Those people in the middle of the country believe that if they all quit their jobs and demanded a government-given wage, that the country would starve to death.
If all of the people at facebook, google, and twitter quit their jobs, however, all that would really happen would be that the country would get a bit more peaceful.
You're talking about how much is taken in taxes. These people are talking about how much is given in life.
Sounds like someone's been watching a bit too much Fox Propaganda.
Farms are already subsidized by the government. Imports are already subject to tariffs precisely to protect farmers. Who do you think pays for those subsidies, and who pays for the tariffs? Yeah, the "coastal elites" that you've been trained to hate.
In farmers stopped benefiting from the largess of the coast, _they_ would starve to death, and everyone else would have cheaper food.
Just FYI if they starve to death there's no one to plant or harvest the food.
Also, if your argument is that the subsidies are unnecessary that would indicate that farming is profitable and they would in fact not starve to death. The point you're trying to make kinda collapsed on itself bud.
By “they” are you talking about the enormous masses of uneducated immigrant workers, frequently derided as illegals, who work in the dirt on the farms and meat production lines of the US? Those that constitute the supermajority of agricultural labor, and who see almost none of the fruits of their labor?
Have you considered just how much of the international surplus the US produces, and how much of the total production it currently consumes?
I suspect running the numbers would indicate a clear international need for the US breadbasket, and not a decrease in overall cost due to a large drop in supply.
The US is only the world's largest producer of corn, and of that, 40% is turned into fuel (ethanol) and 36% is fed to animals. 20% is exported, where again a significant amount is used for animal feed & ethanol.
So meat and maybe gas would become slightly more expensive but the world would most certainly not starve.
I think you need to read up on why the subsidies were started in the first place because you're obviously clueless.
The rest of your argument is laden with all sorts of cognitive dissonance. Subsidies are given for things like food because if a society doesn't of have food it's a really bad thing so the government props up the industry in bad times (in this case during the Great Depression) and we don't starve. It's not an altruistic handout, it's way of keeping you from starving to death genius.
The fact that you think it's a generous handout from the "elites" and government indicates that you think it's unnecessary which means the farmers are profitable on their own and your entire asinine "hypothetical" comment about them starving to death without it gets thrown out the window. The subsidies cannot be both necessary and considered a generous handout from the coastal elites. Pick one.
We import about 15% of our food supply right now. Good luck making up the other 85% with cheaper imports. Relying on external food supplies is a massive security risk and disadvantage as well.
You'd have to be a complete ignoramus to argue for your food supply to be under the control of a different country. I guess since I'm being downvoted there must be quite a few.
Food got so stupidly cheap it makes no sense to grow it in the US anymore. So farmers demanded that people in cities pay for their lifestyles out of our taxes. And then they go around being entitled about it.
I've had enough of farm welfare queens. Get farmers off of welfare and let us import food from places that can grow it competitively. If we can't make up the other 85% from somewhere else, that's great, then US farmers will show that they can grow food at a reasonable place without welfare.
These hateful people that survive on the welfare handouts from cityfolk and then turn around and vote for Republican idiots like Trump have gone too far. Time to cut them off.
Even though I understand your outrage, it's a terrible idea to move our food chain abroad instead of subsidizing farmers. That's a huge national security risk.
It would be better if the subsidies were limited to smallholders on ~100 acres or less, which would resolve the rural depression issue.
the government pays farmers (subsidizes) based on a lot of planning. this is done because special aspects about food (go read an economics 101 book - inelastic demand, prefect competition). in short, its meant to stabilize the system such that we don't all starve next year due to surpluses this year. its not because we can just get it cheaper from other countries (sometimes that may be true, but not true on a macro scale).
if the US stopped growing food, hundreds of millions of people would die just from the famine. many governments would be toppled, probably even a few first world countries.
Not so much on the famine bit, except perhaps in the U.S. and Canada.
The unfairness of farm subsidies is that there’s also essentially no _controls_ on the output. The government can’t turn around and mandate particular growing practices, in part because farming companies and larger farmers have gotten used to the subsidies and how they work.
In Canada, at least, subsidies are also tied to production controls and standards.
Don’t get me wrong: I am in _favour_ of most farm subsidies; there is a lot of benefit to it. But the taxpayer should get a bit more control on what’s being spent on. IMO, small farm subsidies should probably increase so that more people have opportunities to work the land if they wish to do so and pay their seasonal workers a living wage so that they don’t have to use undocumented workers. It wouldn’t be a bad thing to see a couple of F35 fighters scrapped in favour of fair farm wage payments.
#1 ) I dont think you understand how sensitive the global food supply is to changes.
#2) The US isn't just a net exporter of food, its one of the dominant food producers (in exports) in the world. A country like Canada only became a net exporter of food in ~2019. These US exports are primary stables like corn, beef, pork, etc.
#3) f-35 funding is tangential to the conversation. bringing it up only makes you sound un-informed and polarizes your argument for the issue at hand.
1. I do, in fact, understand. I also understand that the US’s subsidies distort international markets, and that the US’s entire food aid program (which is a large part of those subsidies) severely distorts local markets and disincentivizes farm production in poorer countries.
2. They are _American_ staples. They are not necessarily staples in receiving countries, and as noted above, may actually be distorting local markets and foodways. I would also argue that subsidies for American farmers should _not_ be applied to export crops, as noted above.
3. Not tangential at all. America could divert a small fraction of its military budget into meaningful wage subsidies for farm workers that could make farm labour more attractive to more people. America spends more money on its military than the next ten biggest military spenders in the world.
Yes, I exaggerated that a single F-35 could provide this sort of subsidy. My point, however, stands.
Yes. Provided you don’t do it as some sort of dead shock to global systems.
Food production is a modern solved problem. The politics of it is not.
No country is giving up food security and voter messaging to the invisible hand of a global market. No one likes corn as much as Americans do, yet its one of your greater exports, simply because of American economic and diplomatic ascendancy.
you are hooked on some serious propaganda. Lets be clear, if the US stopped producing producing food and instead bought it from other countries, it would be the biggest disaster in human history.
>I've had enough of farm welfare queens. Get farmers off of welfare and let us import food from places that can grow it competitively. If we can't make up the other 85% from somewhere else, that's great, then US farmers will show that they can grow food at a reasonable place without welfare.
>I never said subsidies aren't necessary: I don't know how you can infer that point from what I wrote.
Didn't you just tell us that you weren't arguing against subsidies and then you reply with that? Make your mind up you're all over the place. Sounds like I inferred correctly.
Is this suggesting we could actually live without Facebook, Google and Twitter.
Many of us did that for many years of our lives. At the time, I never anticipated with the internet and eventually the web is that people who had never experienced life without it could so easily be caused to lose sight of what is possible, in favor of the mess we have today. The biggest impediment I see to positive change is that younger generations are being indoctrinated into a world where "tech" companies, intermediaries supported by advertising, are perceived as an essential part of using the internet. This is of course patently false. But these companies are ultimately surveilling and controlling the dialogue. After all, internet subscribers use these "tech" company intermediaries to communicate.
Before advertising took over the internet, the inter-network's user base was relatively small. Folks who used the internet recreationally during that time were likely to be technically minded people who enjoyed computers, the type of people many of which who are working with advertising supported "tech" companies today. Few of them are going to portray an advertising-free internet as a viable option. Their livelihoods today depend on advertising. Supporting Big Tech is their "work".
Anyway, it is good to see at least one commenter can contemplate a better course for the future.
It is possible to communicate and share over the internet without the use of Big Tech. However, as long as advertising-supprted "tech" companies sit between users, operating as intermediaries, that truth will keep getting buried deeper with every new generation.
Are you talking about immigrant Latinos, who constitute the supermajority of the farm and meat production labor you're talking about? Yes, I can totally see how they feel left out of the American political process; sometimes they are even called "illegals"!
And the families who own farms capture the lion's share of the fruits of labor!
You should make friends with some of those immigrant Latinos and ask them which is more important: a stable, reliable food supply, or faster file retrieval for twitter videos.
To take this view you've shared charitably, what would "Those people in the middle of the country" who keep up from starving want in order to be satisfied with ... life? America? whatever bothers them about the current arrangement?
To be clear: these aren't my views. I live on the Coast, and probably work at the same company some of you guys work at. I just also happen to have close friends who live outside of the bubble we all inhabit.
They think that they want to be left alone. They don't want what they perceive as coastal values forced upon their kids in school.
Classics liberal here, recently moved out of west coast city to west coast rural area in large part due to critical race theory and fairly radical trans activism. Couldn’t stomache the current school curriculum around both topics.
If me and my coworkers stopped working, significant parts of the countries education system and essential services would stop working. I make 16 dollars an hour.
Easy choice. I'd pick food, lumber, minerals, manufacturing and energy every time over iFart apps, collateralized debt instruments, oxycontin and Disney movies.
And the idea that us smart people should just outsource all that physical labor stuff to 3rd-world mouth breathers may work for the moment, but just wait until there is a crisis or war.
If all of the people at facebook, google, and twitter quit their jobs, however, all that would really happen would be that the country would get a bit more peaceful.
You're talking about how much is taken in taxes. These people are talking about how much is given in life.