There can be little argument of the direct subsidies, but I agree that some of the indirect subsidies found downstream from the source are questionable at least from my layman perspective. My point in raising the this argument is that the focus on Canadian dairy industry supply management barriers is a MINOR element, not even reaching a billion $$ in trade. Considering our total trade of close to $600 Billion, its not a big deal in the grand scheme. Considering our completely different approach to the dairy industry, it does make a good pinata for Trump, but focusing on that, deflects from the more serious and important unresolved issues. That is why I am confident we'll cave on dairy (to a large extent), because we wont' budge on culture or the dispute mechanism. Here's another perspective, although imho its not such a trumped up charge, its just distorted a tad like all things trump. https://www.brookings.edu/blog/up-f...ped-up-charge-against-canadian-dairy-tariffs/
I would bet the farm that statement is not true. Maybe you should first define base production costs.
When will you sign the deed over? https://www.realagriculture.com/201...-percent-of-producer-returns-says-new-report/
I still say that this trade dispute hinges mostly on the political importance Trump places on Wisconsin dairy farmers. Wisconsin obtains nearly half of its agriculturally based income from dairy products. By itself, Wisconsin is the fourth largest cheese producer in the world. Wisconsin has a good Republican Governor and a Democrat Senator who are both up for re-election this year. I agree that the 270% number on tariffs isn't totally accurate. On the surface, it's an attention grabber, but it doesn't take into account other, mitigating factors beneath the headline; yet, Politifact rates it as "mostly true". It allows Trump to senationalize it a bit, in the hope of attracting support. I haven't looked at other points of contention, but my understanding is that another item involves auto parts sourced from China.
I looked into that point. Besides the mysterious "base production costs" term, the study, that the article is based on, includes many factors that others might not. The article claims 70% of dairy farmer's revenue comes from subsidies. http://www.politicalforum.com/index.php?threads/free-trade.541615/page-3#post-1069634643
it ain't random and the content is an extensive study commissioned for exactly the issue under discussion. Feel free to dismiss what you don't like.
Senior moment. It wasn't base production, it was 74% of farmers REVENUES. (35 cents per liter or roughly 28 cents per US quart). The market is flooded in the US and they want to expand to canada, because in Canada manage our supply one helluva lot better thru tariffs and quotas. You already have a half billion surplus on dairy but it seems you want it even more. Supply management meets corporate greed. https://www.realagriculture.com/201...-percent-of-producer-returns-says-new-report/
From here (June 201: NBC - Best advice to U.S. dairy farmers? 'Sell out as fast as you can' Now do you (plural) in American begin to understand why European dairy farmers are protected by means of income-subsidies? As l look out my window over the field about a half-mile away, 10 dairy cows are feeding from a trough. They will do that for about two weeks, then they suddenly disappear. (We all now for where. The supermarket inevitably.) France is not the US and never will be. It does not have expansive prairies that go on forever. All the farms around me are by sons of those who were sons of those who were sons of the original owners. (Family ownership often goes back a century, and the farmer families themselves two centuries - when France finally had a population size that needed the wheat which is the main income-earner in many rural communities.) What am I saying? That the French WANT the farmers to stick-around and take care of the countryside. Because that same countryside is attracting a mainstay market of tourists who love to "get away from it all" every year, year in and year out. So the French government subsidizes them* ... *Yes, that is just one more reason why taxation is sooo much higher in Europe. It's not running willy-nilly after the next BigBusiness venture that promises a Great Bundle of Money for a damn small number of "supposed innovators" (Stop the madness! Tax the piss outta them! Watch "incentive" dissipate like the morning dew!)
Those who most need the subsidy (food programs) are living below the Poverty Threshold. They are 13.4% of the America's population (Census bureau figures) or 43.1 million men, women and children below the threshold of a total US population of 327.2M. That is, about the same number as live today in California and Connecticut combined! Too many to disregard? Too few to be concerned? That is the decision that must be made ...
The French need subsidy because they are **** at farming and prefer rioting to improving. All farms could use subsidy or perhaps private insurance, but the French model is the worlds least successful model. Think hard about why French cuisine includes so many insects and tiny animals. It is because it is a famine culture. Seek your role models elsewhere.
I just don't think that those programs should be counted as subsidies to farmers. Reasonable people may disagree.
Preferring your own industries for state purchases is a form of trade protection the WTO is very hot on. Ordering Boeings, and ships and nationally made cars etc. Given that the state monopolises upto 50% of our nation economies it is a big way to protect domestic industry from international competition. No end of governments go to WTO court with each other over such things.
You may be right. Farmer-family Incomes are not THAT BAD. From here: PS: I don't know where they got that average US household income of $79.2K. Which seems to be more often quoted at $56.8K.
It is for Donald Dork. You see, he doesn't really like the handsome Prime Minister of Canada who attracts women. The world is all about Donald's personal perspective of it - and he's gotta be right all-the-time ...
If China or Europe would buy an equal amount of goods from us, we wouldn't even being having this discussion. Both countries should have their cake and eat it. Fair and equal cakes. Not everyone is cut out to write software or to be an electrical engineer. Our economic health would be best with a wide spectrum of jobs available so that all kinds of people of varying skill, aptitude, and education can have meaningful work. Seth
AGE CHANGE Oh really. And who forced all those products down the throats of American families that went willy-nilly looking for the MUCH CHEAPER Chinese goods. China did? Nope. We got into this economic predicament all by ourselves! You're dreaming. There is no such mechanism on earth that measures what is "fair and equal" in the global marketplace. As an economist, I wish there were. But there isn't! The World Trade Organisation (WTO) has set down a basic set of trade-rules and in the past half-century it has overseen very large reductions in international trade tariffs. This is one of the reasons why the US has had such business success in international markets. Which has employed one helluva lotta Americans! Noble cause, and I would agree wholeheartedly with you. Except that what existed when you and I were kids in terms of "Available Jobs" is NOT AT ALL the situation that our kids are confronting today in job-markets. Yet another monumental Age Change is upon us. We are leaving the Industrial Age and entering the Information Age. When the Industrial Age began to replace the Agricultural Age (in the mid-19th century) a lot of people left farming. Whyzzat? Because in the Industrial Age farm-tractors replaced manpower. The Industrial Age had innovated them - at first based upon the steam engine that also propelled trains. We began to realize over a long period of time (from Civil War to the First World War) that our kids were not being adequately trained in a secondary-education. To be hired in most jobs, one needed to know how to read-and-write. So we introduced as a state-service both Primary & Secondary Education - and it took us one helluva long time to accomplish that fact across the country in each state! Close to forty years before a secondary-schooling was uniformly available throughout the nation! Now we are in the midst of yet another change-of-ages, and we NEED ABSOLUTELY to allow our kids to obtain the advanced skills necessary by means of Post-secondary Education that is funded by the Federal Government. Such that state-schools can provide the education at a cost MUCH LESS than the average $12K per year that it costs today. We have a very large share of fellow citizens who are living just above or below the Poverty Threshold (which is $24K per year for a family of four). They are about 40 million and cannot afford tertiary-schooling for their kids - even at state schools! So what? So, today only forty-five percent of our children is the percentage obtaining a post-secondary schooling degree! (What do the rest do? They are serving you the BigMacs at Macdonalds - which is not exactly the brightest future to have.) Do you really want it to take another 40-years to get to the point where state colleges/universities are training our kids for the jobs that they will be seeking! We'd be simply repeating exactly the same error we made implementing universal secondary-schooling and TIME IS NOT ON OUR SIDE ... PS: Old adage - Those who refuse to understand history are obliged to repeat it!
That's not the way Fair Trade works. It works based upon a principle of Supply & Demand (for products and services) at a price. If American prices are largely priced out-of-market value because of excessives costs of production, then it is not the obligation of other countries to accept them - because of "fair and equal cakes". Pure nonsense. Never has been in the entire history of World Trade. And never will be. Nobody will agree to a trade-convention that insists upon "equal cakes". It's an impossible criterion. Except, perhaps, on the planet where you live ... ?
In time, I think mankind will have refined economics out of common interest! The volatile national director! This President of the United States and his paparazzi obscure a whole lotta atrocity through smoke and mirrors. Climate change is directly related to the refugee crisis. Can't we bank together? It would yield better investments
You make a good case. We have discussed this before. Where we disagree is in who and how it is funded. I fully believe this can be accomplished with less cost and more accountability at the state level. Seth
Those "excessive costs of production" are what make work in the U.S. humane and fair. Working conditions in many countries we import goods from are horrible. http://electronicswatch.org/en/poor...t-chinese-suppliers-of-global-it-brands_14704 https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/ar...ns-inside-Chinese-factories-making-iPads.html https://www.nationsencyclopedia.com/economies/Americas/Guatemala-WORKING-CONDITIONS.html https://www.nytimes.com/1997/11/08/...-in-vietnam-is-called-unsafe-for-workers.html
That is NOT how market-economy international trade works. Trading volumes are simply a matter of (1) existing trade import taxation levels and (2) market-demand at the going competitive price. Such a definition as yours above is NOT in the charter of the the ONLY international trade agreement that exists at the Word Trade Organization. And likely never will be. Period. [/quote]
We don't see it because the pattern is long and slow. But what you say above IS indeed what is happening today. The only bump along the road is the country called China. It is in no mood whatsoever to change the existing rules to which it has adapted very well indeed. Once again, World Trade is a highly confused pattern of exchange of goods/services of a global nature. There are 164 members of the WTO. They would all have to agree. Most today do not. Take the case of Eastern Africa. The British and Americans have long since left, the former leaving their "ex-colonies" to fend for themselves after WW2. China does not have enough arable land to either feed its people or for production of cloths. The Chinese moved in with wads of money and Chinese firms are the paramount investors in Eastern Africa today. Most cotton employed in Chinese manufacturing comes from its plantations in Africa. And China has invested heavily in building both vegetable food and fabric production facilities in these countries as well. It's a done deal right under our noses. And the African countries all along the eastern coast have no desire whatsoever to change it ...
We're not trying to improve the global economy. The global economy was being improved by screwing over US industry. We're trying to stop that. Thats what 'America First' means.
