I don't care much for the money being saved as it targets something that really should go, namely subsidizing western agriculture.
No, it should be subsidizing useful Western Agriculture. Which corn isn't.
Without the inedible corn, what will we feed our cows?!
Well we certainly can't feed them grass. That would be madness!
Madness?
THIS
IS
IOWAAAAAAAAA!!!!!
I am so, so sorry...
If anyone's interested, there's a pretty good documentary on US Corn Farming called "King Corn". It discusses, among other topics, government subsidies for corn. If you've got Netflix, it's available for streaming.
You shouldn't subsidise any agriculture, actually.
Can you elaborate?
That's on the same level of usefulness as Obs coming in and saying "stimulus = socialism." There might be some kernel of sense in it, but it's meaningless on its own.
There are some negative consequences of subsidies. They amount to de facto tariff on competing imports, thus allowing the domestic producers to price foreign producers out of the market. This has, in some countries, led to subsidies or tariffs on our exports; in other countries, the farmers turn from food crops to drug crops (Colombia and coca plants). Besides this, subsidies may be shoring up farms that are cultivating relatively unsustainable crops, and they also end up going to big agriculture collectives that don't really need them.
The basic idea of subsidizing farmers in order to ensure that we have domestic production isn't necessarily bad, but you know what they say about good intentions. Subsidies being pretty much cash giveaways means that there is going to be plenty of room to game the system.
I know that. But I still don't know what Duki meant. Maybe he thinks they're using the subsidy money to hide farms of deadly alien-engineered death bees in tents.
Pretty much standard a free market argument, only in the case of agriculture it actually works.
You shouldn't subsidise any agriculture, actually.
Can you elaborate?
That's on the same level of usefulness as Obs coming in and saying "stimulus = socialism." There might be some kernel of sense in it, but it's meaningless on its own.
There are some negative consequences of subsidies. They amount to de facto tariff on competing imports, thus allowing the domestic producers to price foreign producers out of the market. This has, in some countries, led to subsidies or tariffs on our exports; in other countries, the farmers turn from food crops to drug crops (Colombia and coca plants). Besides this, subsidies may be shoring up farms that are cultivating relatively unsustainable crops, and they also end up going to big agriculture collectives that don't really need them.
The basic idea of subsidizing farmers in order to ensure that we have domestic production isn't necessarily bad, but you know what they say about good intentions. Subsidies being pretty much cash giveaways means that there is going to be plenty of room to game the system.
The basic idea of subsidizing farmers is that crop output is dependent upon things like weather, and it's important that farmers are able to continue producing food so that, in the long run, we don't all starve. Having a whole bunch of farmers go bankrupt because of a poor yield one year, and thereby making it so that they can't continue the next year is a Bad Thingâ„¢. The problem isn't the subsidies, or the concept of them, it's simply the magnitude they've grown to.
So what's a good alternative to the current farm subsidies? Just less of them?
If the goal is to keep farmers solvent through tough years, maybe agricultural microloans, or some sort of mandatory insurance plan.
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Inquisitor772 x Penny Arcade Fight Club ChampionA fixed point in space and timeRegistered Userregular
edited February 2009
The current subsidy system is so out of whack because it was tasked with the goal of one thing above all else: ensure that there would always be so much food available on the market that people would never have to worry about famine or the price of basic food crops ever rising above a certain cost. To that end, is immensely successful. Unfortunately, it has achieved this at the cost of pretty much everything else. Farmers grow too much of certain crops, not enough of others, and have market incentives to simply maximize this weird subsidy/pricing system into oblivion. This, of course, affects everything else in the food chain, because if the only thing you can get in vast quantities, at cheap cost, and with any regularity on the market is corn, you'll find a way to shove corn down the gullet of anything and everything.
A mandatory agricultural insurance fund would be a good start. Mandating low levels of diversification could also help, although I'm betting that once you remove the massive subsidy system you'll find farmers and agribusiness diversifying their crops purely because it's the smart thing to do for a myriad of reasons.
I'm glad we decided to reserve this Last Rites thing for when we got back - Gabe pretty much took a day to do it, something that wouldn't have been possible for any one of a hundred reasons while we were at the convention. So, Friday wraps it up, unless our climactic battle rages on longer than originally intended, which is usually the way of such things.
I recommend you head over to Eurogamer and check out their new pictures of the DS. The article covers foreign pricing, the new shape and color, a thinner base, and - most importantly - a storage slot for the stylus, which was supposedly so critical to this handheld system. The Nintendo that everyone expects them to be, myself included, would have released the old form factor and told people to shove it up their ass if they didn't like it. It all comes down to how the machine is used by developers, of course - there's still not much information on that. But they've certainly made an effort to sweeten the deal.
Over the San Diego trip I was thinking about this a lot, actually. Storm Shadow is letting us borrow his Tapwave, a Palm-based handheld console which is really an excellent device if you don't have to pay for it. Each new gadget of this kind must immediately be exposed to Brenna, in the hopes that this will be the one that will cause her to whirl in place for a moment and emerge in full possession of her geek heritage. No such luck in this case, but I've got to tell you that for Brenna - and I'd imagine many, many people outside of the hardcore gaming enthusiasts we likely identify with - using a pen to do things is second nature. There is nothing complex about it. It is the same thing again for peripherals like Sony's EyeToy. We had bubble popping games and so forth on our webcams almost five years ago, so for me a machine that lets me have those heady days again is practically retro. For Brenna - again, one of these desperate mongrels that growl outside the hardcore's gleaming facility - doing things with a camera is pretty fresh. I think that there is a blind spot I have regarding electronics of these types, it might be shared by other gamers, and certainly by our representatives in the media who must feign enthusiasm whenever a company straps some widget onto their aging product and calls it a revolution. For people outside our context, playing a videogame with cameras and pens - that is to say, the relics of ordinary life - is a revolution.
You really should be going to Gizmodo for your your gadgetry fix, as you should see a specialist whenever possible - however. I saw another fancy, expensive phone that has me entranced called the V3 Razor. You really should look at the pictures, both at Mobile Review as well as at Howard Forums.
Posts
Madness?
THIS
IS
IOWAAAAAAAAA!!!!!
I am so, so sorry...
If anyone's interested, there's a pretty good documentary on US Corn Farming called "King Corn". It discusses, among other topics, government subsidies for corn. If you've got Netflix, it's available for streaming.
/end corn-specific tangent
Pretty much standard a free market argument, only in the case of agriculture it actually works.
The basic idea of subsidizing farmers is that crop output is dependent upon things like weather, and it's important that farmers are able to continue producing food so that, in the long run, we don't all starve. Having a whole bunch of farmers go bankrupt because of a poor yield one year, and thereby making it so that they can't continue the next year is a Bad Thingâ„¢. The problem isn't the subsidies, or the concept of them, it's simply the magnitude they've grown to.
Or how about this, we genetically engineer cows that can grow crops on themselves, and then they can eat themselves. Solar powered cows!
So what's a good alternative to the current farm subsidies? Just less of them?
If the goal is to keep farmers solvent through tough years, maybe agricultural microloans, or some sort of mandatory insurance plan.
A mandatory agricultural insurance fund would be a good start. Mandating low levels of diversification could also help, although I'm betting that once you remove the massive subsidy system you'll find farmers and agribusiness diversifying their crops purely because it's the smart thing to do for a myriad of reasons.