposing govt agencies. Like Turning NASA into a Muslim outreach program, and arming the Dept of Education, The latest adventure of the Dept of Agriculture is busy schooling Mexican Diplomats on the food aide offered by the USDA to Mexicans on US soil.
Mr Antony,
SNAP, aka Food Stamps, started out as a surplus commodities program in the 1930s. SNAP, and its precessors, has always been administered through the Department of Agriculture.
I hope your characterization of NASA and the Department of Education was a joke
Shotfeel,
As evidenced by recent events in North Africa and the Middle East, governments rise and fall by the price of bread. Revolutions don’t happen because people want freedom. Revolutions happen because people can’t afford the price of food.
Both the French and Russian Revolutions were set off by scarcity. As were the Revolutions of 1848 which swept across Europe. We all know about the Irish Potato Famine. What most of us don’t know is that crops failed in evey country in Europe
That’s why governments subsidize and control the production and distribution of food. This is a practice that goes back to the rule of Ramses in Egypt. Try to impose the Free Market on food production and you do so at your peril
Roberta your misunderstanding of food supplies exposes you constant problem of getting it wrong.
While food shortages are a cause of uprising, the cause of the shortages are due to a corrupt govt. Large centralized socialist govts that speechify about caring for the common man, but whos actions are always self serving power grabs. Today people are going hungry not due to a shortage of food or expensive food, but due to inept, corrupt centrally planned govts
Do you know that energy rich Venezuela rations electricity?
Here is what a compassionate govt based on your personal philosophy “From each according to his ability, to each according to his need”http://www.ukemonde.com/news/rferl.html
Mr Antony,
My point was that if governmenst do not ensure an adequate and affordable food supply, that government is in trouble and its days are numbered.
It does not matter what kind of government we are talking about. This particular chain of cause and effect is consistent whether we have a decentralized free market system, a centalized system, a democratic government or a despotic one.
You are too quick to prove me wrong and you stepped in it yet again
As for your quote
“From each according to his ability, to each according to his need”
Here’s another
Mark 10:21-22 Jesus, looking at him, loved him and said, “You lack one thing; go, sell what you own, and give the money to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; then come, follow me.” When he heard this, he was shocked and went away grieving, for he had many possessions
Marc Antony,
With regard to your statement “The latest adventure of the Dept of Agriculture is busy schooling Mexican Diplomats on the food aide offered by the USDA to Mexicans on US soil”
Legal immigrants were eligble for food stamp benefits prior to Welfare Reform. They were rendered ineligible by Welfare Reform, but that eligibillity was restored by the 2002 Farm Bill.
Legal immigrants are eligible if they are children, disabled, or have been in the country for at least five years. Illegal immigrants are not eligible.
Source:
Food Research & Action Center (Frac.org)
USDA (usda.gov)
Last time I checked Bush was president in 2002, not Obama
I find it odd that a lib would quote the bible…when they give such ridicule to republicans for doing the same thing…I guess it just matters when the oposing side is doing it…or as they call it…cherry picking…but cherry picking is probably ok on an agricultural topic…
Mr Moser,
The Bible is there to be cherry-picked. If you had ever bothered to read it, you would know that
I could have sworn that the article said that if the current farm bill lapses, we would revert not back to the Free Market, but to the farm policies of 1948 which were a lot more restrictive and controlled than what we’ve got now
Roberta, no joke. Honestly, you cant make this stuff up
“When I became the NASA Administrator – before I became the NASA Administrator – he charged me with three things: One was that he wanted me to re-inspire children to want to get into science and math, that he wanted me to expand our international relationships, and third, and perhaps foremost, he wanted me to find a way to reach out to the Muslim world and engage much more with predominantly Muslim nations to help them feel good about their historic contribution to science, math, and engineering”
.http://www.theatlanticwire.com/technology/2010/07/conservatives-furious-over-nasa-muslim-outreach/23821/
The shotguns, intended to supplement the Department of Education’s “existing shotgun inventory, certified armor and combat training and protocol,” will be used by the Department’s Office of Inspector General (OIG).
http://usgovinfo.about.com/b/2010/03/18/why-the-dept-of-education-needs-shotguns.htm
Antony,
I find it difficult to understand your reaction to acknowledging the contributions of Arab Muslims to Western Civilization—the Renaissance being one of them–as being motivated by anything other than bigotry.
And I don’t care about the Department of Education’s shotguns. You’re a Second Amendment guy. You think it’s ok for private citizens to have all kinds of guns, so why are you objecting to a government law enforcement agency having guns?
Right; spending is out of control and you are defending spending the budget of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, boosting the self esteem of Muslims.
It is impossible to take you as anything but a blind, not so bright partisan hack, when you demand ever increasing shares of private citizens personal property, for the children, and women that are so driven by emotions, and hormones, it is impossible for them to avoid unwanted pregnancies, all the while defending spending by federal agencies that have no constitutional basis for their existence, let alone venturing off into areas that have no relationship to their charters.
Just a clue. resorting to the bigotry (or racism, homophobe, misogynistic, etc) gambit is public admission you dont have anything of any substance to support your position. It is nothing but a flaccid transparent, and weak attempt at a personal smear. But do carry on, I take no personal offense, I just consider the source.
I’m sorry Mr Antony, but I can’t make a lick of sense out of what you just posted
If I could, perhaps I could answer your question. Did you have one?
Becareful Marc…if you call her on her wild believes she will flag you and then if you try to respond to her crap it won’t post…but that one of the best tricks used by libs…silence their opposition….
The only winner in this discussion is the Gazette – they spoofed people into thinking we could revert to 1949. Congress is well practiced at extending current legislation beyond its original deadline.
If you want something more serious to debate than Gazette fairy tales then consider Wall Street’s impact on commodity prices; It is said that commodity futures markets work best with 20% speculation and 80% of volume attributed to buyers and sellers. In today’s market, we have 80% speculation and 20% buyers and sellers. Remember that the futures market was created to limit risk. My thoughts are that we don’t have to have government subsidies – just make the best use of the tools we already have.
Zingula,
Yes, except government subsidies are one of the tools we have to stabilize prices and supply and these have been in place since the First World War.
Subsidies and controls were loosened at the end of WW I (the Department of Agriculture stepped back from all but education, advice, and supported research through land grant colleges) and the consensus among historians is that this contributed to the post-War depression in the farm economy in the 1920s and 1930s. Subsidies were restored in the 1930s. One of those subsidies was the surplus commodities program which evolved into SNAP
Commodities markets are essentially gambling. And you can’t build economic stability on that
Bell,
Direct payments to farmer’s have nothing to do with price stabilization. For price stabilization, you would have to have subsidies tied to production and/or commodity prices. The WTO won’t stand for the US doing this, so Congress simply writes farmers a check and hope that we will vote for them.
Your last two sentences are more in line with the substance I was looking for. How would you solve the problem I eluded to? And remember, we are not subject to the same influences as those during WWI – during WWI we didn’t have 80 million acres of production shipped to China.
Be that as it may, the primary reason these farm programs were established was to stabilize prices and ensure supply.
Here is the explanation of of the Russian revolution. As I reasoned earlier while food shortages are a factor, what is ignored due to willful ignorance of the poster, is the reason for the shortages. The government. NOT the vagaries of the market place.
Russia was mainly a highly backward agricultural country before the revolution. The royal family, the nobility and the clergy owned most of the agricultural land. Only between three and ten acres of land was owned by 70% of the peasants. Many of them had to earn their livelihood only 2½ acres land or even less. In addition they had to use primitive tools, implements and methods of cultivation, which were not very productive.
The war also developed a weariness in the city, owing to a lack of food in response to the disruption of agriculture. Food had become a considerable problem in Russia, but the cause of this did not lie in any failure of the harvests, which had not been significantly altered during war-time. The indirect reason was that the government, in order to finance the war, had been printing off millions of rouble notes, and by 1917 inflation had made prices increase up to four times what they had been in 1914.
Antony, I’m afraid you’ve got 19th century Russian agriculture confused with19th cenutry Chinese agriculture.
With regard to Russia, the First World War caused the Revolution.By the summer of 1917, Russia had pretty much lost the War. There were shortages of everything. Supply lines had been disrupted amd rumors began to spread that long delayed land reform was underway. Russian soldiers deserted en masse. They shot their officers and walked home. It was as simple as that.
For what it’s worth, your post reads as if you were copying something verbatim without reallly understanding what it said.
Roberta–you rock!! I especially liked your quote from Jesus. As is often the case, the “religious” right cannot stand it when someone asks: WWJD (what would Jesus do?).
LeRoy,
Thanks.
I think the reason the religious right gets upset over WWJD, is that I don’t think conservatives like Jesus.
Woody Guthrie knew that.
“Revolutions don’t happen because people want freedom. Revolutions happen because people can’t afford the price of food.”
This is perhaps the saddest thing I have seen in print for a while. An American with such an ignorant grasp of our own nations founding and the resulting constitutional principles.
Oh bah humbug, Antony.
Our War for Independence had a whole lot more to do with the Navigation Acts of 1650 to 1696, than with anything someone like you would identify as “Freedom”
Wow Roberta, how could I have forgotten That long and detailed treatise on the the 1650 Navigation acts in the Declaration of Independence.
But beside you latest burst of idiocy. which is it? Expensive food like you said before, or bad Navigation acts, like your claiming now.
And that whole liberty and freedom thing thats tied the the American Revolution is just smoke a mirrors?
It is plain Roberta you have spent zero time thinking about these things and less studying them. In short while you have broad and extensive knowledge about lots of things………none of it is actually true.
You’ve contradicted your self at every point.
Mr. Anthony,
Your ranting is beginning to remind me of Hitler’s demonizing of his enemies. (See Godwin’s Law)
You miss the irony dont you? Godwins law? States any internet discussion that goes long enough, some one will stoop to the low of comparing something or someone to Nazis, or Hitler.
YOU compare me to Hitler. Nice.
There is a corollary that states who ever brings up Hitler has lost the debate and the right to continue to post.
Last word . . .
Mr Barnhart,
Antony posted on another thread that he suffered a serious and disabling injury, that he was out of work for months, but made a better recovery than his doctors predicted.
He didn’t state the nature of the injury, but I suspect, given his behavior on line, that it was a head injury.
Which makes his very conservative positions on things like health care and disability support counter to his own interests.
Why argue with someone who may be disabled? Because I don’t know that he is. I can only guess, based on my experience working with people with disabilities that is the case
But more important, the positions he takes are the positions of the Republican Party. His rhetoric, his mode of argumentation, his lack of accurate information (reflected in the misrepresentation, distortion, and outright lies coming from the right) is what the Republican Party is.
There must be conservatives out there who are sensible and well informed. They are just not posting here. What we get are Antony, Ellis, Hubler et al
Besides that, as frustrating as these individuals are, they do force people like me to do a lot of fact checking
Roberta I have repeatedly challenged you to present just one thing I have gotten wrong. You have never had the ability to do that.
I have exposed your non existent knowledge of history. You false assertions that revolutions are fomented by the price or availability of food. Your weak attempt to rewrite American History and your ignorance of our founding documents like the Declaration if Independence. The document that enumerated the grievences against King George III
He changed the way the colonies were governed
He forced the colonists to keep his troops in their houses
He has not passed laws that help the colonists
He has taxed the colonists without their consent
He does not allow the colonists to trade with any other country
He does not allow the colonists to have a jury by trial
He has made war upon the colonists and the land
Read more: http://wiki.answers.com/Q/What_were_complaints_against_King_George_III#ixzz25KNiitrm
Now we know your silly assertion is just that. Woefully ignorant and silly.
But I am secure in my knowledge I dont have to resort to childish personal smears about head injuries. You should be very proud of yourself.
It is no wonder you support Obama. You, like he, dont like our founding principles or what this great nations history means. You strive to recreate America into something like the social democracies of Europe. That are failing for those that care to learn anything.
I repeat. name just one thing I have gotten wrong. We can discuss it.
Ms Bell–thank you for the reply. I agree that countering misinformation is educational. By fact checking, one does learn about stuff they did not know.
I do think that it is important to post on these forums so that others do not see only one side of an issue. I also feel that rational people will be persuaded more readily by civil postings that do not include personal attacks.