From: Mermaid (hidden@lucifer.com)
Date: Wed Nov 19 2003 - 11:23:42 MST
[Ophis]My comments did not apply to the linked article, only to the full article that you sent to the list/board. As far as that article is concerned, yes I read it all, pondered on it and I don't think I need to "read it again to gain perspective".
[Mermaid]Errr..even so...it doesnt say anywhere in the full article that the common man should be stopped at all costs, including coercive tactics, from reaching for that BiGmAc and bIgGuLp.
[Ophis]I don't suggest censorship, and I agree that anyone can to judge whoever, however one wants.
[Mermaid]Yet, you reacted violently to a very sane article.
[Ophis]Just to be clear on this: I don't find the author or the article to be coercive agents, but the article does call for coercive action by the government to alter a situation that the author judges to be inappropriate.
[Mermaid]Actually, the article calls for the reversing of a politically motivated and useless system known as farm subsidies.
[Ophis]The author recommends imposing a new set of policies on the farming industry, policies that would ultimately force his "solution" (higher food prices) to what he perceives to be a "problem" (too much food).
[Mermaid]Wrong. The article suggests that we revert back to the New Deal system where grains and commodities didnt flood the market. It calls to revert to a system where there was no overproduction and that even in the event of overproduction, there should be proper price controls and price supports.
[Mermaid]Time for a simplified example:
Farmer produces 30 pounds of GrainX. It costs him 30 dollars to cultivate the 30 pounds. He sells it for 60 pounds at 2 dollars/pound in the market. It brings in 30 dollars a year as profit. Enough to support his family.
Suddenly, the govt says that if you produce 60 pounds of GrainX instead of 30, the govt will give you 20 dollars of subsidy. It still costs you 60 dollars to cultivate 60 pounds of GrainX. So you think you will sell it at 120 dollars and so you can pocket 60 dollars of profit plus the 20 dollars of subsidy.
Unfortunately, so does all of the Mid West. The price of GrainX crashes. So instead of selling at 2 dollars/pound of GrainX in the market, the farmer is only able to sell at 0.5 dollars/pound. That gets him 60 dollars and zero profit since it costs him a dollar per pound to cultivate it. His only income is the 20 dollar subsidy he receives from the govt. Since he needs 30 dollars to support his family, he is still 10 dollars short. So he makes it up by increasing his production of GrainX so he can make ends meet. This ONCE AGAIN leads to a fall in price of GrainX.
This is, of course, a very very simple example of how things worked post nixon/new deal. This doesnt even touch the obesity issues. This is an example of how the new deal that Roosevelt formulated to save America was raped and left to die. The author calls for the erasure of the nixon era blunders. Tell me where he fails in his logic or the rationality of his intent?
[Ophis]My reply is not a form of coercion either, it is simply part of a debate of ideas.
[Mermaid]It seemed to me that you were upset about the author telling you not to eat cheap Burger/fast food. The author is only saying that *you* pay the full price of the burger instead of subsidising it with tax payers money which goes into farm subsidies that bring down the cost of food. *Someone* is paying for it. It might not be the consumer at the McD counter, but it might be the same consumer who is paying for his Burger through the IRS. *Someone* is profiting from it and its not the consumer at the burger stand or the one who is slaving away to pay the taxes that fund the farm subsidies. Can you still not see how convoluted and perverse the system looks? *Sometimes* there is no such thing as a free lunch, no?
[Ophis]I am taking the author's "solution" (higher food prices) personally because it would impact my personal life AND I am considering -and disagreeing with- the merits of the author's argument (that too much food availability is the root cause of obesity); the two aren't mutually exclusive!
[Mermaid]I disagree. The author is asking for a normalisation of food prices. Food is cheap because of the cheap market price. This happened because of overproduction, dumping and flooding of the market. The cheap cost of grains etc is a burden the farmer doesnt have to bear because tax payers money goes into farm subsidies that enables him to sell it cheap and overproduce.
[Mermaid]You, my dear friend, are able to get cheap food because *I* and countless others subsidise it. It is not your right. Economic or otherwise. Not to mention that I dont even like burgers. (In fact, I dont like war either. But thats something that will have to be dealt with later. )I dont think I can stop the govt from spending my tax dollars on the war machinery, but I most definitely can attempt to spread the word about the perverse market forces that play in the artificial grains market. Now substitute "I" with the author's name. That is his intent.
[Ophis]Consider this quote from the article, which goes to the core of the issue:
Article: We have devolved into a torpid nation of couch potatoes. The family dinner has succumbed to the fast-food outlet. All these explanations are true, as far as they go. But it pays to go a little further, to look for the cause behind the causes. Which, very simply, is this: when food is abundant and cheap, people will eat more of it and get fat.
[Mermaid]I find it to be very true.
[Ophis]That's the author's root cause for "the most serious public-health problem facing the country". The fact is that food will remain, and indeed will be even more abundant and cheap as long as our society remains prosperous.
[Mermaid]This is why I thought you should read it again for perspective. Food is cheap because of overproduction and farm subsidies. Not a happy situation for everyone involved even though they might believe that its an ideal situation.
[Ophis]The author justifies his wanting to change govenment policies on the basis that too much food is bad because people can't control themselves.
[Mermaid]I read it differently. I read it as the illustration of one of the bad effects of cheap food and farm subsidies(both are connected.) I cant see the logic of your argument.
[Ophis]As a consumer who benefits from fast and low-cost food, I can only take it personally when someone suggests that I can't make the right choices for myself and that the government should adopt new policies in order to remove my products of choice from the market.
[Mermaid]As a tax payer who bears the cost of your cheap food and the misplaced guilt of being part of the machine that creates millions of obese americans, I take it very personally when someone claims the economic right to cheap food that isnt his at all in the first place. Anyone can be a couch potato and eat fast food all day because its their choice to do so, but not on my dollar.
[Ophis]What makes all this even more interesting is that I agree with much of the author's other arguments.
[Mermaid]I think you just over-reacted when you imagined that the author is making a moral judgement on people's food choices. The author is merely asking the consumer to pay the *real* cost of food. He also mentions that its very unlikely that people would eat as much as they do if they paid the real cost of food which would be substantially higher than what they are paying right now thanks to farm subsidies that are taken from tax payer's pockets.
[Ophis]When discussing the problem with current government policies, the author mentions:
Article: first there's the $19 billion a year the government pays to keep the whole system afloat; then there's the economic misery that the dumping of cheap American grain inflicts on farmers in the developing world
I'll even agree that the "New Deal" policies (seemingly favored by the author) would result in less government intervention in the farming industry. I also agree that adopting less interventionistic policies would likely raise corn prices temporarely.
[Mermaid]You were one of the people in my mind when I hit send on this article. I fully expected your participation in this thread re the discussion of farm subsidies. Never in a million years did I think you would take affront with the author's stance because of an imagined attack on certain eating habits.
[Ophis]What I don't agree with is that higher corn prices and less food is "good" for me and you. If that is truly the author's "solution", then the author is working against progress.
[Mermaid]He isnt asking for higher corn prices. He is asking for the normalisation of market forces instead of artificially or dare I say...coercively lowering prices with political gains in mind.
[Ophis]Next year, some scientist somewhere will develop a new technology that will make food even cheaper and more available than it is today. And the year after that, another guy will come up with some other technology, and on, and on.
[Mermaid]If you believe that it is technology that is solely responsible for the current low prices, then I must say that you havent understood the economics of the situation. May I suggest once again that you read the linked article? What we are experiencing right now is a divorce between technological strides and economic forces. I am willing to bet a large amount of money upon the assertion that the current 'low costs' for 'higher living' in the united states is largely because of governmental control. Technology will bring prices down, I agree. But it is not a reason to overproduce beyond the needs of the consuming masses. That is what has happened with corn. It is not my intention to villify technology and reject lower prices. Even with technological strides, economic forces have a way of adjusting the playing field where the producers and consumers meet. But it wont happen when govt policy interferes with economic forces. It is not technology that brought down the price of corn. It is farm subsidies an
d hence leading to technology assisted overproduction which wasnt necessary in the first place anyways. America does not have a shortage of corn. It has an ABUNDANCE of corn. According to the article, farmers are producing more than 500 calories worth per person. If you can bang your head on the wall 50 times instead of 20 times, should you do it? Just because you can? Anyways with all the overproduction...all the excess corn has to go elsewhere. The Big Food Corp is forcefeeding the masses by enticing them to eat more by lowering costs so they can enjoy the profits. Consumers are stupid and the food urges are intimately tied to a lot of factors. Only one of them is hunger. Is it wrong for the Big Food Corp to manipulate the prices and consumer urges? No. They do it because they can. They are not responsible for their actions. They are entrepreneurs. So you take away the advantage they have so they cannot inflict more harm. The benefits of yanking away the farm subsidies will reflect everywhere...with the f
armers, with the taxpayers..in the BMI of the consumer...
On another note, all this excess corn which the local population doesnt need anyways has to be dumped *somewhere*. But it doesnt go as corn. It goes as corn syrup and other processed corn products which is just ..well...poison to the body. Transporting corn as itself is extremely unviable in the economic sense. So not only are americans dying from too much of this poison called processed crap, we are exporting this poison by forcing(read as coercing) third world countries to buy our shit. The whole world is a dumping ground. And all of this is happening partly because the tax payers' dollars are subsidising the farmers in order to produce more and more and more. But you only see it as a personal attack on your right to get cheap food.
[Ophis]So what is the government to do then? What should the government do in year 2010, when corn costs (without government subsidies) 10% of what it costs today?
[Mermaid]If the cost of living doesnt fall because of technology, then the cost of corn(that has fallen because of technology) has to be artificially hoisted up to make it viable for the farmer and at the same time it has to be made affordable to the consumer.
[Ophis]Is the author going to suggest that we should tax corn because too much cheap corn is bad for "the country"?
[Mermaid]I think thats already happening.
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