How does it start?

[silverback]

Just sitting here with a bit of a hangover and wondering to myself "How does a person first start to consider someone else's property as part of their own?"

Does little Johnny Stubble follow his daddy over to the fencerow, look across at the neighbors nice wheat field, and then listen to his daddy say "You know Johnny, even though our neighbor got his crop in early, used clean seed, used fertilizer, sprayed at the right time with the right product, when it comes time to sell it, our farm will get a portion of his crop. The wheat board will always ensure that our neighbor shares his money with us. Isn't that great Johnny?"?

[jensend]

so is that any worse than farmers saying the taxpayer should share their money with farmers who had a bad year? if you've got nothing to give then you should be consistent enough to say you're not going to take.

[parsley]

So jen, are you saying a blind deaf man who
pays no taxes and has nothing, should not apply
for welfare?

[jensend]

no i'm just asking where does sharing start and stop and how much of the risk of what we decide to do for a living are we to carry on our own. what's the difference between sharing production risk with the taxpayer and sharing market risk with other producers? whether or not the cwb does a good job is another issue. i'm glad to see it go but wanting it gone because you don't want to share market risk is a different issue from how effective it is. just saying if you want to be independent then be consistent. i think suffering a disability is very different from saying somebody should bear the risk for what i decide to do.

[jensend]

or are you suggesting the producers here are somehow handicapped?

[Tucker]

The USDA and Stats Canada interfere with
our markets to put a lid on prices when
they get high for the 'good of the
nation(s)'. That's not debatable--it
happens. If they can knock my prices down
when they are too high, they will be
expected to top them up when they are too
low. Yes, it really is that simple.

[sumdumguy]

Jensend, how right you are!

[wilagro]

silverback: Are you paranoid about someone having designs on your "property"? Sounds like it...maybe you should have some more booze to straighten out your thinking.

[silverback]

Good idea, it's a little cold out for an old guy

Maybe it starts in high school where you have little Freddy Willnot who is no favorite of the girls, but down the hall big Tommy Fourboarder is beating them off with a stick. Both boys are farmers sons, but Freddy swears under his breath, "if only there was a way to even things up...someday..."

[wd9]

With good intentions? Kinda like the cash advance. It sounds like a good idea until you realize you are ripping off the ones who store and sell grain later because the ones that need to sell for cash flow don't. I think good intentions silverback without thinking thru it all.

Or maybe its the wine talking to the hangover.

[burnt]

Jensend - you ask a profound question in this - "...where does sharing start and stop and how much of the risk of what we decide to do for a living are we to carry on our own..."

I wonder what those who opened this great land up would think if they were here to see the relatively coddled "lifestyle" that is farming today.

Who knew/knows real risk?

[Burbert]

Sell the crap on the open market, that
already exists, er donchaknowthat, you
markeetearing genioussssss!!!!!
Confiscate, what? Bags of wind, don'tcha
get paid when ya sells something. Seems
that you don't know what confiscated
means, nor really! Do ya?

[Fransisco]

For the record, I'm generally not in favour of these "subsidy" type payments.

But jensend I think you're forgetting something. Farmers pay tax's too.

When a farmer gets a check from the government, agristability, agri-invest, whatever, is he really getting someone else's money? Or is he maybe getting back some of what got taken from him in the first place.

Eliminate the tax burden on farmers and you have a point. But as long as we're getting taxed through the nose on everything its not quite so cut and dried.

[Fransisco]

wilagro your comment shows us in spades what the problem is. You don't even recognize that somebody else's property, is somebody else's property. There are far too many people in power with exactly that kind of attitude.

[silverback]

That is what keeps sticking out to me Fran.

If you held these cwb lovers down and threatened to pull out their fingernails with vice grips unless they admitted that every farmer owns the grain produced on their own farm, I don't think they could admit it. I have never heard any of them, going all the way back to Vader that would say it. Is it just wheat? Malt barley? How is it that they want to share everyone else's wheat crop but not their own canola, lentil, peas, etc...? Where and when does the envy or the feeling of entitlement to someone else's production start?

Boggling...