Bright Spark
Posts: 435 
October 9th, 2007, 04:21 AM
In 1984 New Zealand dropped subsidies for farmers. What is the Canadian gov't waitng for?
http://www.sj-r.com/News/stories/16858.asp
In 1984 New Zealand dropped subsidies for farmers. What is the Canadian gov't waitng for?
http://www.sj-r.com/News/stories/16858.asp
A modern nomad
Posts: 1,118 
Location: Berlin, Germany
Location: Berlin, Germany
October 9th, 2007, 06:11 AM
Although economic theory can show that the closer one is to the idealized perfect market, the more efficient the marketplace becomes and the more efficiently goods are produced. What economics does not tell you and in fact cannot tell you is how the wealth will be distributed in the optimal cases. There are very few social indicators used in economic theory, protectionism on the other hand will often concern itself with these indicators.
From that perspective, Canada is seen to be waiting for a time when dropping the subsidies will not lead to a social crisis in the agricultural class.
Although economic theory can show that the closer one is to the idealized perfect market, the more efficient the marketplace becomes and the more efficiently goods are produced. What economics does not tell you and in fact cannot tell you is how the wealth will be distributed in the optimal cases. There are very few social indicators used in economic theory, protectionism on the other hand will often concern itself with these indicators.
From that perspective, Canada is seen to be waiting for a time when dropping the subsidies will not lead to a social crisis in the agricultural class.
Member
Posts: 135
October 9th, 2007, 07:49 AM
But why single out farmers as the ones to have subsidies chopped? Most economic activities in modern industrial nations are subsidized.
For example, the infrastructure of large cities is largely build and maintained with funding from senior governments. General tax support by senior governments for cities in Canada (according to a study cited in the news) amounts to $1.25 for every dollar in taxes cities contribute to senior governments. General public funding for cities can be interpreted as a subsidy for large corporate employers that choose to organize themselves into highly centralized bureaucratic hierarchies. The value of centralized hierarchies might be questionable given modern communications and data technology.
Similarly, most highways are almost entirely constructed and maintained with general public funding. However, much of the costs of these highways result from the requirement to build highways heavy enough to carry large volumes of heavy transport traffic. Highways might be thought of as a subsidy to manufactures and retailers since the cost of transportation is perhaps artificially low, and as a result the cost of consumer products also are low. And of course, manufacturers or consumes products don’t pay their own costs for the clean up and eventual disposal of the cheap products they buy. General taxes pay for it. And well, then there’s energy.
It seems to me like there are a few market efficiencies that might be gained here and there. And there are a few attendant social factors that no doubt confound the application of economic theory. We might recognize that while market efficiencies might be gained if markets were moved closer to theory and away from subsidies, however our political system is a system of subsidies.
I’d be happy if government got out of the pluralistic subsidy business and concentrated on social things like social justice and socially sustainable distributions of wealth. I don’t suppose that’s likely to happen, but at least we might all recognize that we all are subsidized before we gore the other person’s subsidity. I would like to avoid living through another chapter of Jared Diamond’s “Collapse.” Diamond told of an ancient society that collapsed: ‘The cities became black holes…everything went in and nothing came out. Why would anybody in the country support the cities?’
But why single out farmers as the ones to have subsidies chopped? Most economic activities in modern industrial nations are subsidized.
For example, the infrastructure of large cities is largely build and maintained with funding from senior governments. General tax support by senior governments for cities in Canada (according to a study cited in the news) amounts to $1.25 for every dollar in taxes cities contribute to senior governments. General public funding for cities can be interpreted as a subsidy for large corporate employers that choose to organize themselves into highly centralized bureaucratic hierarchies. The value of centralized hierarchies might be questionable given modern communications and data technology.
Similarly, most highways are almost entirely constructed and maintained with general public funding. However, much of the costs of these highways result from the requirement to build highways heavy enough to carry large volumes of heavy transport traffic. Highways might be thought of as a subsidy to manufactures and retailers since the cost of transportation is perhaps artificially low, and as a result the cost of consumer products also are low. And of course, manufacturers or consumes products don’t pay their own costs for the clean up and eventual disposal of the cheap products they buy. General taxes pay for it. And well, then there’s energy.
It seems to me like there are a few market efficiencies that might be gained here and there. And there are a few attendant social factors that no doubt confound the application of economic theory. We might recognize that while market efficiencies might be gained if markets were moved closer to theory and away from subsidies, however our political system is a system of subsidies.
I’d be happy if government got out of the pluralistic subsidy business and concentrated on social things like social justice and socially sustainable distributions of wealth. I don’t suppose that’s likely to happen, but at least we might all recognize that we all are subsidized before we gore the other person’s subsidity. I would like to avoid living through another chapter of Jared Diamond’s “Collapse.” Diamond told of an ancient society that collapsed: ‘The cities became black holes…everything went in and nothing came out. Why would anybody in the country support the cities?’
Steven Hawking's Tutor
Posts: 4,995
Location: Florida, Hurricane Central
Location: Florida, Hurricane Central
October 9th, 2007, 10:59 AM
Anything that keeps the price of food above the market price is a regressive tax on the poor, since the poor spend more of their discretionary income on food than anyone else.
Quoting #juan
It would be good for your taxes and the amount you pay in food.
The most heavily subsidised creature in the world is the American farmer. Unilateral action by us to drop our subsidies would probably not be good for us.
Anything that keeps the price of food above the market price is a regressive tax on the poor, since the poor spend more of their discretionary income on food than anyone else.
Bright Spark
Posts: 435
October 21st, 2007, 11:02 PM
Twenty three years ago NZ dropped subsidies. Wow, this information sure travels slow. The world is eating more bread, milk, and meat but Cdn farmers keep receiving the pork from us taxpayers. Milk is becoming the new oil.
Local small business gets zero, but well connected farmers, whose rural vote is worth more than urban votes, get the bucks. The "family farm", what a croc. It is coporate agrobusiness now.
The building of roads and cities is not a subsidy TomG, this is basic infrastructure. Too much Cdn fed-prov poli-sci at work here. Why does the country need taxpayer money to make it pay?
Twenty three years ago NZ dropped subsidies. Wow, this information sure travels slow. The world is eating more bread, milk, and meat but Cdn farmers keep receiving the pork from us taxpayers. Milk is becoming the new oil.
Local small business gets zero, but well connected farmers, whose rural vote is worth more than urban votes, get the bucks. The "family farm", what a croc. It is coporate agrobusiness now.
The building of roads and cities is not a subsidy TomG, this is basic infrastructure. Too much Cdn fed-prov poli-sci at work here. Why does the country need taxpayer money to make it pay?
Member
Posts: 135
October 22nd, 2007, 09:30 AM
Well gee, saying that something is basic infrastructure doesn’t address the idea of subsidy at all. Arguments where a noun is used to disprove another noun usually aren’t very interesting.
The Canadian Oxford dictionary “Subsidy: 2) money granted by government to keep down the price of a service or commodity considered to be essential.” Basic infrastructure is heavily subsidized. Cases can be made that the results of infrastructure subsidization might benefit everybody, but infrastructure is subsidized never the less. According the study I mentioned, people who reside in cities may be the primary beneficiaries. According to pure economic theory, anything that interferes with the market mechanism reduces market efficiency, and the case for the benefits of subsidies is more difficult to make on purely economic grounds.
The trouble with subsidies is that it’s easy to loose sight of the dictionary definition word ‘considered’ [essential]. ‘Considered’ is a set of assumptions that reside in the political process and are driven by “winner takes all.”
Subsidies make things appear cheaper than they actually are, and in the short term it doesn’t make sense to do anything other than use the subsidized product. We flock to the cities because that’s where the jobs are. The jobs are there because services are cheap and workers have few alternatives.
Subsidies crowd out alternatives as well as creative thought. The assumed ‘considered essentials’ become the only alternatives and inconceivable to do without. The beneficiaries end up with attitudes that everybody absolutely has to pitch in and help pay for their ‘considered essentials.’ What subsidies do is produce more of themselves. With politically driven subsidies we inevitably move towards a fiscal monoculture which may be as fragile and environmentally destructive as agricultural monocultures.
Well gee, saying that something is basic infrastructure doesn’t address the idea of subsidy at all. Arguments where a noun is used to disprove another noun usually aren’t very interesting.
The Canadian Oxford dictionary “Subsidy: 2) money granted by government to keep down the price of a service or commodity considered to be essential.” Basic infrastructure is heavily subsidized. Cases can be made that the results of infrastructure subsidization might benefit everybody, but infrastructure is subsidized never the less. According the study I mentioned, people who reside in cities may be the primary beneficiaries. According to pure economic theory, anything that interferes with the market mechanism reduces market efficiency, and the case for the benefits of subsidies is more difficult to make on purely economic grounds.
The trouble with subsidies is that it’s easy to loose sight of the dictionary definition word ‘considered’ [essential]. ‘Considered’ is a set of assumptions that reside in the political process and are driven by “winner takes all.”
Subsidies make things appear cheaper than they actually are, and in the short term it doesn’t make sense to do anything other than use the subsidized product. We flock to the cities because that’s where the jobs are. The jobs are there because services are cheap and workers have few alternatives.
Subsidies crowd out alternatives as well as creative thought. The assumed ‘considered essentials’ become the only alternatives and inconceivable to do without. The beneficiaries end up with attitudes that everybody absolutely has to pitch in and help pay for their ‘considered essentials.’ What subsidies do is produce more of themselves. With politically driven subsidies we inevitably move towards a fiscal monoculture which may be as fragile and environmentally destructive as agricultural monocultures.
Bright Spark
Posts: 435
October 23rd, 2007, 10:14 PM
Not everything in life in done to support "pure" market theory. Purity is impossible. Really, are streets and streetlights a subsidy for the general public-which are paid for by taxes? They are not traded in the market and are "free" for anyone to use as they wish. Some market purists dislike even police services because they tend to cater to the poor.
The technicalities here make us lose sight of the political important of continuing wasteful subsidies to farmers for food and biofuels these days. The IHT had an article calling milk the new oil. Gee, this seems like a new important issue that wasn't so relevant ten years ago. It is a sign of a decaying, inflexible mind not to adjust to new circumstances.
Let's dump the rhetoric of the sacred "family farm" in Canada. It's all about the money these days.
Not everything in life in done to support "pure" market theory. Purity is impossible. Really, are streets and streetlights a subsidy for the general public-which are paid for by taxes? They are not traded in the market and are "free" for anyone to use as they wish. Some market purists dislike even police services because they tend to cater to the poor.
The technicalities here make us lose sight of the political important of continuing wasteful subsidies to farmers for food and biofuels these days. The IHT had an article calling milk the new oil. Gee, this seems like a new important issue that wasn't so relevant ten years ago. It is a sign of a decaying, inflexible mind not to adjust to new circumstances.
Let's dump the rhetoric of the sacred "family farm" in Canada. It's all about the money these days.
Member
Posts: 135
October 25th, 2007, 06:29 PM
Well, I don’t know what else government supported infrastructure projects should be called other than subsidies to individuals and organizations that are able to use the infrastructure, unless user fees are changed that cover all costs of the project and operation. Perhaps another word might be suggested. However, what ever word is used should capture the sense that infrastructure is an input factor to economic production and those costs are usually externalized rather than accounted as part of the production costs .
There are reasons for subsidies, and I never condemned subsidies universally. I also never supported pure market theory interpretations. Pure market theory doesn’t seem to work without central government intervention. Saying that however, does not suggest that government intervention conforms to policies that might be derived from, say, Mechanism Design Theory. What I did ask is that farmers not be singled out and trashed for receiving subsidies. Almost all economic activity can be interpreted as subsidized in many ways. Subsidies are the nature of our pluralist style of governance.
Regarding cities, it’s not too difficult to find studies that describe cities as ‘the economic engines of economic growth.’ Many studies suggest that our prosperity and even survival in the globalized world economy requires that our urban based companies must be able to compete internationally. The required solution inevitably is more money (subsidies) for the cities. However, some studies that advocate more money for cities also observe that beyond a certain size, urban efficiencies of scale become inefficiencies.
So, if efficiencies of scale become inefficiencies, how is general public funding of infrastructure for large cities anything but a subsidy to individuals and companies that use the infrastructure? Action that decreases efficiency is unlikely to contribute to the general benefit of everybody. However, a who benefits, who pays study might be conducted. I expect that such a study wouldn’t find that the vast majority of Canadians who’ve been haven’t shared in the current economic boom for the most part would for the most part pay but not benefit.
My issue is the sustainability of our present globalized economy rather than subsidies. We may be wrecking the environment with our version of globalized capitalism. The supposed economic growth engine, the city, may have a side-effect of fostering the increasing concentration of wealth in recent decades. In history, societies do not survive highly inequitable divisions of wealth. Ultimately the conditions that produce few rich wreck society. Ultimately a wrecked environment and wrecked society wrecks economies and prosperity as well. Eventually as Mao wrote, ‘All politics comes out of the barrel if a gun.’ Ernesto Guevara wrote ‘How could a culture that built such things [Machu Picchu] come to this…so much poverty and injustice…how can you have a revolution without guns?’ I’m not interested in living in a world where such sentiments seem realistic, and I’m also not interested in a world that compromises human rights as medicine for supposed terrorists that hid under every bed, which of course , contributes heavily to the prosperity of a few at the expense of everybody.
I’m not interested in living in those worlds, yet they are what the near future may hold. We don’t seem to be doing very well a putting together the pieces. We have a strong economy that most Canadians have not shared the benefits of. Public policies spend money and have little effect on levels of poverty. We rape the earth and produce an ‘oil dollar’ that few share, and our over priced currency potentially shuts down industry in the rest of the country. Our political system seems to be driven more by the advocacy positions of special interest groups rather than any coherent social or economic management principles. We seem so tied to our conventional thinking that we don’t seem to be able to question if cities may be an archaic form of organization rather than engines of economic growth. Perhaps we can’t conceive of the questions because we can’t conceive that infrastructure is subsidized.
From my perspective, subsidies seem to be more a symptom than the disease itself. I don’t really care much about subsidies to farmers, even if they are corporate farmers. I do care about the fabric on my life, which is cut from the same cloth as is everybody’s. We all sink or swim together.
Well, I don’t know what else government supported infrastructure projects should be called other than subsidies to individuals and organizations that are able to use the infrastructure, unless user fees are changed that cover all costs of the project and operation. Perhaps another word might be suggested. However, what ever word is used should capture the sense that infrastructure is an input factor to economic production and those costs are usually externalized rather than accounted as part of the production costs .
There are reasons for subsidies, and I never condemned subsidies universally. I also never supported pure market theory interpretations. Pure market theory doesn’t seem to work without central government intervention. Saying that however, does not suggest that government intervention conforms to policies that might be derived from, say, Mechanism Design Theory. What I did ask is that farmers not be singled out and trashed for receiving subsidies. Almost all economic activity can be interpreted as subsidized in many ways. Subsidies are the nature of our pluralist style of governance.
Regarding cities, it’s not too difficult to find studies that describe cities as ‘the economic engines of economic growth.’ Many studies suggest that our prosperity and even survival in the globalized world economy requires that our urban based companies must be able to compete internationally. The required solution inevitably is more money (subsidies) for the cities. However, some studies that advocate more money for cities also observe that beyond a certain size, urban efficiencies of scale become inefficiencies.
So, if efficiencies of scale become inefficiencies, how is general public funding of infrastructure for large cities anything but a subsidy to individuals and companies that use the infrastructure? Action that decreases efficiency is unlikely to contribute to the general benefit of everybody. However, a who benefits, who pays study might be conducted. I expect that such a study wouldn’t find that the vast majority of Canadians who’ve been haven’t shared in the current economic boom for the most part would for the most part pay but not benefit.
My issue is the sustainability of our present globalized economy rather than subsidies. We may be wrecking the environment with our version of globalized capitalism. The supposed economic growth engine, the city, may have a side-effect of fostering the increasing concentration of wealth in recent decades. In history, societies do not survive highly inequitable divisions of wealth. Ultimately the conditions that produce few rich wreck society. Ultimately a wrecked environment and wrecked society wrecks economies and prosperity as well. Eventually as Mao wrote, ‘All politics comes out of the barrel if a gun.’ Ernesto Guevara wrote ‘How could a culture that built such things [Machu Picchu] come to this…so much poverty and injustice…how can you have a revolution without guns?’ I’m not interested in living in a world where such sentiments seem realistic, and I’m also not interested in a world that compromises human rights as medicine for supposed terrorists that hid under every bed, which of course , contributes heavily to the prosperity of a few at the expense of everybody.
I’m not interested in living in those worlds, yet they are what the near future may hold. We don’t seem to be doing very well a putting together the pieces. We have a strong economy that most Canadians have not shared the benefits of. Public policies spend money and have little effect on levels of poverty. We rape the earth and produce an ‘oil dollar’ that few share, and our over priced currency potentially shuts down industry in the rest of the country. Our political system seems to be driven more by the advocacy positions of special interest groups rather than any coherent social or economic management principles. We seem so tied to our conventional thinking that we don’t seem to be able to question if cities may be an archaic form of organization rather than engines of economic growth. Perhaps we can’t conceive of the questions because we can’t conceive that infrastructure is subsidized.
From my perspective, subsidies seem to be more a symptom than the disease itself. I don’t really care much about subsidies to farmers, even if they are corporate farmers. I do care about the fabric on my life, which is cut from the same cloth as is everybody’s. We all sink or swim together.
October 25th, 2007, 06:39 PM
You want pictures of big boats, Escalades with farmer plates, that haven't been near a feed store since they left the lot?
I live in farm terratory, one of the richest guy in this area, Don Chapman, farmer extraordinaire. Lead the rally to Queens Park a few years back, in his brand new John Deer...His whole family drive trucks that have famers plates, but they don't use them for farm work, they have farm trucks and hired hands for that.
On top of that he uses the "Farm Workers" legislation in the Labour Code, to force his workers, in his processing plant, yep I said processing plant where he processes vegatables for Cambells and Gerbers, to work 60 hours per week at regular time.
Yep Farmers need our money alright.
Quoting Toro
Because the monthly payments on the cigarette boat are real high to.
Oh, and with wheat and corn prices touching multi-decade highs, WTF are doing sending tax money to farmers?
Have you seen what land prices have done in Saskatchewan?
Have you seen what land prices have done in Saskatchewan?
You want pictures of big boats, Escalades with farmer plates, that haven't been near a feed store since they left the lot?
I live in farm terratory, one of the richest guy in this area, Don Chapman, farmer extraordinaire. Lead the rally to Queens Park a few years back, in his brand new John Deer...His whole family drive trucks that have famers plates, but they don't use them for farm work, they have farm trucks and hired hands for that.
On top of that he uses the "Farm Workers" legislation in the Labour Code, to force his workers, in his processing plant, yep I said processing plant where he processes vegatables for Cambells and Gerbers, to work 60 hours per week at regular time.
Yep Farmers need our money alright.
Bright Spark
Posts: 435
October 31st, 2007, 10:14 PM
Agriculture is booming throughout the world, China and other developing countries are eating more meat, bread and dairy products. Somehow this news seems not to penetrate the Cdn consciousness. If milk is the new oil as the IHT has suggested, then something has fundamentally changed in the world in the last few years. The price of all minerals due to China and developing countries is increasing, ergo so are the prices of all commodies, aggy prodcuts included.
Farmers seem so beleaguered, so hard done by. This is the attitude that puzzles me. Farmers need to be told to get a haircut and get a real job. Their future is rosy, very rosy. And I haven't even mentioned organic foods.
Agriculture is booming throughout the world, China and other developing countries are eating more meat, bread and dairy products. Somehow this news seems not to penetrate the Cdn consciousness. If milk is the new oil as the IHT has suggested, then something has fundamentally changed in the world in the last few years. The price of all minerals due to China and developing countries is increasing, ergo so are the prices of all commodies, aggy prodcuts included.
Farmers seem so beleaguered, so hard done by. This is the attitude that puzzles me. Farmers need to be told to get a haircut and get a real job. Their future is rosy, very rosy. And I haven't even mentioned organic foods.
