My take on what the real problem people have with the CWB

[just_wondering]

my take is that property rights are paramount but that belief is not enough. We as farmers must also cosider the economics of the whole situation.
Ideology is not enough, numbers are not enough.
Another aspect to consider are the captivity costs associated with the CWB.
Much like Chaff's anaology on the black binder in which sales that are lost are not counted in performance figures.

[parsley]

Economics is indeed, important.

But economics must be also based on a moral foundation...ie if 200 DA farmers could expropriate the grain of the remainder of the DA farmers, by force of weapons for instance. It's wrong.
or
Handicapping just_wondering so other pooling accounts bulge, is wrong.

My point is this, economics must be based upon a sound moral foundation.

Single deskers who's only goal is to get more money, through jailing and force, cannot pass the morality test, and that is why:
1. People will change to choice marketing based upon the morality foundation

2. Economic benefits follow a moral foundation.. ie Killing and stealing is immoral, and long term economic benefits never accrue from them.

Action not based upon good is bound to fail.

The CWB is failing.


Parsley

[just_wondering]

Parsley you and I live in a province where the NDP is the Natural governing party. Many people like to give control over to the state in our cradle to grave society. You and I can tell them all about our morals but, they simply disagree with that moral code
Hit them in the pocket book.

[AdamSmith]

JW,

It's a chicken and egg situation here.

We can point out all the flaws within the system, we can do it in bold type and put seven exclamation points after it but until the law allows a free and unfettered market to function all we've ended up doing is whinning and bitching.

We've whinned and bitched about the quota system, the cwb adopted the contract system.

We've whinned and bitched about poor market signals they invented the PRO.

We've whinned and bitched about the government running the show, Ralph gave us elected dictators.

We whinned and bitched about poor cash flow and low initials, the cwb heard us and invented the FPC and the EPO's.

We pointed out fundemental flaws and the cwb did address them. The problem is they've only ever been addressed within the context maintaining the monopoly.

There is zero way for the cwb to address the freedom issue while at the same time still maintain the monopoly.

We asked for choice and they say the FPC's are choice.

A Free Market allows free interaction between buyer and seller. Without it there can be no arbitrage, without it there can be no market dynamic, without out it there is no ability to enter into meaningful contracts.

These things are what create wealth, and without that freedom, the wealth you seek can never be created.

The other major flaw with the "economics only" approach is that most of the die hard supporters of the curreent system are driven more by keeping the wealth out of others hans than they are in putting the wealth into their own hands.

Wayne Easter and Stewart Wells and Rod Flaman are driven to keep the wealth out of grain companies hands and "rich farmers" hands and they see success in achieving that end.

So when you say "The cwb cost me x amount this year" they say to themselves "Great, mission complete, another successful year"

The moral arguement about "freedom" is one they can not address, so they switch it to an economic issue and offer their side of the story to it, which then casts doubts about our sides economic argument and then were stuck spinning our wheels in limbo, where people just tune out.

The only thing the can say about "Freedom" is that it really isn't that big of a deal. And then try to get you to admit it as well.

Once they have accomplished that, they know they can fight you to a draw on the economics and they have always been able to maintain their monopoly status with that strategy. Why would they change a strategy when it has served them so well in the past?

So sorry JW, until our side is prepared to put the moral postion of "freedom" as the paramount issue, you might as well just accept that contract calls, PRO's, EPO's and FPC's will be the standard for many, many years to come.

[agstar77]

First of all there are no free markets in the world, only degrees of control. Second , elected dictator is total nonsense. But you are right you whine a lot.

[AdamSmith]

Agstar, the world is awash with examples of free markets by using my definition of "FREE INTERACTION BETWEEN BUYERS (of a product or service)AND SELLERS (of a product or service)

A free market is any market in which you are free to negotiate with the buyers or sellers of your choice.

So when I say "unfettered" I am referring to no interference within the negotiating process between the buyer and seller.

And of course the directors are dictators. You oversee a monopoly held togther by force of crippling fines or jail or both, by any rational definition that is dictitorial.

Only dictators can get away with ignoring the 2007 barley plebicite and continue to ignore the wishes of the majority of producers.

Dictators pass by-laws about conduct and the excuse themselves. re Rod Flaman as a Liberal candidate and the conflict of interest that that presents and is dismissed by the BOD's.
The way I understand it Rod was even allowed to participate in the decision. If ever there was an example of a corupted decision I don't know what is.

[agstar77]

Your dictator statement still doesn't stand up. When you phone your grain dealer and get a quote you don't like , A: do you ask for more ?or B: not sell? Doesn't quite seem like a negotiation, seems more like a take it or leave it arrangement.

[cottonpicken]

Didnt think anyone would "understand" that quote.Good job Adam.

[AdamSmith]

On SDA today by Kate

Other than the reference to WW2 this says it all Agstar (come to think of it the reference to WW2 does work when talking about the CWB)

---------------------------------

When a comment serves as little more than preface to a featured quote, it shouldn't require a short history of WW2 history or personal disclaimer to prevent "confusion" in the mind of the reader. Readers that easily confused should take on gentler topics. (See my first point).

There's exists a terminology for this phenomenon of attempting to communicate in so complete a manner as to prevent all accidents of misinterpretation.

It's known as "writing for stupid people."

So, the conclusion is this (and my advice to bloggers in general): Set a minimum threshold such as "understands the definition of analogy" before deciding whether or not a critic is worthy of your response.

Now, as you were.

---------------------------------

Does this help Agstar?

[agstar77]

I'll go for door #1, all you have succeeded in doing is whining and bitching, in your own words,

[AdamSmith]

ook, I guess it didn't help!

Now here I go ignoring kate's advice and am about to "write for stupid people."

You state "First of all there are no free markets in the world, only degrees of control."

the two words I keyed on were "no" and "control" as in no free markets in the world and degrees of control. And that statements is about as loonytoons as it can get. I'm not going to argue with you on that point because it isn't a point of contention.

I did attempt to clarify the simple point that any other reasonable person wouldn't need clarifying but you seemed to need the definition of a free market clarified so I offered one and then you come back with some idiotic nonsense about just taking a price,

so instead of reclarifying what a free market is for your sake, I decided that it would be in vain anyway because you just can't seem to grasp simple concepts, you may even have trouble with simple tasks as well for all I know. So I posted Kates advice for dealing with similar situations.

Get it now???

But I digress, so here for the "stupid people" is a Wikipedia definition;

A free market is a market in which prices of goods and services are arranged completely by the mutual consent of sellers and buyers. By definition, in a free market environment buyers and sellers do not coerce or mislead each other nor are they coerced by a third party.[1]

Pretty close to what I said.

Even Ian McCreary of the CWB seems to understands the simple concepts from what I read today about the cwb's news conference regarding the RR's

here's what McCreary said;

CWB elected director Ian McCreary called the study results "shocking".

He said the study shows the railways earn far above what they would in a competitive rail market.

You need to tell him there are no such thing as free markets.

Too bad he couldn't apply the same logic to the buying and selling of wheat. Oh well hypocricy is a pretty dominate feature around the cwb board table.


As far as "elected dictators"

that was a play on words, knobhead!

[just_wondering]

Adam while I agree almost completely with your arguments it's the degree in which you discount on farm economics that I disagree with.
Laurence Nicholson of Seven Persons,
Alberta, from Real Voice for Choice was talking, almost crying at the save my cwb rally about how his son would not let him spend farm money on the campaign any more and that they needed to find money elsewhere now that the Sask. govt was out.
If these die hards cannot even convince their own kids , other independent farmers are on side

I'll agree on the cwb elections being a farce with <30% voter turnout, but if you have a better idea that's likely to happen in the next 9 months I'm listening.