Wednesday, March 04 2009 @ 01:22 AM GMT+4 Contributed by: SJD
Noticed lately what Hugo is doing down south lately with food production? Could it be a preview of coming events here. They nationalized their food producers, specifically rice to start with, because production has dropped drastically causing huge food shortages due to the mandatory Gov. price controls. These actions are no different then Mao's mass famine caused by the collectivization of farms. Do you think VT dairy farms would work if the gov took them over and price controlled all food, fresh or otherwise, -would we be waiting in lines all day for our fair share.
Chavez May Repeat Great Famine of China | 6 comments | Create New Account
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Chavez May Repeat Great Famine of China
Authored by: John Donaldson on Wednesday, March 04 2009 @ 03:25 PM GMT+4
Please don't take this as a snarky response to your post, but I
appreciate iBrattleboro for its citizen journalism and those who put
time and effort (and links and attributions) into their work. Your post
caught my eye, but absolutes ("These actions are no different then
Mao's mass famine") make me wary (as do rhetorical questions that
lack punctuation and those, such as this, with too many parenthesis).
Having said that SJD, I don't think it would be possible for our
government to take over and price control all food - including all food
would have to mean food that we grow on our own or collectively.
Constitutionally that would be difficult to accomplish.
Authored by: pjmelton on Wednesday, March 04 2009 @ 03:36 PM GMT+4
Hey, maybe the feds should get out of the food business altogether. If they really believe in free markets, stop the taxpayer subsidies that go to huge industrial farms. Wouldn't it be interesting to see what happened to prices then?
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"Economic laws are not made by nature. They are made by human beings." -- FDR
Authored by: Lise on Thursday, March 05 2009 @ 11:35 AM GMT+4
I seem to remember that there was a provision in the stimulus bill
eliminating farm subsidies on farms with annual sales over $500,000.
Not sure if it was in the final bill but people were talking about it in the
weeks leading up.
Authored by: Lise on Thursday, March 05 2009 @ 11:48 AM GMT+4
We did price controls back in the 70s under Nixon and from what I
remember, they were regarded as a dismal failure. My dad, a staunch
conservative, hated them and a bunch of other things like getting off
the gold standard and gas rationing. But anyway, price controls seem
to have a dodgy reputation.
About Chavez -- he's fascinating, isn't he? I don't really see him as
good or bad but he certainly is. He's sort of the new Castro, standing
up to the big guys. I'll never forget the failed coup attempt way back
in the early 2000s. I thought for sure he was a goner, and then it
turns out he overturned the coup and was back in his capitol a couple
days later. You got to shake your head at luck like that (or whatever
it was that saved him.)
Anyway, I don't know what's going on with their economy right now
but things are generally somewhat turbulent there. One would
assume that when or if the price control plan fails, he'll try something
different. I suspect that even here, ideas will be tried that in the
past we would have considered beyond the pale. Any port in a
storm, as they say.
Authored by: George Tirebiter on Monday, March 09 2009 @ 09:26 AM GMT+4
The main resource in Venezuela is oil, 80%. It buys most of its food from U.S.
Wikipedia reports: Agriculture accounts for approximately 3% of GDP, 10% of the labor force, and at least one-fourth of Venezuela's land area. Venezuela exports rice, corn, fish, tropical fruit, coffee, beef, and pork. The country is not self-sufficient in most areas of agriculture; Venezuela imports about two-thirds of its food needs. In 2002, U.S. firms exported $347 million worth of agricultural products, including wheat, corn, soybeans, soybean meal, cotton, animal fats, vegetable oils, and other items to make Venezuela one of the top two U.S. markets in South America. The United States supplies more than one-third of Venezuela's food imports.[citation needed]
Thanks to petroleum exports, Venezuela usually posts a trade surplus.
They are not a nation of farmers who subsist off the land. They are more like Norway, with low unemployment, low inflation, low gas prices, growing manufacturing sector, growing GDP. Hey, I think I'll go for a visit. It sounds like a great place.
appreciate iBrattleboro for its citizen journalism and those who put
time and effort (and links and attributions) into their work. Your post
caught my eye, but absolutes ("These actions are no different then
Mao's mass famine") make me wary (as do rhetorical questions that
lack punctuation and those, such as this, with too many parenthesis).
Having said that SJD, I don't think it would be possible for our
government to take over and price control all food - including all food
would have to mean food that we grow on our own or collectively.
Constitutionally that would be difficult to accomplish.