The Glade 4.0

I wonder if the average person saves more or less than $66 as a result of lower food prices. That wasn't sarcastic. I honestly don't know. 66 is probably less than my monthly food budget if you count going out to eat. Some people probably spend more and some probably spend less (per person: larger families may get benefits per person that I don't) . Let's say I'm average. So if getting rid of food subsidies raises the prices of food more than 9% it would be a net loss to the country. Interesting.

_________________
I prefer to think of them as "Fighting evil in another dimension"

I don't know how, but I missed the entire second page somehow. Disregard my last post, I guess.

Although the distinction still doesn't seem very clear to me. Nevermind the poor; let's look at the "middle class" (however one wants to define that...). If you make, say, $45,000/yr., your income tax rate is certainly less than if you make $200,000/yr. So, should people making $45k a year STFU because the government is subsidizing their lifestyle? Seems kind of arbitrary to me.

_________________
Sail forth! steer for the deep waters only!
Reckless, O soul, exploring, I with thee, and thou with me;
For we are bound where mariner has not yet dared to go,
And we will risk the ship, ourselves and all.

Woah, woah, woah.

"Paying your proper tax rate" is not a subsidy. Let's not pretend anybody giving more money to government than they receive from government is being subsidized.

It's my understanding that a lot of farms are simply not viable/profitable at all without government subsidy. The government becomes their primary source of income.

_________________
Well Ali Baba had them forty thieves, Scheherezade had a thousand tales
But master you in luck 'cause up your sleeves you got a brand of magic never fails...
...Mister Aladdin, sir, What will your pleasure be?
Let me take your order, Jot it down -You ain't never had a friend like me
█ ♣ █

I can agree with that.

_________________
"It is true that democracy undermines freedom when voters believe they can live off of others' productivity, when they modify the commandment: 'Thou shalt not steal, except by majority vote.' The politics of plunder is no doubt destructive of both morality and the division of labor."

Advantage Arathain. Aizle, you're up.

_________________
"It is true that democracy undermines freedom when voters believe they can live off of others' productivity, when they modify the commandment: 'Thou shalt not steal, except by majority vote.' The politics of plunder is no doubt destructive of both morality and the division of labor."

From a recent USA Today article, using officially published numbers:



And from another article:





And for the list of states + DC:

1. New York $9,442
50. Utah $4,731

That's not really the point I was trying make. Perhaps it was a bad example. Nevertheless, I don't doubt that you can easily find people in the middle class (as popularly understood) who are net tax consumers.

But more generally what I'm getting at is that RD's argument has the implication that a person's "worthiness" of complaining about the federal government is a function of dollars contributed to the federal government vs. dollars received from the federal government. Whether or not this argument is correct, it strikes me as being peculiar for someone who, I think, would claim to be a "social progressive". This is why I bring up income taxation. A major plank of that platform is that the wealthy should pay more taxes than the middle class, who should pay more than the poor, etc. But that being the case, then the wealthy would have more of a "right" (not in the legal sense) to criticize the government than the middle class, and so on. Again, I'm not saying this is necessarily wrong, just ... peculiar, coming as it is from a political group who also likes to complain quite vocally about the influence of money on politics, especially and particularly the issue of campaign contributions.

That said, let's revisit this:

Ah, but how you define "proper" tax rate? If your tax rate isn't proportional to your portion of federal outlays (good luck calculating that, by the way), then what makes it "proper"?

_________________
Sail forth! steer for the deep waters only!
Reckless, O soul, exploring, I with thee, and thou with me;
For we are bound where mariner has not yet dared to go,
And we will risk the ship, ourselves and all.

Oh look a bunch of **** I pay into and will never benefit from. Nothing like buttrape every two weeks to sour my view on "benefits".

_________________
A man who has nothing for which he is willing to fight, nothing which is more important than his own personal safety, is a miserable creature and has no chance of being free unless made and kept so by the exertions of better men than himself. ~ John Stuart Mill

Here's the thing about farming subsidies... How many of you like to eat on a regular basis?

Farmers on the government dole are producing something valuable to society, unlike other government subsidies. The current state of the subsidies, and whether they're a good idea as written is a separate matter that I'm not attempting to address. I'm simply addressing the idea that the government has a right to push you around, and you don't get to say anything about it if you're receiving government assistance, subsidies, or any other aid. Fifty percent of the population carries no tax burden, so be careful about going down that road. Unlike farmers, the half of us who aren't paying into the system aren't feeding the world - not the community, not the state, not even the country - the world.

You've all collectively decided that you don't want to pay a lot to eat. Food should be more valuable to you than health care, electronics, automobiles, or even housing, but you want it to be cheap. Clean water is the same way. It's a great equalizer. Unlike lack of health care, lack of food and water kills you even if you're the picture of health. You want it to be cheap. You do not want to pay a lot for this muffler loaf of bread. You've decided that you deserve food because you draw breath. If a farmer doesn't make a profit, he does something else with his time and his land. If you want to eat, than you need him on that farm. That means you want him to make a profit. That's it. There's no discussion or argument about that. The only thing left to talk about is how we make sure the farmer earns enough to decide it's worthwhile to continue farming.

This isn't about civic responsibilities or debts to society. It's about whether you like to eat, and would like to continue doing so.

_________________
Buckle your pants or they might fall down.

The sad part is that the Gov't interference is what keeps farms from being profitable. The good old vicious circle of Gov't dependence.

_________________
"Dress cops up as soldiers, give them military equipment, train them in military tactics, tell them they’re fighting a ‘war,’ and the consequences are predictable." —Radley Balko

Oooh, I know this one. Is it Meineke? And you really should have posted that in this thread

Also, I can't believe the direction this thread has turned.

_________________
This must be Thursday. I could never get the hang of Thursdays.

In general, what makes or breaks a farm as far as profitability is whether or not they embrace modern agricultural methods. American farming technology transplanted into Siberia could feed Russia.

_________________
Buckle your pants or they might fall down.

Not everyone in society needs to be working, since everything is getting so automated, I am fine with giving people welfare.

I suppose you're also fine with those that object?

_________________
In time, this too shall pass.

I am fine with them expressing their opinions, but I would favor welfare coming out of tax money.

And how do you qualify for these free handouts?

I would like some of my money back!

So several problems with your info here.

The first is obviously that the data is pretty old. Those farm population numbers are from 1997. I highly doubt that they have gone up in the last 14 years. The second is that it doesn't say when those dollar numbers are from. I took a quick look at the Evironmental Working Groups site on Farm Subsidies and they don't have things easily broken down and as I've already indicated I'm not interested in doing a ton of data mining on this. The other issue with the population number is that is all people living on farms, not just those getting subsidies. If you want to do an apples to apples using the Wiki numbers, then you'd have to include all urban residents or something similar.

I am just speaking very generally. I don't know the most effective way.

Prisons are essentially welfare anyways, and you qualify by committing crimes, and 1% of the population is in prison... I'm sure we can improve upon this.

_________________
"Hysterical children shrieking about right-wing anything need to go sit in the corner and be quiet while the adults are talking."

I have problems with this. Some of these things are not "welfare". Social security and veteran's programs as an example. I think you're throwing too much in the welfare pot.

No, it isn't. It's about whether you want to eat cheap. Without subsidies, many farms would collapse, but there would still be enough food to feed everyone. The reason prices are so low is that there's way way WAY too much farming.

If we didn't have the subsidies, we'd be paying more for food at the grocery store, but we'd be paying less in debt that we don't need. The only thing these subsidies are doing is disguising the real cost of food from us.

_________________
"Hysterical children shrieking about right-wing anything need to go sit in the corner and be quiet while the adults are talking."

Veteran's programs' are not intended to be welfare and shouldn't be, but in actual practice there are a lot of people getting benefits that really don't need them, making them de facto welfare in many cases.

_________________
"Hysterical children shrieking about right-wing anything need to go sit in the corner and be quiet while the adults are talking."

What if the price of food actually goes up more than cost of the subsidies? Not saying it would, but saying it could.

_________________
I prefer to think of them as "Fighting evil in another dimension"

Lol - nicely timed story on TDW:


Seriously bears, do not **** with people's dogs. I don't care if you're a 1000-lb hunk of toothy death, dog-owners will take you down, even if we have to do it with our bare hands.

At the very least, we'd be just paying the cost and not piling it on top of our existing debt.

In the short term I could see that being a problem, but I don't think it would persist in the long term. If the price shot up like that, it would attract people back to farming, which would mean more food and costs coming down. Eventually a nice balance would be met.

The only real downside I see is the fact that fewer farms means less purchasing and use of farm equipment and supplies. PRedicting the cascading effects is not something I think we can do accurately.

_________________
"Hysterical children shrieking about right-wing anything need to go sit in the corner and be quiet while the adults are talking."