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In the USA, the federal government provides huge subsidies for "farmers." I say that in quotes because the top 10% largest "agribusinesses" get 64% of the money. Not mention the sugar lobby and the huge payoffs to Iowa farmers for corn to be made into ethanol. Buying votes for early presidential caucuses? I'm shocked, shocked to hear that. straydoginstitute.org/a…
In the USA, the federal government provides huge subsidies for "farmers." I say that in quotes because the top 10% largest "agribusinesses" get 64% of the money. Not mention the sugar lobby and the huge payoffs to Iowa farmers for corn to be made into ethanol. Buying votes for early presidential caucuses? I'm shocked, shocked to hear that. https://straydoginstitute.org/agricultural-subsidies/
You are right, thanks for the link - interesting - there are subsidies every where we look, but we do have to eat, we don't need "cheap" wind and solar. Yes you are right - it is the "top 10%" always taking the cream off the top. This is why it could be so easy for them to move from farming to "farming energy". The small farmer can't make it farming (he doesn't get the near the subsidies) and the large ones may eventually move from one subside to the other! Remember the Chinese are the largest pork producers in the US... made me rethink my Sunday pork ribs... how big a move would that be and what would that do to the food markets? Disrupting the energy market is one thing - disrupting the food market is entirely another. We are at their mercy either way!
Farm subsidies are (or should be if applied well) a public good. One does not want necessities to fall onto the portion of the supply/demand/price curve where demand is above supply and prices are extreme. That would lead to starvation in the case of food.
Farm subsidies are meant or were meant to keep food on the sweet portion of the curve for the consumer.
Now corn ethanol can go hang. It is not a necessity by any stretch of the imagination and should have been aborted a long time ago. But once you get folks sucking down those subsidies, how difficult it becomes to ever stop...
I get it. Yogi Berra said that in theory, there's no difference between practice and theory. In practice, there is. Ridiculous, but yes I get putting a floor under prices. Less than 2 million people are farmers in the US. Our elected Parliament of Whores shovels subsidies to the highest donor. Pretty cheap to buy a member of Congress. A few million tops, some hookers and blow go a long way to getting a 100x ROI, Where's the ETF tracking that?