A thankyou to my fellow canadians

[Ninot]

I should ask my prof if I could submit this thread for my term paper.

[notyoueither]

Or, why can a farmer in Ontario growing wheat be trusted to manage his own sales, but not in Manitoba, Saskatchewan, or Alberta, on pain of prison?

[notyoueither]

Originally posted by Ninot
I should ask my prof if I could submit this thread for my term paper.

He might learn something.

[KrazyHorse]

Originally posted by notyoueither
Bull****. The price of wheat is set globally. It has been for a long time now.

The price of wheat is actually not set globally. The global grain market is full of price distortions. It's depressed due to subsidies. It's raised due to cartels. There are all sorts of tariff and non-tariff barriers to its trade.

Nobody wants to get rid of the Board. What is desired are options.

What exactly would be the point of the Wheat Board if it wasn't a cartel? And what would the point of its cartel be if its members could (and would!) choose to individually violate its monopoly on the sale of Canadian grown grains?

[notyoueither]

Why doesn't it apply to the same crops in Ontario and Quebec that it applies to on the prairies?

[KrazyHorse]

Originally posted by notyoueither
Or, why can a farmer in Ontario growing wheat be trusted to manage his own sales, but not in Manitoba, Saskatchewan, or Alberta, on pain of prison?

No particular reason. But AFAIK the non-prairie growers account for a very minor share of total domestic production. Allowing, say, Saskatchewan farmers to violate the Board's monopoly would completely destroy its effectiveness.

Personally I'd like to see the Board eradicated. It's stupid and outmoded. It raises consumer prices, and apparently the people it benefits don't even appreciate it.

**** it.

[KrazyHorse]

[Asher]

$913M is pocket change.

[KrazyHorse]

Then why were those 400 ralphbucks such a big deal?

[Asher]

Because it was unexpected. Even that is worth more than $900M.

[KrazyHorse]

Nope. It's close (since only filers of a tax return got it)

[Asher]

I thought it was a hair over $1B in value.

[KrazyHorse]

You're telling me that 900 mill and 1 bill are far enough apart that one's pocket change and the other's a big deal?

[notyoueither]

Well, I would assume the people the farmers were driving their wheat to were offering better terms than the Wheat Board, or why would they have wanted to truck their grain?

I'll tell you why.

Because during the depression you were correct. There was a lack of information and buyers were taking advantage of prairie farmers not having anywhere near enough local markets to depend on. You see, prairie grain has been a staple export of this country since the railroads were put in. It was much too important to allow to run into the ground.

So, what we have now is a state monopoly on a major part of our economy(s) that is based on the conditions of a world wide depression before most of the people growing the stuff had a telephone within 30 miles of home.

The insistence on the part of central Canadians that 'this is for your own good', with the RCMP standing just behind you, pisses a great number of people off. Royally.

[Asher]

Originally posted by KrazyHorse
You're telling me that 900 mill and 1 bill are far enough apart that one's pocket change and the other's a big deal?

The amount of money total wasn't a big deal. 1 bill is pocket change.

The big deal was everyone got $400 rather randomly.