By the way, for those of you that enjoy irony:
The Mexican consumer was able to purchase corn and other foodstuffs cheaper from American and Canadian farmers than they could from Mexican farmers (peasants seems to be the preferred work -- guess it makes them sound nobler) partly because American and Canadian foodstuffs are subsidized.
So, ironically, the American taxpayer is actually subsidizing cheaper food prices for Mexican consumers. Yet one more reason for eliminating such subsidies.;-)
Yours,
Issodhos
Everywhere I read conclusory quotes about data, but rarely do I see the data itself along with those conclusions... like, the current corn price is around $4.50/bu, and the most recent figures I can find for corn subsidies are from 1995 through 2005, when the u.s. govt apparently subsidized corn to the tune of $40 billion - during that time, U.S. farmers produced around 90 billion bushels, so that means the corn is subsidized around 44 cents/bushel.
Given all of the above, does that mean that we sell U.S. corn to Mexico for $4.06/bu? Do Mexican farmers get more than that? From whom? And how is that bad?
I suspect that it of course is not a linear relationship; that either the subsidy has a leveraged effect in supply and demand, or is only applied to some markets. But I don't know what they are, it's hard to find that data in an understandable format, if it all.
For instance, in the big debate over ethanol-to-corn, I discovered a whole controversy over HFCS (High fructose corn syrup), and the lock that ADM seems to have on it - but it is far more complicated than that... it seems that HFCS is subsidized so that it can compete with sugar, while sugar refiners are subsidized with guaranteed loans (and/or sugar buyback) if they pay too much for it, and the producers are subsidized if the price gets too low, and import quotas are made based upon the prediction how much foreign sugar is needed, so that we don't have too much (driving the price too low, which increases the subsidy to the producers, but reduces it to the refiners, but reduces it to ADM??)
I know this is waaaay off topic, so if someone knows any answers (or better questions, I've just discovered this whole debate!), please start another thread where we con continue this... either about NAFTA realities specifically, or subsidies in general, or specific subsidies, or ??? ...I really don't know enough to even know where to begin...
(and how do I make the 'off-topic' sign??)
