#corn subsidies

[choppedcowboydinosaur]

There is this trend recently that is bugging me. It is the hypocrisy of liberals using libertarian arguments against RFK Jr for trying to make society "healthier". Now I don't trust RFK Jr since the way he wants to go about making society "healthier" is by banning high fructose corn syrup rather than getting rid of the corn subsidies. The corn subsidies create excess corn to be grown by farmers which is then used to create high fructose corn syrup. If you get rid of these subsidies you reduce the amount of corn needed to make high fructose corn syrup. Seriously, so many problems in this country are because of subsidies and poorly thought-out laws that encourage rent seeking and regulatory capture. If you got rid of these things then a lot of the problems would go away and take care of themselves. But like most politicians he thinks more government is the answer when it isn't.

But the liberal arguments for freedom of choice to eat junk food feel very disingenuous to me. I remember since at least the 2000's, hell even the late 90's when I was a small kid the liberals were the ones who have constantly tried to social engineer society to eat healthy food. They even cheered on Mike Bloomberg banning soda despite Bloomberg being a Republican. They promoted that crappy documentary "Supersize Me" even though Morgan Spurlock was full of shit and all the negative side effects he endured from eating McDonalds were actually because he was an alcoholic. Seriously, I was forced to watch that in middle school, and it was so patronizing and annoying. Everyone knew McDonalds was bad for you. So, when I see them doing this about face about the right to eat burgers and fries it just comes off as so disingenuous and shameless. They are trying to make freedom of choice for food their talking point when it's the libertarian one. Seriously, if you really want to see the libertarian view on freedom of choice for junk food go see Dennis Leary's character from Demolition Man. He is the epitome of freedom of choice even for stuff that is bad for you. It's all so tiresome and annoying. I hate this disingenuous whiplash of politics.

[asagi-asagiri]

we need a show like 1000 pound sisters or my 600 pound life that's not about trying to make them lose weight but hooking these people up with feeder simps.

[choppedcowboydinosaur]

In all seriousness, if RFK Jr. is serious about wanting to make the country healthy again, he should get rid of the corn subsidies. It's the root at a lot of problems with agriculture and food.

[confusedbyinterface]

China’s Tariffs on Australian Barley: Coercion, Protectionism, or Both? - The China Story

The Chinese anti-dumping tariffs on Australian barley have been widely interpreted as revenge for Australia’s call for a COVID-19 investigation. But there are other factors at play.

In the 2010s, Chinese agricultural subsidies were directed mainly to production and price support for rice, wheat, and corn. By 2015 China had 250 million tonnes of corn in storage — half the worlds’ reserves — bought at up to double world prices and taking years to draw down. The differentials with world markets didn’t increase corn imports because they are controlled by tariff rate quotas (designed partly to reduce reliance on U.S. corn). But it did lead to massive imports of corn substitutes not protected by quotas used for livestock feed and brewing — including barley. Chinese barley imports surged from 2013-18, while domestic production continued a long-term decline. The combination meant that domestic production accounted for an average of just 20 per cent of total barley supply between 2014 and 2018. This is an anathema to China’s food security and self-sufficiency policy. 

China rejected claims that domestic corn and wheat subsidies contributed to the decline of barley production.

Huh, Cheng Jingye was telling the truth. It wasn’t about the coronavirus inquiry, it was corn all along!

Is there anywhere in the world not controlled by corn subsidies?

[johnmaynardgainz-blog]

Types Of Help

So it looks like Trump is going to probably repeal Obamacare, or at least try. This has me reflecting on why the working class thinks he’s their friend. And there’s actually an answer: he’s promised to help them in the way they want to be helped. They want to be told that they can make meaningful contributions to society and support themselves, rather than the government doing it.  I’m not going to mince words: in a global economy*, you can’t expect an American standard of living in exchange for the type of work that a lot of these people are able to do right now. Unions and probably even companies themselves have been fighting the tide, but a lot of American humans are being undercut by American machines and foreign workers. This is inevitable.  Liberals like me all sort of recognize the inherent cruelness of capitalism embodied in the last paragraph. I personally also recognize the benefits of capitalism, and think that those benefits outweigh the cruelness--but are unevenly distributed. So, for the people who do well, they will have to pay a lot of tax. And for the people who don’t do well, they get a social safety net. And if you want to go further, job retraining so people who don’t do well can turn themselves into productive citizens and enjoy the dignity of work.  Conservatives have long played a tune that I think they mostly truly believe, but turns out to be incredibly cruel: if you just try, you won’t fail. Let’s take away the social safety net to make sure that people keep trying. So not only do people end up poor and miserable, they’re told that it’s their own fault. Well people don’t like thinking that of themselves, which I think is where Trump comes in.  You’re not a failure: the *liberals* with their regulations and their *favoring* of minorities are to blame! I don’t believe the free market is a myth or an undiscoverable ideal state of the world. It’s carefully defined in econ textbooks, as the basis for why capitalism works. But to most Americans, I think, the free market is whatever you want it to be. Corn subsidies are just helping the small American farmer who is downtrodden by those monsters at Monsanto. Blowing soot over half the country is my god-given right if I want to own a coal power plant! To Trump supporters, he wants to bring back the free market as they define it.  Even if Trump really wanted to (he doesn’t--he’s lying about caring about these ‘ordinary’ Americans), what he’s promising is either impossible or would require a massively authoritarian state to do. Is he going to ban robots in factories? Open up government-run coal-fired power plants? (Note: the decline is coal is at least as much due to the low price of natural gas as it is due to regulations.) But this is the type of help that the white working class wants. And Trump was irresponsible enough to promise it to them. Us coastal elites with our degrees in economics and history and law are screaming at the top of our lungs that it’s impossible, but that’s not a very fun message.  *I won’t take the state of the world as inevitable, but I’ll point out that if we just closed our borders to trade, we would overall be a *lot* poorer as a country. 

[thepeacockangel]

principlesoflilith replied to your photo “jumpingjacktrash: fenrislorsrai: magickandmoss: ...”

tbf though like replacing a bunch of the BS corn subsidies with hemp subsidies would be a very good thing

After watching that documentary on Gatlin Nebraska, The Children of the Corn, you all know my feelings on corn subsidies.  

[thepeacockangel]

I watched Children of The Corn and clearly the moral of the story is that we must end corn subsidies

[juanchristo]

Day 3 (cont.) - Nebraska. “Knee high by the Fourth of July.” I don’t really understand that - I mean, this friggin corn is way way over that; hell, this grass is knee high on me. Well Dorothy, I guess we’re not in NYC anymore…