Farming without subsidies

ollie989898 said:

It can't.

I have made this point a dozen times on a dozen forums. It is like Trump thinking the USA can compete fairly with China when it comes to manufacturing: it can't.

The GDP per capita in the USA is nearly 60,000 dollars a year. Put simply, every man jack working in that country manages to produce output worth 60,000 dollars.

In China, the same worker, with equal numbers of fingers and toes, only manages to scrape over 8000 dollars a year of output.


Now, this means that the average American is thus an expensive piece of state property. With an average American already producing 60K worth of output, he is thus a highly skilled and sought after individual. Diverting him into making beer can widgets is thus a bloody futile endeavour unless you can do something so he can produce that many of the things that the total per year exceeds 60K worth.

The man in China, meanwhile, won't be being paid much if his output is only worth 8000 bucks. He can be put to make anything, compared to an American, his labour cost is much much lower, he produces output worth barely 1 seventh of the American population.

Thus you have a problem- unless the American can worth 7 times faster at the same job than the Chinaman you aren't never going to compete with them on labour costs, it is utterly futile.

In reality it is not a competition- America and China are in entirely different phases of their economic development. The trick of the game is to do deals that allow American companies to make money out of investing in China and using their lower labour costs, and in turn, increase the wealth of both countries. As the wealth of a country increases, their population consumes more. They begin to demand expensive high-tech goods and services, like Apple devices, GE jet engines, wind turbines and financial products like insurance and borrowing. They will purchase cars, beer and American steak or bacon.

The world is not fair. Every country has advantages and disadvantages. Protectionism, closed or tightly regulated markets are disrupted by government interference and prevented from being exposed to real-world marketplace forces. In doing so, you cripple them and reduce the need for innovation or adaptation. We saw it in multiple industries in the UK throughout the post-war period and the same thing happened in Germany and the USA. The UK car industry collapsed in the face of Japanese competition but yet here we are producing more cars in the UK today than we ever did in the 60s. In America, the big three were trashed by international competition, who were building a better quality product for similar money. Trillions of dollars from tax payers were subsequently thrown at the big American automakers and they are still behind the curve, with vehicles that still have genuine global appeal to other markets. As a result, every time the USA has a recession, (which are basically as certain as the tides), new car sales drop and the big three again get growing pains and need tax payer handouts, because they cannot take advantage of overseas markets. Only in recent years have American-made cars made a serious dent in the UK or European markets. Why? Because they are largely behind the curve when it comes to fuel economy, a problem caused by the Americans being out of step with emissions and engine technology.

This idea that each country can be some kind of self-reliant Island is false. 2008 alone should have taught everyone that. Irrespective of the level of consumption, your population or how rich they are there is no disputing that the 7 billion people on planet Earth represent a hell of a consumer marketplace and you would be utterly daft to ignore that fact.

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jendan said:

You must have a hell of a lot of free time on your hands to post as much as you do.Not short posts either.I thought you were studying? But keep it up anyway,its good for a laugh now and again

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turbo said:

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  I see fair trade as having to produce things to the same standards as you expect your own people to produce to.By putting rules and regulations on your own products but letting in products that are produced by lower standards is nether free or fair

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turbo said:

What a load of globalist rubbish,if something is deemed unsafe or unpalatable to your own people why the hell should it be allowed in to undercut your own industry

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ollie989898 said:

I don't go back until the 14th... I'm bored as fudge doing this piece of chemistry work at the moment. TFF is a welcome distraction. I can type quite well and I have a PC with three screens so I can have a lot going on whilst I am working. It is my only distraction because I have no phone signal whatsoever here, I don't actually have any friends or hobbies and the kids at are school whilst the wife is working. Home alone, what is a guy to do. Tomorrow I might distract myself by building a saw horse for producing firewood but that is barely an hour of messing around at most.

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ollie989898 said:

That is the bailiwick of your own government to lobby for, not the WTO, EU or TPP or anyone else.

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unlacedgecko said:

Home alone with the internet? Online game or porn...

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ollie989898 said:

Who are you to deem what is unsafe or unpalatable? Are you saying the things we import aren't any good?

If you take that view and simply refuse the importation of anything made produced abroad, why the hell would anyone bother to buy any of our goods or services?

You can't tell me no one else can make things to the same standards the UK can, what makes the UK so magical?

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turbo said:

It’s called having standards,if those standards are for public health or the environment why is it okay to import stuff treated with the exact same stuff banned here

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ollie989898 said:

Who are you to deem what is unsafe or unpalatable? Are you saying the things we import aren't any good?

If you take that view and simply refuse the importation of anything made produced abroad, why the hell would anyone bother to buy any of our goods or services?

You can't tell me no one else can make things to the same standards the UK can, what makes the UK so magical?

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sexy lexy said:

Correct, arable/dairy farming can easily survive without the sub, if you can't, pull your socks up or do something else, stock or hill is different they do need sub, brexit shouldn't affect anything other than currency, if wheat is £185 a ton in France, it'll be off nd on the same here, the sooner they cut the sub the better.

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ollie989898 said:

The crux of the matter is this; with no EU handing over the money and insisting it is spent on agriculture, I cannot see there will be any political capital or political will for any government of any colour in future to hand over as much as a cent to UK agriculture much less the current 3 billion quid- the money would be allocated elsewhere where it is more likely to obtain votes for them.

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ollie989898 said:

What standards, what is being imported that is unsafe?

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turbo said:

You don’t see any double standards then?You couldn’t import a vehicle to our country or export it to any other country if it used things that are deamed unsafe but food doesn’t matter as long as it cheap

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ollie989898 said:

Again, what exactly is being imported that is unsafe? I am confused.

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turbo said:

What a load of globalist rubbish,if something is deemed unsafe or unpalatable to your own people why the hell should it be allowed in to undercut your own industry

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unlacedgecko said:

Home alone with the internet? Online game or porn...

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jendan said:

Apologies,but it seemed to me for a while that you were a Tesco/MS/Waitrose direct supplier,and i feel that these producers are benefiting at the expense of others.No doubt they will reply by saying how many hoops they jump through to get the extra money.I am of the old school and would long for a return to the MMB days.I think it was fairer and better all round.

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hally said:

We wouldn’t import cars with below standard safety specs, or tractors with below standard emissions, or pharmaceuticals that have not been fully tested, or electronics that are safe for children to use, so why should we import food that is produced by methods that are illegal or at best unethical in this country?

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ollie989898 said:

Again, please explain, what is being imported that is illegal or unethical and by whose definition are they illegal or unethical?

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