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Politics : The Trump Presidency -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Sam who wrote (77137)	6/12/2018 10:36:24 PM
From: Katelew	2 Recommendations Recommended By FJB James Seagrove Read Replies (6) \| Respond to of 364747

<<Without them, entire regions of rural farm country would go bankrupt. And, horror of horrors, shoppers would pay less for cheddar at the check-out counter.>> How does this work? If entire regions of dairy farming go bankrupt, that leaves fewer dairy farmers in business. If there are fewer dairy farmers in business, the remaining ones are able to more easily raise prices, are they not? The writer seems to think that if half the suppliers of a product go out of business, then prices would fall?? That makes no sense and is the opposite of what I was taught in business school. Perhaps I'm wrong, but my assumption has always been the biggest price supports were given by the government to those food products that fall in the staples group---milk, sugar, wheat, for example. However, I think that the price supports for wheat are minimal compared to the others. The idea behind the price supports was to help keep prices of these basic items low for consumers. The greatest support has always been for dairy and for two reasons. One is that milk was, until recently, considered an essential source of protein for both children and adults. The second reason is that starting up a dairy farm takes more time and money than does putting idle cropland into production. Overall, though, milk consumption has fallen and alternatives to cows milk, such as almond or coconut, are increasing. It may be time for the govt. to change things up as in fewer dairy farms in existence. It may be time to bring the prices of milk up, too. Incomes are rising and fewer people are applying for food stamps. One could argue, I suppose, that the poor no longer need a cheap source of high quality protein. As for me, I would rather live in a country that keeps the price of a basic foodstuff artificially low than live in a country like Canada that uses tariffs to keep its citizens stuck with prices twice as high. Who's looking out for who in this scenario? And if you're going to be critical of USA price supports for dairy, shouldn't you be equally critical of Canada's approach?