Are Farm Subsidies socialism?

originally posted by: neo96
Are Farm Subsidies socialism?

At best its cronyism.

Paying people to not farm and price fixing.

Inefficiency is the hallmark of government, but their ineffiency in running the program doesn't remove the need for it.

Some of it is foreign policy type stuff (we subsidise cotton in the US to undercut the African cotton industry). But the intention is to ensure a steady supply of food for the US. We don't want farmers letting their farms go back to forest just because of a 3 year drought.

a reply to: bigfatfurrytexan

Urban sprawl is a bigger problem than reforestation.

That and real estate prices.

a reply to: neo96

Perhaps....but that is irrelevant to keeping farmers on their farms during droughts.

originally posted by: bigfatfurrytexan
a reply to: neo96

Perhaps....but that is irrelevant to keeping farmers on their farms during droughts.

We always buy crop insurance in case of just such an event. Our main concern is hail...

cropinsuranceinamerica.org...

Risk management...also subsidized by Uncle.

www.ers.usda.gov...

a reply to: olaru12

That is an example.

Another would be all farmers growing the high revenue crops, even if those are not edible foods.

originally posted by: bigfatfurrytexan
a reply to: olaru12

That is an example.

Another would be all farmers growing the high revenue crops, even if those are not edible foods.

Precisely, most of the corn grown now isn't edible. Those farmers love the ethanol subsidies, actually they are corporate farms, hiring illegals to actually do the work.

www.taxpayer.net...

American Capitalism...MAGA

originally posted by: bigfatfurrytexan

originally posted by: JAGStorm

originally posted by: bigfatfurrytexan
No.

Farm subsidies, at least in theory (if not in practice) are meant to provide stability in the food supply. Thats survival, not socialism.

Is survival not possible without subsidies? What happened to less government??

If no one wants to farm because of the nature of farming, then how will we eat?

How many years of drought should a farmer starve through before deciding to get into another field? What if non edible crops are the most profitable and nothing lures farmers into growing food crops instead of crap like switch grass to make fuel from?

You can have less government. Its what we have had throughout human history. A history rife with famine, starvation....

Sounds great.

There was a time before farm subsidies and people ate. Not only did they eat, they ate very healthy.

a reply to: olaru12

Exactly...Field Corn and soybeans, as far as you can see from the East Coast to Eastern Colorado. Cash crops.

a reply to: JAGStorm

LOL, really?

We have ages upon ages of vanished civilizations because of drought. Pyramids covered in blood as starving people tried to appease their gods.

Sure, your great grandparents ate well. They were in the process of ruining the most fertile soil in the world. Once the dust bowl happened, it became readily obvious that a plan was needed.

a reply to: olaru12

I'd blame Bush more for the corn deal. It was his admin that was trying to find ways to make ethanol cheaply.

Corn shouldn't be subsidized in my opinion. I love corn. Wildly. But it isn't really healthy as a food, despite being delicious.

originally posted by: 38181
a reply to: olaru12

Exactly...Field Corn and soybeans, as far as you can see from the East Coast to Eastern Colorado. Cash crops.

The soybean growers aren't happy campers with trumps trade war. China just put yuge tariffs on soybeans.

When the infrastructure is in place, soy will be switched to hemp.

krvn.com...

originally posted by: bigfatfurrytexan
a reply to: JAGStorm

LOL, really?

We have ages upon ages of vanished civilizations because of drought. Pyramids covered in blood as starving people tried to appease their gods.

Sure, your great grandparents ate well. They were in the process of ruining the most fertile soil in the world. Once the dust bowl happened, it became readily obvious that a plan was needed.

Heee heee haaa haa. You don't think these mega corporation farmers aren't ruining the soil? Oh, you know, drowning crops in roundup, tilling till cows come home, planting freak of nature plants that don't resemble anything in nature, all the while poisoning our most precious resource.... water.
Sorry, I'll take my great grandparents way of farming over today's methods any day.

I've lived in Asia, Europe and all over the United States. I'm sorry but our growing methods are whacked. Many people can go on vacation overseas and eat like a pig and lose weight. You know why that is? Their foods are not poisoned. Their wheat is actually wheat.


I agree with you on the corn, I love corn too.

a reply to: JAGStorm

Your assessment of the industry is correct.

Corporate farming is now the accepted method, the family farm is a thing of the past. My family has been farming in Texas for 100years and I'm seriously considering selling out to a subsidiary of Monsanto just like all my neighbors have done... I just don't care anymore.

American Capitalism...MAGA

A personal perspective from an English guy.

Any subsidy is a form of Socialism - except tax cut's to the rich which is a form of anti democratic capitalism.

A nation has to be able to self sustain in essential's or it becomes a captive of the global market place and variable price of necessary item's such as food and fuel.

Think about it like this, Subsidies help the farmers survive when free market economic's may have forced them to leave the profession and the farm land then either been abandoned, fair enough if it is allowed to go back to nature and has tree's and native species return BUT it could also be turned over to something less ecologically viable.

So some subsidies are not about political direction as much as national security.

Socialism is not evil you know unless it is taken to the extreme left (which has nothing to do with BLT or other sexual persuasions or group rights etc), run away right wing politics are also equally evil, there is a lot to say about middle of the ground being both good and bad but typically politics is like a pendulum, swing it too far one way and it invariably has to come back the other - the only way to stop this is copious, constant and over the top stereotyping of and destructive propaganda against the other side.

The capitalist rich will eat your baby's for one example OR the Socialists will take everything you have worked for making YOU into state property as another.

Both are outright lies and yet both hold an element of truth.

The only form of socialism that work's is voluntary socialism and the only form of voluntary socialism that is viable is democracy with a properly educated - not brainwashed - electorate and that always straddles the middle of the road but somewhere to the left of center.

But in the world we live in it is easy to lead the mass of people astray and so the middle itself is sometimes' more to the right and sometime's more to the left.

Free capitalism is unsustainable as it lead's to Corporate capitalism which leads to growing disparity between poor and rich which foment's left wing revolt from the poor.

Regulated capitalism work's but corporations and the ultra wealthy are always going to be it's enemy's and use there disproportionate power and political resources to sway the system in there favor and to brainwash the rest of the electorate because they simply do not like paying there fair and ethical share of the tax burden.

Global economic's will always be right wing, rich block's against poor block's and dog eat dog so this is about national economic's.

So to answer as best I can, YES and NO.

It is Socialism as it is not free market economic's and is about keeping a necessary industry afloat when it should otherwise fold.

It is NOT socialism because it is about national security.

Making certain that your nation has the necessary vital resources available and is insulated against unstable and unfriendly economic warfare that would otherwise see your home grown produce and meat replaced with cheaper - and potentially (But not if they are all giving there cow's and crop's Monsanto crap) less healthy - foreign good's as the consumer will always choose the cheaper if they see it as of equal of nearly equal quality - unless they are filthy rich of course (filth rich probably comes' from the Tudor period in the UK when the rich actually only had a bath about once or less a year and there teeth were often black from rot, they thought that washing was dangerous to there health which given the quality of water those day's and the question of were did they get it from is actually quite possibly correct and they used to buy or even steal young girl's teeth and the rich would then have them put into there own mouth's by what passed for a dentist those day's though since they were not there own teeth they usually fell out after a few week's to a few month's at most - oh and wattle and daub was made with pig and human poo in the lime mix because nothing stick's like **** and it was better than mud though they did use that too - at least the poor did - just to add something completely irrelevant because my mind fly's off on a tangent).

originally posted by: BiffWellington

originally posted by: Bluntone22
You are only looking at the issue from one side.
Consider a farmers.

You plant a crop.
Pray for rain, but not to much.
You hope for the best.
You harvest with a $250k machine that you use 3 weeks out of the year.
Then somebody else tells you what you are going to get paid.


Cut the subsidies if you want but dont bitch about $8 gallons of milk.
$16 pounds of cheese.
Etc...

So my money should be taken from me by the government and given to another individual because he or she chose a career in which they couldn't make a living? Makes perfect sense. Go Murka!

You got it backwards.
You dont make enough to feed your family if farmers had to charge the actual cost to produce food.

Do you actually think its possible to feed a cow, milk a cow, ship the milk to a bottling plant, pasteurize the milk, ship the milk to stores all for the price of $1.50 a gallon?

Farm subsidies keep food prices affordable...

So yeah, murica

a reply to: olaru12

Just stop with the maga crap.
You know damn well that ethanol subsidies existed long before trump was president.
So did corporate farms.

a reply to: JAGStorm

Thats all true and all....but has little to do with my point (that the human population is greater than its ever been, and we have very few people dying from famine)

originally posted by: Bluntone22
a reply to: olaru12

Just stop with the maga crap.
You know damn well that ethanol subsidies existed long before trump was president.
So did corporate farms.

That's true, but in this case my MAGA refers to the Godlike Corporate structure that also is MAGA as well.

trump didn't invent Capitalism. And I'll MAGA all I want to just like the right wing.

a reply to: olaru12

So you're gonna troll?

Neat.

Let us all know when you're done with that and can have an adult conversation.

originally posted by: projectvxn
a reply to: olaru12

So you're gonna troll?

Neat.

Let us all know when you're done with that and can have an adult conversation.

You should have read my previous posts. They were very adult. Try and keep up!!

btw, this isn't the mudpit.