Walterp
Member
- Location
- Pembrokeshire
One of the reasons I wear my hair long is that I dislike going to the barber's. The critical light of the barbershop mirror is hard to bear with equanimity, just as the critical opinions of my barber are equally difficult to bear - 'we should be like Singapore', he says.
That he wouldn't then be getting his OAP pension, or his sickly wife her NHS hospital care - or either of them the right to vote to change that state of affairs - escapes him completely.
What doesn't escape him is that European trade tariffs are a 'protectionist racket'. It must be so, because the Daily Express says so; you have to admire the linguistic sleight of hand - conflating the gangster's 'protection racket' with a nation's wish to protect its standards of living.
It seems the UK Government also reads the Express, because last week it advanced the abolition of import tariffs, with obvious consequences for UK agriculture.
Next day, CCF posted fliers to solicit local farmers to invest £200,000 each (minimum stake) in broiler production, in order to allow a local chicken producer to expand whilst laying off the risk of failure onto others. Which is nice, because both CCF and Capestone must have a fairly shrewd idea that the only way the average Pembrokeshire farmer can get his hands on £200,000 is to borrow it.
With obvious risks, if a farmer here is expected to compete with another farmer in Brazil, when the advantage of trade (in the absence of tariffs) lies only one way.
Even my barber wouldn't buy that investment proposition, right now.
Why do I get the feeling that farmers will, though?
That he wouldn't then be getting his OAP pension, or his sickly wife her NHS hospital care - or either of them the right to vote to change that state of affairs - escapes him completely.
What doesn't escape him is that European trade tariffs are a 'protectionist racket'. It must be so, because the Daily Express says so; you have to admire the linguistic sleight of hand - conflating the gangster's 'protection racket' with a nation's wish to protect its standards of living.
It seems the UK Government also reads the Express, because last week it advanced the abolition of import tariffs, with obvious consequences for UK agriculture.
Next day, CCF posted fliers to solicit local farmers to invest £200,000 each (minimum stake) in broiler production, in order to allow a local chicken producer to expand whilst laying off the risk of failure onto others. Which is nice, because both CCF and Capestone must have a fairly shrewd idea that the only way the average Pembrokeshire farmer can get his hands on £200,000 is to borrow it.
With obvious risks, if a farmer here is expected to compete with another farmer in Brazil, when the advantage of trade (in the absence of tariffs) lies only one way.
Even my barber wouldn't buy that investment proposition, right now.
Why do I get the feeling that farmers will, though?
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