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Politics : American Presidential Politics and foreign affairs -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: DuckTapeSunroof who wrote (30835)	12/29/2008 3:16:39 PM
From: TimF	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 71588

The more that gets shoveled in to the trough, the louder the demands for even more get. That's reasonable if you consider incentives. If begging or screaming for handouts works, you get more begging and screaming. Its similar to how a parent that always gives in to a bratty child's demands to try to shut them up, winds up getting more yelling and demands from the child, rather than less. Its more calculating on the part of the corporation than it is with the young child, but the result is the same. I agree with you about the ethanol subsidies being bad policy that leads to the misallocation of capital. The fact that anyone receiving them feels like they may now need a bailout only strengthens the argument against having them in the first place but not according to "Washington logic", where failure of an idea becomes an argument that the idea should receive more money.

To: DuckTapeSunroof who wrote (30835)	1/2/2009 3:04:45 PM
From: TimF	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 71588

More pigs lining up. --- Steel Industry, in Slump, Looks to Federal Stimulus nytimes.com The Agriculture Department has committed to buying 111.6 million pounds of milk powder at 80 cents a pound, for roughly $91 million, which includes some handling fees. Before October, the last time the government bought milk powder was in June 2006, and it was eventually used in government nutrition programs, given away as animal feed or sold on the open market, said Steve Gill, director of commodity operations for the department. He said the agency has not decided what to do with the cache of milk powder in California. Some critics of farm subsidies argue that price support programs are antiquated and allow farmers to continue producing even when the economics make no sense, as taxpayers will always buy up the excess production. “They don’t want to downsize or respond to the market signal. They want to keep producing,” said Kenneth Cook, president of the Environmental Working Group, a Washington research organization that has long been critical of the government’s farm policy. “Once you get in a jam like this, it becomes our collective problem.” nytimes.com