...

 RS>>>>> That's just it.
 RS>>>>> They get those subsidies even for *NOT* producing anything.
 ...
 EH>> The big Agro-businesses.

 BA> Actually big agribusiness doesn't need subsidies.  Cargill
 BA> is the biggest privately owned
 BA> corporation in the country (and probably in the world) with

 Yet they still get the subsidies. And they lobby for them.

 ...

 BA> tissue ).  The government
 BA> really hates those privately held companies, among other
 BA> reasons because since ethey're not
 BA> publicly traded they don't have to file reports with the
 BA> SEC.

 The government neither love nor hates nor feels anything. People
 in the government do, and the Federal government has been run by
 Republicans for all by 10 of the last 30 years.

 RS>>> During the 1930's, large corporate farms were owned by big business,
 RS>>> and you just *KNOW* how pro-Roosevelt big business was at that time.
 RS>>> (sarcasm off)

 EH>> Your ignorance of history is astounding.

 BA> Yes it is.  Most big farms are not owned by the big
 BA> agribusiness corporations; many if
 BA> not most of them are owned by family corporations

 And was that true in the 1930s?

 BA> (incorporated in order to preserve their
 BA> existence against the death tax).

 There is no death tax, and your answer conceeds the well
 demonstrated fact, family farms are *NOT* lost to the
 inheritance tax.

 RS>>> But as I said, the program is outmoded.

 EH>> It was a payoff to big business all along.

 BA> Actually it was a payoff to farmers.  The problems the
 BA> farmers have today is mostly due
 BA> to monopsony.

 Do you understand what you just said labels you a far left near
 socialist?


 BA> For those unaware, a monopsony is a
 BA> situation where there are many
 BA> producers and few customers; there are thousands of
 BA> farmers, but very few buyers of grain

 ...

 BA> Yes, there are cooperatives and
 BA> yes they seem to be doing just fine - but they have to
 BA> compete with the big grain outfits
 BA> and therefore can't pay significantly more - if any more
 BA> -for the grain than the big boys
 BA> do).

 You just condemned the capatilist system.

 You labled yourself a socialist in their eyes.

 ...

 BA> many farms are owned by survivors or family of the original
 BA> farmer, and they can't work the
 BA> land so they lease it; just as a guess I'd say that
 BA> probably 1/3 of the acreage farmed in this
 BA> area is leased, the lease payment generally being a share
 BA> of the crop at harvest.  Next year's harvest will be
 BA> interesting.

 If they have a long term lease, and chose not to farm this year,
 the lease payment becomes zero. Unless the land owner has the
 foresight to put an annual minimum of some kind in the lease.

 I have known of farms where that happened. A long time ago,
 though.





BOB KLAHN bob.klahn{at}sev.org   http://home.toltbbs.com/bobklahn

... Honest scales and full measure hurt nobody.   Old Chinese Proverb
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