Mexicans Hate Texas Boarders

[MrFun]

Davenport, Iowa has a large enough gay community to have four GOOD gay nightclubs -- not bars, but nightclubs.

[Drake Tungsten]

I'm not really knowledgable about the gay nightclub scene in Lincoln.

[Dinner]

Originally posted by Master Zen
I agree, and one of those solutions might perchance be eliminating agricultural subsidies? Practically all the emigres are rural workers after all.

We tried that in the mid 1990's and the EU was supposed to follow suit. Instead the French actually got the EU to INCREASE farm subsidies thus forcing the US to have to reinstate their subsidies albet at a lower level then before.

[Ned]

I am fundamentally against subsidies in principle. However, I don't understand how ending US subsidies could help Third World farmers because US subsidies act to keep prices up whereas lower prices that will result from ending subsidies will harm the Third World farmers.

[Dinner]

You are wrong ned. What subsidies do is encourage over production which drives prices down. Since 1st workd farmers get the subsidy they survive the low prices while 3rd world farmer go bankrupt.

The best solution for most people would be free trade and the elimination of trade distorting subsidies.

[Ned]

Oerdin, AFAIK, we pay farmers not to grow, thereby keeping prices up. If we stopped doing that, prices would drop - across the world.

Is there something here that I do not understand?

[Ramo]

Economics doesn't always work that way gov't bureaucrats or corporate lobbyists claim they do. The net effect of subsidies in most major markets is to allow US agribusinesses to export products to the world at prices below production cost, thereby ****ing over third world farmers.

We tried that in the mid 1990's and the EU was supposed to follow suit. Instead the French actually got the EU to INCREASE farm subsidies thus forcing the US to have to reinstate their subsidies albet at a lower level then before.

That's absurd. The EU increasing their subsidies doesn't force us to do jack (and the same goes the other way, contrary to what some Euros claim). And the US gov't at no point made a serious effort at reducing agrisubsidies. All it's ever been has been rhetoric, aimed at getting concessions out of the third world.

[Ned]

Originally posted by Ramo
Economics doesn't always work that way gov't bureaucrats or corporate lobbyists claim they do. The net effect of subsidies in most major markets is to allow US agribusinesses to export products to the world at prices below production cost, thereby ****ing over third world farmers.



That's absurd. The EU increasing their subsidies doesn't force us to do jack (and the same goes the other way, contrary to what some Euros claim). And the US gov't at no point made a serious effort at reducing agrisubsidies. All it's ever been has been rhetoric, aimed at getting concessions out of the third world.

Ramo, you really got to explain this to me. The subsidienies restrict the amout of land available to plant - or buy product, such as milk or butter, at support price levels. Both keep prices up. How does this help exports?

[Ramo]

It's pretty simple, really. First of all, the world market, not the national market sets equilibrium prices. If the US gives money to wheat agribusinesses, they can afford to set their prices below equilibrium level, and drive, say, Bangladeshi wheat farmers out of business. It doesn't matter if they get more land, they'll still get more money from price supports and therefore are able to undercut third world peasants. Besides, the effect of such policies only serves to shift farming onto the most productive land so the difference in these businesses farming output isn't all that significant (well, actually, a lot of them wouldn't be solvent since they depend so much on welfare, so production would decrease substantially in the event of an elimination of agrisubsidies).

[Dinner]

Originally posted by Ramo
That's absurd. The EU increasing their subsidies doesn't force us to do jack (and the same goes the other way, contrary to what some Euros claim). And the US gov't at no point made a serious effort at reducing agrisubsidies. All it's ever been has been rhetoric, aimed at getting concessions out of the third world.

Ramo, are you a drooling idiot? Stupid qustion I know but if the US didn't have to compete on international markets then we wouldn't have to worry about foreign subsidies. As it is the EU said they would follow suit if the US would just show leadership and cancel it's subsies. The US canceled it's subsidies for threee years, yet, instead of following through on it's promise to remove subsidies the EU increaseed subisides. They took advantage of American farmers by increasing subsidies in a time where American farmers had no subisidies.

They lyed to us. They economically attacked American farmers.

[Ramo]

Oh bull****. We do exactly the same thing. It's all just pissy *****ing that only screws over the third world. And when exactly did we cancel all our agrisubsidies?

[Ramo]

The Freedom to Farm Act did not eliminate agrisubidies (if you're thinking about that). It only changed one form of agrisubsidies to another (fixed payments), and actually increased the amount of agricultural corporate welfare substantially.

[Ramo]

And could we do without this namecalling? It only makes your piss-poor argument look even crappier.

[MrFun]

Creating three posts in a row makes you cool?

[Imran Siddiqui]

Yes