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Politics : Formerly About Advanced Micro Devices -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: bentway who wrote (267546)	1/8/2006 3:31:41 PM
From: neolib	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 1573988

In food commodities, the US is quite competitive. In labor intensive food less so. However, if it is fresh and perishable, shipping can be quite expensive, plus there is timing. The northern hemisphere will generally be the low cost producer during our summer, while the southern hemisphere competes with high priced fresh produce in the winter. It not simply price. US ag is not going away, even if the subsidies do. The real issue in Ag is that any money maker quickly attracts more capacity since the barriers to entry (both cost and time) are relatively low, resulting is price erosion to the point of unprofitability. This is of course simply a free market system with low entry barriers. Such systems are prone to instability, despite ones political beliefs to the contrary. Subsidies are one method of injecting stability. Another method is regulating production (think peanut farming & Jimmy Carter). For whatever reasons, subsidies are more palatable in our free market mindset than regulating production which seems more intrusive, since the government selects winners and losers in that system. We do of course use that method in some ag situations. My own feeling is that we'd be better off being dependent on other countries for food. It would force us to be a better world citizen, and treat our neighbors with respect. Mutually Assured Dependence? Thats perhaps a nice counterpoint to 'nocular' diplomacy eh?