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

To: TimF who wrote (356639)	10/31/2007 6:13:59 PM
From: tejek	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 1576121

I didn't say it would be uneconomical to grow them....just more expensive to buy them. Its only relatively cheap to buy water intensive agricultural products from this valley now, because they are indirectly subsidized. I'd prefer to buyers to pay the real cost. That's what I said: the choice you have....either subsidized the water or pay a higher price for the produce. The state accounts for nearly the entire U.S. production of walnuts, almonds, nectarines, olives, dates, figs... Still you exaggerate. All of those products put together aren't as important to our economy as oil. Many of them could be grown elsewhere in the US, and might be if the valley didn't get the subsidies it gets. I didn't say they were as important as oil. I said there would be a serious economic dislocation. Also the larger amount of stuff that is grown there, than the larger the subsidy (not directly, its not a subsidy for growing things, but grow more and you use more water, all else being equal). Either the products can still be produced profitably and sold at a price the market will accept even with the growers accepting the real price or they can't. If they can, then there is no huge loss. If they can't, well that growing them there IS a huge loss, and the growers are only profitable because they get subsidized, not because they are producing products that are worth more than the sum of their inputs. I bet a lot of the products grown there continue to be grown there even if you remove the subsidies. Perhaps a few of the lowest margin, most water intensive crops would not be, and a few more would be noticeably reduced, but for most of them the main effect would be continued production but with the real costs allocated to those who incur the costs. Depending on the elasticity of the market either consumers or the producers would lose a bit (probably they would both lose a bit), but than you solve the water shortage problem. In many cases you wouldn't have the growers grow less to use less water, or use the same and pay more for it. Instead they would invest in highly efficient systems to minimize water use. What's so awful about that? When this post exchange started, you seemed to downplay the importance of the SJ Valley to the US. Once again, I am saying it's produce may not be as important as oil but there would be a significant economic dislocation if the Valley stopped producing what its producing.