Who will pay?

[rsomer]

I reread your post and saw where you mentioned the pie growing.

[jensend]

i wonder if we all went organic for a year would we have leverage with railroads, chemical co's, fertilizer co's, banks, etc.

[cowman]

jensend: I think organic would be the way to go! We'd grow such crappy crops that we could probably cut production by half! Pretty well break Monsanto etc.!
Of course it wouldn't help because we would be flooded with cheap food from everywhere else...Canada seems to be the dumping ground for every other country in the world!
Would our politicians stand up to this? Not likely! You only have to look at the corn that flooded in last year. Now no way was that corn being sold fairly. The American farmer was getting one hell of a lot more for it than the feedlot was paying for it. And sure it saved the feeding industry but it sure wasn't fair to the feed grain producer here in Canada. How come the Americans can slap tariffs on our grain at will but our wonderful government doesn't seem to ever do anything?
As far as leverage goes we don't have any! Our government doesn't stand up for us. They allow teachers, nurses doctors, bankers to have unions(they call them associations so they won't feel they are lowly working types)but they do everything they can to keep the peasants from organizing! The Frenchmen in Quebec seem to be a role model for the rest of us that we should be following!

[carebear300]

This is slightly off the subject in one way but in another it brings alot of these threads together. I was watching Canada AM this morning and they interviewed the ceo of Bombardier. In the course of the interview he was asked point blank if his company could survive without government financing. His answer was that three quarters of the airplanes that are bought in this world involve government financing and if everybody else quit with that kind of financing he would love for the chance to compete on a level playing field but he thought the chance of this happening to be very remote. A company and industry centred in Quebec that is once again more important than an industry all over Canada. I don't know how we can achieve that high a profile as an industry and get the support of government to survive because in essence we have a very similar problem to compete in the world market place.

[ivbinconned]

“The power of collecting and disbursing money at pleasure is the most dangerous power that can be entrusted to man, particularly under our system of collecting revenue by a tariff, which reaches every man in the country, no matter how poor he may be, and the poorer he is the more he pays in proportion to his means,”

Those were the words of one Horatio Bunce who had a big impact on the thinking of the public and U.S. congress at one time and especially congressman Davy Crockett. Who had voted in favor of giving money to a worthy cause admittedly, but as Bunce had pointed out, it was not there’s to give!

Crockett admitted his mistake publicly and committed moneys from his own pocket to the same cause and challenged other members of the house to do the same. This is what he said about it. Even though many there were much wealthier than he, “yet not one of them responded to my proposition. Money with them is nothing but trash when it is come out of the people. But it is the one great thing for which most of them are striving, and many of them sacrifice honor, integrity, and justice to obtain it.”

One thing we need to learn from world history is that governments often become the worst enemies of the people. If we look back 100 years, the list of corrupt leadership is much longer than honorable leadership. Lord Acton once said “All power tends to corrupt”; “Absolute power corrupts absolutely.” Some have argued that those who seek power already are corrupt.

I think we can all agree here that governments in this country of ours are always picking the winners and losers; they elevate special interests into positions of influence with in the burocracy and then pretend they are the majority.

They take from those who create new wealth every growing season and distribute it to those of greater numbers who are consumers of wealth. Now please don’t jump all over me on that one. Teachers and doctors and crown corporation employees do important work, BUT they don’t produce NEW wealth.

Through the C.R.T.C. they control what the public thinks is important today and if there is anyone who dares speak out against them they get branded with negative labels.

Should we elect those who the media tell us are radical or losers or what have you? We couldn’t do much worse. I am sick of the professional career politician.

Governments and babies should be changed often, and for the same reason!

If we don't, we are doomed to be ruled by wolves.

[rsomer]

I take it your answer to why should the taxpayer help the cattleman is they shouldn't.

What do you see is the proper role of government in this country, Canada, not the United States. As Davy Crockett is dead I can't tell if he, as a U.S. politiction, would have stopped Canadian cattle at the border because of one case of BSE or not. Would you allow the United States to cripple our beef industry?

[pandiana]

I agree with ivbinconned that power is a large component of our economic system. Democracy is supposed to moderate this power with a well established opposition. I think it is somewhat different than leverage but similar in effect. This is why lobbyists are so important to this system, they are able to apply leverage of sorts by supporting or withholding support, mostly in dollars, to government. When we consider that corporations have more dollars than many governments it is not difficult to see they have leverage.
rsomer: How does this apply to the beef industry? I believe the bigger corporations can exert a great deal of leverage. Cargill, Tyson, etc have the money, influence and power to buy out competetion, buy up supply chains, and lobby governments. In this top down ecoconomic system, wealth is supposed to filter down to the rest of us, but clearly, the closer you are to the top the more leverage you obtain. As to the cow calf producer, I would say our leverage is close to zilch!

[ivbinconned]

rsomer; please reread my post on sept 10th. As for "would we allow" ...where have you been? We in the west do not even have influence in our own government let alone allow the U.S. to do or not do anything.
And I say again as to the ban. Was it not OUR policy to invoke a 7 year ban? O how we hate to look in the mirror.
Yes Crockett is dead but Mark Milke is not. May I respectfully suggest you read his recent book "Tax Me I'm Canadian"; "Your Money and how Politicians spend it". But if you are timid about reading anything that shows Canadian politicians for the scoundrals that they are then put those rosey lens back on and turn on the CBC.

[pandiana]

rsomer: You mentioned the finite pie. My view is that the pie can increase in size through growth in the economy.

This is the premise by which most governments function in order to sustain the economy and it may well be right. But how long can we continue to grow? As population increases, infrastructure must keep pace and resources must be abundant. What happens when the fuel becomes a limiting factor? How big can your farm or corporation grow before you become stretched beyond your capabilities?

[ivbinconned]

And another thing...just a hunch or gut feeling. Had we not had the kind of government in this country over the last 25 years that we have had perhaps we would not have a .70 cent dollar that I suspect has resulted in much U.S. owner ship in our country, perhaps even packing plants.

[countryguy]

Pandiana,why is it we have no leverage?We as producers produce what is thought by society today commodities,when in fact what we produce is food,a neccesity of life!!If producers want to flex their muscles all they have to do is lock the corral gates,bin doors,etc and watch the chaos begin!I've wracked my brain trying to figure out why we can't do something like this,at least on a small scale for starters and can't come up with a reason why.

[carebear300]

The reason is that most of us need cash flow. I can't go without cash flow or my creditors will just end up taking over. And even if we all got together and committed to not selling one thing for ninety my neighbours that are extremely wealthy would sell something as soon as they could make an extra buck no matter what the consequences for the rest of the industry. I happen to like the idea of a producer driven action to keep produce off the market for a start up minimum of lets say ninety days. Don't just know if I have the strength to stand up to my banker and tell him to just wait no matter what he threatens.

[ValueChainFX]

Producer driven action is what we need without a doubt, but the action really does need to be a strategy. As pointed out most producers need cash flow. This means that we need to be able to target market in a coordinated manner. Keeping some of the more stable products off the market, while a balanced flood moves into other markets. This type of action really does need to be well thought out, as we could never go head to head with commodities and the big boys.

Also we have some in our producer groups that are more for themselves as individuals, these folks would have to be considered in any strategy.

Looking at a worst case scenario is almost like saying we have a good view of the sewage lagoon from the manure pile! In other words the grass roots producer is pretty much at a point they need to do something since doing nothing will put them out of business sooner rather than later. But the key is to get the group going and build on a strategy that makes sense. This doesn't happen overnight, but the bright side is, much of the work to do this has been done, and we could make things happen in short order, if there was enough interest?

[cowman]

Countryguy: The only problem with trying to hold food off the market is there is a whole world hammering on our door trying to get in. If you hold your cattle off the market in comes the meat from South America or Oceania! The same thing with grain. Just look what happened when the grain farmers tried holding out for higher barley prices last fall? In came the subsidized corn! The grain farmer had just come through some pretty hard times and needed that price to go high to offset the yield losses. Instead they were beat down by a blatantly subsidized product!
Our government is not interested in having higher food prices! Our whole economy is built on cheap food and cheap labour! That's how the corporations get rich...and they do call the shots my friend!

[rusty1]

Yep! You can pour all the sentiment in the world into who and what we anre and what we deserve. But at the end of the day all we are is a commodity. So all we can do is figure out how to work within the system sharpen our tools and be more competitive. I've said it before. You need 1 of two things to be sucessful, to be significant or scarce, and if you have both then you really have a leg up on the rest.
Sharpen your tools:
The profitability within a given cow heard is greater than between herds. I've seen ADG range from 7 lbs. per day to zero within the same one-iron calves. So untill we as producers get serious about consistancey and put into practice some tools to improve our product we shant be looking for handouts.