right. listen closely. i understand the subsidies keep prices lower. but we ALSO PAY THE SUBSIDY! THAT MEANS IT ISNT REALLY CHEAPER! it isnt magic, see? if paying the government instead of farmers somehow magically makes food cheaper, why not just go ahead and be communist and pay everything to the government and have them provide all our food. your post would be easier to read if it were broken into pragraphs.
i was in a hurry, left work early, so sorry for having it all jumbled. look at it this way bob is a farmer, joe owns the comapany that buys from the farmer and sells to martin. with subsidies: bob needs $2 per orange to make enough profit to keep farming. joe requires a 50% return on his investment. joe pays bob $1/orange, the govt. pays him $1. joe then sells the oranges to martin for $1.50, and martin pays $1 in subsidies. martin is out $2.50 for the orange. same scenario, no subsidy: joe pays bob $2, joe still requires 50% return on his investment, so he charges martin $3/orange. now martin is paying $3/orange instead of $2. add the increased sales tax martin pays on the $3, and martin is getting screwed with no subsidies. you either have to restrict the profit joe can make or subsidize the farmer to keep the cycle operating.
right, so the money i pay the government is in fact magic and reduces the overall price of production and distribution of oranges. sounds to me like the government should subsidize every industry. i droop my head with diappointment at your level of understanding. in your first scenario, with subsidy, joe made 50 cents profit. in your second scenario, without subsidy, joe doubled his profit (1$). same orange, twice as much money for joe. looks like the government subsidy really screwed joe up the ass. so by killing joe's profit and filtering that money through the government, joe has less employees now. bye bye jobs! thanks alot big brother. you can manipulate the numbers all you want. oranges cost x amount. we can either pay x for the oranges, or pay the government for part of the cost of the oranges. you either agree with free market capialism or you want big government. down with socialism. you will either see it my way or you will be wrong. (also i dont pay sales taxes on food in new jersey)
and i forgot, your 190 billion $ protectionist policies hurt free trade and generally screw the entire world.
that's called balance, not socialism, if it were socialism, the govt. would buy from the farmer and distribute to the masses. and joe doesn't have fewer employees because of subsidies, because there are only so many oranges and so much demand. Will he hire 2 people to do the job of one because he makes twice as much $?
but the government is buying the food! thats what the subsidy is! the government pays farmers. you just said: in the scenario you just mentioned, the government paid half the price of the orange. i paid all of it of course, but half the price was filtered through gov't beauracracy. if you are saying joe can have his profits reduced by half and still pay all his workers, you are clearly being dishonest for the sake of argument. look, i want personal choice, i do not need the government watching over me. if i want to buy an orange from guatemala, then i will. but essentially i have already paid american farmers for part of the price of my oranges. i had no choice. the government has forced me to pay taxes, which they decide should go to american farmers. i had no choice in the decision. is that what you call a free market? republicans, they claim to be all about smaller government. do not believe them. sure, the democrats are worse, but republicans are still pretty bad. holy christ, cant we just exchange money for goods and services without the damn government getting involved?
the govt. paid the farmer to grow the orange, they did not buy the orange. the farmer was paid based on what was planted, not harvested. there is a difference. i am talking about things remaining at the status quo. he already pays his employees. his profits are not being reduced; no one is losing their job. that is fine, people see things differently. you are seeking a perfect world; i believe there will never be a perfect world. i say leave the subsidies alone so we will ensure that we are never dependent on foreign nations to feed america. we would subject ourself to a similar situation with what we face with opec. freedom from dependance on other nations is my primary concern. if some free trade with the world is sacrificed to achieve this, so be it. also, you talk of concern for the loss of jobs, however the federal government is the largest employer in the world. good or bad, that is a fact. would free trade allow all these people to gain comparable employment in the private sector? i say protect america first and foremost, the rest of the world be damned, if necessary.
That's an excellent point. People don't think about it that often, but it's true. The republicans sure as hell aren't going to decline power, and the bigger the government - the more power they have. While you may pretend to be a somewhat extremist, I figure that its mostly for the sake of argument. I agree with your less extreme stuff though, and think the government should be involved much, much less.
fine, either way, the guy could double his money, except for your socialist program. are you going to deny that is bad for him? does he hate money? but what you want only cripples the american economy, lessening its power. there is a reason the US is the only superpower. it is because we had the most free economy of the superpowers. countries with the most capitalism become superpowers. you are opposing the very thing that made us powerful in the first place, freedom. american farmers could compete with foreigners, but we dont even force them to. instead we stomp all over our freedoms by forcing our citizens to pay farmers against their will. you cant see how that is a drag on our economy? protectionism does the exact opposite of protect us. don't you know how government tax and regulations almost always do the opposite of what is intended? if we shut down the post office, would fedex and UPS need new employees? of course! the fact that the government is a huge employer is the worse jusitification for big government i have ever heard. you might as well vote for a big government democrat. but restriction of free trade hurts us, as well as the foreigners. plus, keeping foreigners poor doesnt really make them less hateful or violent towards us. we are paying artificially high prices for food, all of us. dont you see how that hurts us and makes us a less productive country? australia recently killed thier subsidies. some thought it would kill farming, but instead, farmers diversified their crops, to more accurately reflect what the marketplace wanted. they became more efficient and now things are great. there are no longer government barriers between producer and consumer. giving people choice, that is freedom, forcing us to pay bilions and billions to farmers, that is not. only with regard to public schools like i mentioned earlier, you caught me saying something just for the sake of argument. i do actually think the farm subsidies should be cut from 190 billion or whatever to zero. i dont believe the government should pay for services on our behalf, unless those services are absolutely necessary, like defense. i think we do not give enough credence to ideas that are more extreme than the current political center. bush has a terrible stance on farm subsidies, but kerry basically agrees with him, the only difference is kerry likes to play a little class conflict game and woo small farmers with talk of transferring the subsidies away from large corporate farms to the little guy. yunno how demcrats do, always complaining about big corporations so they can get sympathy from the little guy. nobody actually stands for free trade. neither democrats nor republicans.
