Milk Subsidy? Pro and Cons
 

With the talk about the fiscal mess milk subsidies going away has come up. Scare tactics like milk being $6.00 a gal have been put out there. Thoughts on why we need them and others like sugar anyway?


My first guess is let them go away. Make milk be priced accordingly. We give the poor help in food stamps and the likes. Do they not get milk for free?

Or is this another form of corporate welfare and is OK?

Barney

My gut reaction is to wonder why a subsidy that benefits dairy farmers is on the table but the oil depletion allowance isn't.

John

That would be another cut to make in my plan!



Barney

Depends on how we look at milk. Is milk good or bad? Is it a basic requirement?

We're the only mammalian species that consumes milk after infancy. In other words, it's not natural, and probably not good for us, to do it.

Cheese, on the other hand.......... ;)

John

I'd say sh*tcan all subsidies, including this one.

Actually, I think cheese and yogurt probably are good for us but that's because they're seriously altered by microorganisms. Milk, butter, ice cream, etc. probably not so much.

John

Where else would I get my daily steroids and growth hormones? Don't those little bugs in cheese and yogurt use them all up?

You've got my vote, Barney.:)

With all the anti biotics in most commercial milk you could be better off without it. The cows get sick easier when the dairymen inject them with that Monsanto crap they then have to use anti biotics.

A most prudent position. I concur. Perpetual subsidies have no place in an ostensibly free market economy.

Lactose intolerant. Won't cost me a penny. Couldn't care less.

Regards,
Dave

Well milk is important for toddlers and young children...less so as one ages. And there is no real free economy anywhere in the world..they are all mixed to varying degrees between government and the market.

My doctor told me to lay off the moo-juice, my calcium level is too high and I am asking for kidney stones. :(


Carl

Then some subsidy is necessary.

I say we need a really big spinach subsidy. Spinach is good for you, whether you like it or not!

John :)

Cheap and readily available food is a good thing. The argument is if you remove subsidy you loose farmland and prices go up. High food prices are disproportionally unfair to the poor.

Around here the mega farms have pretty much over shadowing the small family farms anymore. The big guys are muscling in with contracts causing the small farms to go evermore into debt to keep up. Then once over extended loose all to the banks. With milk it is companies like Kroger (grocery store) making the farmer nothing more then indentured servants to them through the contact requirements in order to sell their product. Do we even need to bring up hog or chicken farms and what they have done to the small farmer?

I just see the poor getting help already and think if the actual price of the goods was to be charged. Then the end user is the one choosing supporting the product. Not every other person through their taxes.





Barney

I just don't have much faith in Adam Smith's invisible hand. Remember NAFTA? Keeping farmland as farmland is a good thing. Although there is no way I would want to live near a pig farm, especially a factory pig farm.

Adam Smith didn't say what he said.

"As every individual, therefore, endeavours as much as he can both to employ his capital in the support of domestic industry, and so to direct that industry that its produce may be of the greatest value; every individual necessarily labours to render the annual revenue of the society as great as he can. He generally, indeed, neither intends to promote the public interest, nor knows how much he is promoting it. By preferring the support of domestic to that of foreign industry, he intends only his own security; and by directing that industry in such a manner as its produce may be of the greatest value, he intends only his own gain, and he is in this, as in many other cases, led by an invisible hand to promote an end which was no part of his intention. Nor is it always the worse for the society that it was no part of it. By pursuing his own interest he frequently promotes that of the society more effectually than when he really intends to promote it."

John

...
The use of "the invisible hand" over time is the crux of the propaganda....the implication being that we should go about our business devoid of any social conscience and maximum fruits will flow to the society....Greed is good, for everyone.

Any basic basket of food would and should contain milk. A subsidy is in order.

The only kind of milk one will find in a food basket for the poor is powdered milk.

Powdered milk makes very good hot chocolate. In everything else, not so good :)

I thought the main stater for food subsidies was to keep farmers from going broke. Thier great depression started long before everyone elses'.

Pete

Fixed that one for ya.

"We're the only mammalian species that subsidizes the life of one animal at the expense of another, more healthy animal. In other words, it's not natural, and probably not good for us, to do it."

know I shouldn't do this but I will anyway. What animals are you referring to here that are the beneficiaries of and are the victims of the subsidy and what is the nature of the subsidy?

John

It's because we're not animals. We're supposed to have the ability to rise above our primal urges. You want to live like a baboon, move to the jungle.:)

Dave

or Wasilla.

John

You're right, you shouldn't have done it.

The animals I'm referring to (beneficiaries and victims) are humans, although I may have missed something in biology class, cuz Dave says we're not animals.

The nature of the subsidy is milk, the subject of this thread.

I was just expanding a bit on your logic that if we are the only mammalians to practice a certain behavior, it is not natural and we shouldn't do it. To further expand that theory, we should not be doing any high level thinking either, or developing complex tools, or using up resources on "art".

Except you can't apply the same standards or logic to nutrition as you do to culture.

So with nutrition, gotta go with the consensus of all the other mammals, but with culture it's fine to freestyle?
I really don't see how you come up with that. Nutrition impacts our physical health while culture impacts social health. How do you arrive at the conclusion that our physical health is better off following nature's examples, but our social health can ignore it?

Good nutrition is set, fixed by our biology. Culture isn't.

Culture is related to, and advances by consensus. Biology isn't and doesn't.

To clarify;

Of course we're all human biologocally. I was referring to ideology and behaviour.

Again; If you want to behave like a baboon, simply abandoning the weak to their peril, move to the jungle. It's your ideology I was comparing to baboon-like behaviour. As humans we're supposed to rise above it, not give in to it.

Regards,
Dave

So you're a creationist?

Light reading for the ill-informed:

http://www.newsdesk.umd.edu/scitech/...ArticleID=1376

I might be if my only frame of reference was Teabaggers. Pretty unevolved bunch.

John

Harumph, now you're a Darwinist?:rolleyes:

http://yourlogicalfallacyis.com/slippery-slope Light reading for the argumentatively inclined.

The ability of some of us to digest milk is not news. Neither is the phenomenon of different mutations occurring for similar reasons and achieving similar results. Moreover, a genetic ability to tolerate milk products is not the same as an ability to do so without negative biological consequences.

John

The fact remains- we evolved (or mutated) to milk consumers thousands of years ago. The change happened relatively quickly, and was due to the overwhelming health benefits of dairy consumption versus the former non-dairy diet.

We also have cannabinoid receptors in our brains. Do you think God put them there, or did we evolve for the overwhelming benefits of weed?

I believe milk is essential for the young and therefore should not be expensive.

I view questions regarding subsidy in that light.

Where's your evidence for this? Adapt we did, some of us, but what evidence do you have to support your assertion that it was a response to "overwhelming benefits" and not simply to take advantage of a food source we found it easy to obtain in abundance?

As for the cannabinoid receptors, I don't think God put anything anywhere. Nor do I know at what point in our evolution they first appeared or why they did. Do you?

John