Silicon Investor (SI) -- The First Internet Community

STOCKTALK

We've detected that you're using an ad content blocking browser plug-in or feature. Ads provide a critical source of revenue to the continued operation of Silicon Investor. We ask that you disable ad blocking while on Silicon Investor in the best interests of our community. If you are not using an ad blocker but are still receiving this message, make sure your browser's tracking protection is set to the 'standard' level.

Politics : President Barack Obama -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: koan who wrote (128438)	12/5/2012 7:20:46 AM
From: RetiredNow	3 Recommendations Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 149317

koan, I have to say that you are being willfully ignorant. There is no free lunch. SS is adding to our deficits and the promises that were made are unpayable. I have proven that to you and you refuse to believe it. This is the real problem in this country. Everyone simply refuse to believe the truth.

To: koan who wrote (128438)	12/5/2012 7:25:03 AM
From: RetiredNow	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 149317

Oh and here's another problem with Socialism. Read the article below. Hay now costs more than the milk prices farmers can get from feeding the hay to the cow. So what is the Socialist's solution? Have the government set the price of milk with the M.I.L.C. farm bill. This drives more subsidies on unprofitable ventures that drives more malinvestment and higher deficits and more borrowing that we can't afford. Socialism is a failure. Why doesn't the farmer invest his money in something else that will return more money for him than hay for milk? The land he is sitting on is worth a hell of a lot of money thanks to the QE bubble. So he should sell that land, cash out, and invest elsewhere. If he enough milk producers do that, then there will be a milk shortage, prices will rise, then investors will get back into the milk business to profit from it. All of that without our government getting involved and driving deficits higher. That's the free market. It works much better than the government at setting prices and driving profitability. -------------- Milk Producers Peer Over The Dairy Cliff by DAVID SOMMERSTEIN December 05, 2012 4:00 AM Audio for this story from Morning Edition will be available at approx. 9:00 a.m. ET [url=]Transcript[/url] Enlarge image Dairy farmer Bob Andrews feeds heifers in the same barn his grandfather used. He says today "the harder you work, the further you get behind." David Sommerstein/NCPR There's more than one cliff drawing controversy this month. The federal farm bill is one of many items caught in congressional gridlock. The bill resets U.S. agriculture policy every four years, and most farmers are still covered by crop insurance and other programs until next planting season. But there's one exception: dairy. Dairy farmers now have no safety net if milk prices fall. And with feed prices soaring, many feel they're falling off a cliff of their own. In a cramped barn in northern New York State, Bob Andrews is lugging hay to his heifers. He says the dairy business is upside down. "Do you realize that feed is more valuable right now than it is puttin' it through a cow?" says Andrews. In other words, his raw materials – the hay, and the corn and soy he feeds his 70 milkers – are worth more than his final product: the milk. Last summer's drought is a big reason why. But dairy farmers are price takers, not price makers. The federal government sets a minimum price for milk, but it hasn't kept pace lately with increased prices for feed or energy or the cost of repairing farm equipment. So, Andrews says dairy farmers just work harder, become more efficient. Many farmers milk more cows. "Used to be the harder you worked, the better you were off, financially," he says. "Today, the harder you work, the further behind you get in this business." A program called the Milk Income Loss Contract (MILC) helped with the bottom line. It paid farmers when the milk price went too low or feed prices went too high. But it expired as a part of the 2008 Farm Bill in October. It was particularly important to small dairy farmers like Bob Andrews in the Northeast and Midwest. Enlarge image Clark Putman, the local director of the USDA's Farm Service Agency, keeps earns of corn on his desk as a reminder of how the high cost of feed is threatening dairy farmers' livelihood. David Sommerstein /NCPR "We would have still been making payments in this county to approximately 200 dairy producers," explains Clark Putman, director of the USDA Farm Service Agencybranch in the county where Andrews lives. Putman notes that instead of some farmers getting a 1 to 4,000 dollar monthly check, they're in triage mode. "They either borrow more money, discontinue paying vendors, cull beef heavier than normal, anything to generate income to try to continue to operate," he explains. There's another problem with inaction over the farm bill, what insiders are calling "the dairy cliff". Chris Galen is spokesman for the National Milk Producers Federation, the largest trade group representing dairy producers, and Galen contends that he coined the term. If the lame duck Congress fails to pass a new farm bill or extend the old one, a 1949 law would take effect in January that would almost double the milk price. If that happens, experts warn of $6 to $8 gallons of milk at the store. Galen says it's like the "fiscal cliff": it's supposed to make Congress avoid it, "so that Congress actually passes a new farm bill as opposed to reverting back to this decades old law." Galen says the new farm bill includes a voluntary insurance program that would replace MILC. He says it would be better for small and big dairy farms. Critics on the right and left say the farm bill's loaded with too many subsidies like this. Some farmers, like Sam Dyer of northeastern New York, are uncomfortable with it, too. Dyer says he'd like to compete on the free market – no government subsidy. "I don't want this interview to make it sound like I'm crying on somebody's shoulder either," cautions Dyer. But he can't set his own prices. And so he needs help. "The government subsidy is enough to keep the wolf away from the door. But it's not enough to put money in your pocket and make money or make a living," says Dyer. So, he's hoping Congress acts soon, before that wolf pushes him over the cliff.