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

To: Katelew who wrote (77149)	6/12/2018 10:42:55 PM
From: FJB	1 Recommendation Recommended By James Seagrove Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 364768

Your attempt to explain ECON 101 to a Libtard was pretty funny. I had many economics classes, but the first one, that is what these sad, ignorant people really need. Good luck on your adventure of explaining the basics...

To: Katelew who wrote (77149)	6/12/2018 11:05:25 PM
From: Sam	3 Recommendations Recommended By bentway CentralParkRanger combjelly Respond to of 364768

And if you're going to be critical of USA price supports for dairy, shouldn't you be equally critical of Canada's approach? Kate, I was pointing out was that Canada's tariffs on dairy are in good part a reaction to US subsidies. I like low prices on milk products; not just milk, which I don't drink much of, but cheese, cream, yogurt and the many other items that are made from milk. That said, sure, I'd be in favor of ditching both the subsidies and the tariffs. But it is a complicated matter with a lot of sunk costs and vested interests, as I said before. Neither govt will just give in with their respective special interests prodding them on. And it isn't just a matter of those two governments either; there is an entire network of subsidies and tariffs built up throughout the world. That is why TPP took such a long time to negotiate and why Trump was an idiot to ditch it. TPP would have lowered thousands of tariffs between various countries. Actually, it does lower them, but just not for the US since Trump decided not to join. Trump is a narcissistic maniac who doesn't have a clue about the complexity of supply chains around the world. He thinks he can just come in a cherry pick this or that item, scream about it and get it changed. It doesn't work like that. He is in the process of isolating the US. This is not a good thing. It is a very bad thing.

To: Katelew who wrote (77149)	6/12/2018 11:29:22 PM
From: Sam	1 Recommendation Recommended By combjelly Respond to of 364768

And one more thing: 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. What I think they are saying is that the price supports distorts production capacity. There is more capacity than is needed because farmers are guaranteed a certain price. Therefore, farmers don't have to worry about overproducing and they therefore produce too much. The writer assumes that if the price supports were removed, excess farmers would go out of business, and eventually a certain equilibrium between supply and demand would result, with prices lower than they are now with the government mandated price supports because there would be true competition without a mandated floor. That is how I make sense of it, anyway. Hope that helps. I should add that in the 19th century before there was an FDA and any price supports, farmers would feed their cows waste from distilleries. Called "swill milk", it poisoned the cows and the babies who drank it. While it was discovered and publicized in 1858 in NYC, the practice and others like it were fairly widespread. Milk was adulterated with chalk, plaster of paris, and other substances to make it look whiter and healthier and cheapen it. That kind of "race to the bottom" can result when there is no government regulation.

To: Katelew who wrote (77149)	6/13/2018 11:28:40 AM
From: combjelly	1 Recommendation Recommended By Sam Respond to of 364768

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? Eventually. But that doesn't mean the price will stabilize at or above the price support price. Dairy doesn't just get subsidies. That would lower prices. What they get is price support, when the price gets below a certain point, the government steps in a buys it until the price gets up at or above the set floor. That floor is intentionally set above the point where a significant number of producers would go bankrupt. If the supports were removed, that might be different. But it almost certainly means that the price would be lower than the price support floor unless there is something else to constrain production. Now the price support only applies to what is sold domestically. That gives incentives for the produces to export at low prices because they are guaranteed to have their costs covered for what is sold domestically. Hope this helps.

To: Katelew who wrote (77149)	6/13/2018 11:37:17 AM
From: Steve Lokness	2 Recommendations Recommended By bentway Sam Respond to of 364768

<<<<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>>>> What!!!! You can't say stuff like that and pretend to be a deficit hawk. This is NOT Capitalism it is Corporate Socialism. The government is NOT doing this so poor people can buy milk 20 cents a gallon cheaper - they are doing it so corporate megafarms can reap huge profits. What wrong with Capitalism doing this Katelew?