Another Stupid Idea

By Randinho, Section Diaries
Posted on Thu Oct 18, 2007 at 09:39:43 PM EST
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In the real world, if one cannot make a living doing one line of work, one finds a different line of work. One shouldn't expect the government to prop up your desire to continue to do business in this fashion as this man appears to believe:

"Sugar farming has been my whole life," said Michael Comb, 48, general
manager of the Louisiana Sugar Cane Cooperative in St. Martinville. "I

was 8 years old when I got on a tractor in a sugar field. It's all I

know."

As the article notes, sugar only grows in warm climates and in the US it only grows in southern Louisiana, the southernmost tip of Texas and parts of Florida. It certainly appears to me that not enough sugar can be grown in the US to have a meaningful impact on the ethanol market.

There's another issue that the article doesn't address: The European Union has already lost in the WTO for sugar export subsidies. Given the recent loss in the WTO on cotton subsidies and the fifty cent per gallon tariff on imported ethanol, do they honestly think that this will pass muster?

Cross-posted at Beautiful Horizons

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Another Stupid Idea | 16 comments (16 topical)

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ok... so... what is your remedy? (none / 0) (#1)
by Michael Gass on Thu Oct 18, 2007 at 10:34:55 PM EST

This is a guy who is 48 years old. He probably has no college degree, and, by the time he could get one he would be 52 or 53 years old. Who would hire him?

So, what is he to do? Work at Wal-Mart? McDonald's? Wendy's? Where?

We are giving Big-Oil billions in oil subsidies despite the fact they have made record profits year after year.

Here's a GOOD idea: stop paying oil companies and start paying farmers like this guy. He'll have a job and the taxpayer will save a billion dollars.

Oh Please (none / 0) (#13)
by Randinho on Fri Oct 19, 2007 at 06:22:59 PM EST

I've changed careers twice. most recently at forty-eight. Why? I had no choice and I also had no government help.


Oh please nothing... (none / 0) (#14)
by Michael Gass on Fri Oct 19, 2007 at 07:29:58 PM EST

Do you have a college degree?

Do you live out in rural BFE or in a metropolitan city that actually has jobs?

Did you have other skills to rely upon?

You say you've changed "careers", yet, you don't state HOW, WHAT career you had to what you went to, etc...

I've changed careers. I was a military bomb tech who went into law enforcement. Gee... not like those are RELATED or anything!

So, before you sniff your nose into the air... tell us how your background differs from his.


: Been There Done That (none / 0) (#16)
by Randinho on Tue Oct 30, 2007 at 08:23:23 PM EST

I have a BA and changed careers once in a small town and once in a large city. St. Martinsville Parish is not far from New Orleans and Baton Rouge.
My main skill was an inability to whine and work hard to support my wife and myself.

Ever hear of a Sugar Beet? (none / 0) (#2)
by Peaches on Fri Oct 19, 2007 at 10:27:49 AM EST

They grow in cold climates in North Dakota and Minnesota.

Sugar Cane, yes, warm climates

Sugar Beet - cold climates

Both are sources for sugar, but I don't know the feasibility of using beets for ethanol, nor whether Ethanol can be a feasible alternative fuel to replace gasoline.

But your contention that the government should not protect farmers is the stupidest idea of all. Exposing our farmers to world trade significantly reduces the quality of our food in the US and reduces the security of our Food supply. It is a national security issue. The farmer you refer to should be retrained to grow crops for his community rather than compete to grow cash crops for the global marketplace like sugar cane for Ethanol. This requires protections and tariffs on foreign food sources, however and a community that will pay the necessary higher prices for food that is local and higher quality in both nutrition and taste.

Ethanol producers make the stuff (none / 0) (#6)
by sarcastic unnamed one on Fri Oct 19, 2007 at 02:33:57 PM EST

from corn starch. Utilizing sugar, apparenlty, would require significant investment in infrastructure for a relatively small amount of additional fermentable material.

iow, in general, ethanol producers don't want the sugar. At any price.


Ethanol from corn (none / 0) (#7)
by Peaches on Fri Oct 19, 2007 at 03:15:43 PM EST

is another story...

A subsidy to agribusiness that does not benefit rural communities.

Speaking of which Krugman (the liar, or propagandist in your terms) had an interesting column this morning on the GOP machine and he made an interesting comment on your favorite democrat (/sarcasm) and her support of rural communities and agriculture.

Here's an example of the sort of thing that makes you wonder: yesterday ABC News reported on its Web site that the Clinton campaign is holding a "Rural Americans for Hillary" lunch and campaign briefing -- at the offices of the Troutman Sanders Public Affairs Group, which lobbies for the agribusiness and biotech giant Monsanto. You don't have to be a Naderite to feel uncomfortable about the implied closeness.

People talk about subsidies and gov't support of farmers as if they are benefiting farmers when they are for the gov't support goes to the big agri-industries instead. None of this supports rural communities, ethanol included.


You gotta stop reading that guy, Peaches, (none / 0) (#8)
by sarcastic unnamed one on Fri Oct 19, 2007 at 03:19:29 PM EST

he'll twist your mind. ;-)


I've been reading him (none / 0) (#9)
by Peaches on Fri Oct 19, 2007 at 04:13:03 PM EST

for a long time. Before he was a columnist at the New York Times. I've always liked him because he was an economist I could argue with (in my mind as I read his articles and books). As a mainstream economist he represented Neoclassical economics which I found and still find to be a tool that is lacking in breath and ability to describe human interactions in a real economy. He was a top economist that I resented. During the Clinton administration he was in support of free trade agreements and NAFTA and I would study his arguments to find alternative means for describing trade that actually benefits communities rather than harm them.

I never guessed Krugman would end up where he is at now after he became a famous columnist. Must have been all my arguing with him. telepathy, or something...


: He went to the dark side. (none / 0) (#10)
by sarcastic unnamed one on Fri Oct 19, 2007 at 04:37:23 PM EST

I blame you. ;-)

You're right (none / 0) (#11)
by Randinho on Fri Oct 19, 2007 at 06:07:40 PM EST

Peaches, should have specified sugar cane. My apologies.


I Disagree (none / 0) (#12)
by Randinho on Fri Oct 19, 2007 at 06:20:46 PM EST

Before I go any further, please don't call my ideas "stupid." Feel free to disagree, but check the comments policy first before you start insulting people.

Exposing our farmers to world trade significantly reduces the quality of our food in the US and reduces the security of our Food supply. It is a national security issue.

Proof?

Consider what this man said:

In the 1990s, however, a trip to New Zealand made me realize that eliminating subsidies was not just a free-market fantasy, but rather a policy that could work in an advanced industrial nation. New Zealanders had stopped subsidizing their farmers, cold turkey, in 1984. The transition was controversial and not without its rough spots, yet it succeeded. On that visit and several later ones, I never met a farmer who wanted to go back to subsidies.
Today, it's obvious that we need to transform our public support for farmers. Many of our current subsidies inhibit trade because of their link to commodity prices. By promising to cover losses, the government insulates farmers from market signals that normally would encourage sensible, long-term decisions about what to grow and where to grow it. There's something fundamentally perverse about a system that has farmers hoping for low prices at harvest time -- it's like praying for bad weather. But that's precisely what happens, because those low prices mean bigger checks from Washington.
Moreover, these practices hurt poor farmers in the developing world who find themselves struggling to compete. It's one of the reasons that the World Trade Organization won't let these practices stand.

If they're going to talk about "free" trade, then they should walk the walk.


: Rand (none / 0) (#15)
by Peaches on Mon Oct 22, 2007 at 08:03:20 AM EST

First,
The name of your diary is another stupid idea. Someone had that idea. You called the idea stupid. That does not mean you called everyone who had the idea stupid. At least, I hope not.
Playing off the the title of your diary, I made the comment that the stupidest idea of all was for gov't not to support Farmers. I was not calling you stupid. I was saying the idea of not supporting farmers and protecting them from free trade and global markets is stupid. I think you have a stu[pid idea. I've discovered in my time of interacting with different people on earth, that a lot of smart people at times, including myself, have stupid ideas. LIkewise, a lot of dumb people at times, including myself, stumble upon smart ideas.
Now, to address your comment and quote, I will contradict myself and rephrase my statement, because agriculture is much more complex than to argue policy as free trade vs. subsidies. The stupidest idea of all is for communities not to support local farmers. Our gov't is broken. The subsidies are aimed at agri-industry and not farmers. Our farmers are forced to grow cash crops for the global market and not local goods for benefiting their community because of gov't subsidies. Farmers need a national gov't that protects their and their communities interest and protects them from global market forces or else they need no national gov't at all.

We need to distinguish (none / 0) (#3)
by Deconstructionist on Fri Oct 19, 2007 at 10:45:18 AM EST

between the "concept" of providing support and protection for farmers and the rationality and benefits (and distribution of those benefits) of the programs that currently exist for doing so.

We can't let a "good end" cause us not to question "dubious means."

Mr. Comb..... (none / 0) (#4)
by kdog on Fri Oct 19, 2007 at 10:52:40 AM EST

would be well-served by a repeal of marijuana prohibition.

If the law allowed him and those like him to put their agricultural skills to work growing reefer, he'd have no problem making a living.

more info (none / 0) (#5)
by sarcastic unnamed one on Fri Oct 19, 2007 at 02:25:55 PM EST

from the, heavily invested, obviously, Sugar Alliance

According to LMC International's global 2003 survey, U.S. beet sugar producers are second lowest cost of 42 producing countries or regions; cane sugar producers are 27th lowest cost of 64; combined, U.S. sugar producers rank 39th lowest cost of 105 (Table 1).[...]
U.S. sugar consumption plummeted in the mid-1980's as U.S. beverage
manufacturers switched to the newly available, and cheaper, high-fructose corn syrup. That substitution had pretty much run its course by 1987 and U.S. sugar consumption resumed a steady growth, averaging 151,000 mt per year until 2001.
But since 2001, consumption has been on an alarming decline, averaging about 123,000 mt per year (Figure 9). The reasons for the decline are not entirely clear. [...]
Sugar is the most distorted commodity market in the world. The governments in every country that produces sugar intervene in its sugar market in some way. The biggest producers, and subsidizers, dump their surpluses on the world market for whatever price it will bring. As a result of this pervasive dumping, so-called world market prices for sugar have averaged barely half the world average cost of producing over the past two decades (Figure 10).
No producer could survive at prices so low. But government intervention ensures that domestic wholesale prices, at which most sugar is sold, are well above world dump market levels. Globally, domestic clearing prices for sugar average about double the world dump market price (Figure 11).

Despite the real advantage of lower production costs than much of the world, massive worldwide gvt intervention, declining demand, & increasing imports is threatening our industry.

I have no clue what the answer is...