Centerfield

Notes: Corn is currently under $2.25 a bushel. We produce about 9 to 10 billion bushels a year in America. Corn subsidies last year were $4.5 billion. Sounds pretty heavily subsidized to me.

Follow-up: US production runs up to 160 bushels/acre. Mexican production is more like 20 bushels/acre. I don't think they can compete even without the subsidies.

I thought NAFTA and WTO were supposed to get rid of the subsidies. Can't Mexico put up tariffs on our subsidized products?

I'm not sure many people ever bothered to read NAFTA, other than the big agribusiness companies. They're making out like bandits playing market monopolists. The smaller players in agriculture are getting squeezed silly. There's a great case to be made for eliminating farm subsidies almost entirely, and just sticking to crop & price insurance. For direct subsidies, big agribusiness gets almost all of 'em.

The governments can play tit-for-tat in the WTO and NAFTA courts, but the bottom line is that the corporate players are quicker and have better lawyers. So while ag commodities have indeed gotten cheaper, that reduction doesn't get passed on to the consumers. Producers get paid less, consumers pay more, the few big corporate players get wealthier. I can't think of a single major ag commodity where the bulk of the market isn't controlled by less than half a dozen or so players.

Why I'm not a corporation lover.

Is there a centrist case we can make on reducing agricultural subsidies? I favor the family farmer, but have no interest in corporate welfare.

We centrists are looking for a few good issues.

What a bizarre consequence.
The older I get, the more libertarian I get.
Seems like every time the federal government does something, it make something else worse.

You bet! There's a great case to be made for restricting agricultural subsidies to smaller farms, and eliminate the major corporate subsidies entirely. Probably knock out around 75% of the subsidies, minimum. The subsidies in the form of price floors and crop insurance are meant to keep small players from being wiped out by bad years. But the bulk of the money goes to the big agcorp players, who have huge asset bases, are very diversified, and can weather market swings in single crops very well with no help at all.

I have no trouble protecting our real family farms from getting whacked by circumstance and market swings. But shoveling money at huge corporations that rob us blind from both ends is asinine.

I want to run for office one day in this very agricultural state, so I'm not going to express my opinion on farm subsidies...

As for immigration, I disagree with Rick's point that wages for some unskilled jobs can rise enough to get Americans to do them. Wages don't exist in a vacuum; there is a certain limit past which they are too high to make the service or job affordable. To use the lawn care example, the really rich can certainly afford to pay very high wages for lawn care. But the upper middle class has a limit; higher than whatever that limit is, and they cut back their consumption or do the lawn themselves.

For plant work, the international market place puts constraints on the price that can be charged for the products; if wages are too high, it's cheaper to move the factory overseas. All those Tyson chickens could be grown and processed abroad without too much difficulty. So Tyson cannot just raise wages to arbitrarily high prices to attract picky American workers.

Unemployment levels in this country are quite low by historical standards. There's not a whole lot of people in dire need of just any job (now, jobs with health insurance and long-term stability are a different story). The anecdotal stories I've heard are that illegal immigrants are often making far above the minimum wage in construction jobs, highway work, etc.

Just remember, Pat, the farmers have the votes but the agcorps have the money. If you can face off an opponent with agcorp funding, then you can get the farm vote by promising to fight the agcorp buy-low monopolies! Do it the other way around and you get the Big War Chest, but ya better chase your votes in the cities and stay away from the 4H meetings. Of course, you're in the land of the giant subsidized rice co-op.

As the article Rick cited notes, some of the illegals in San Francisco are unionized, and making $10/hr minimum. (My pity factor for those whining about the cost of living in SF is a wee bit limited.)

It's possible to work all sides here, Tully, as long as you're willing to repay enough favors. Our Agriculture Commissioner (a state-wide elected position) has been in office since 1979.

On the larger issue of immigration, the long-term solution involves:

1) Reforming the Mexican government and its economic policies to make it easier for its people to earn livings at home rather than here;

2) Vastly expanding the amount of legal immigration, including programs for seasonal immigration of crop workers;

3) After the expansion, cracking down HARD on illegal immigration; when the border patrol stops wasting time arresting workers and families, they can better focus on drug smugglers and terrorists; and

4) Enforcing OSHA and other regulatory standards with special vigor in areas and industries with lots of immigrant workers to ensure a level playing field for all workers.

I might also be willing to require companies hiring immigrant workers to provide health insurance or pay additional Medicaid taxes for those workers, to reduce the odds of the immigrant workers consuming expensive, taxpayer provided health care services.

A sound program, except that step #1 is completely out of our hands. But that's no reason not to go directly to the other steps!

No program will be effective that doesn't crack down on employers using illegal labor. Period.