First, "free competitive enterprise" and "free-market" were your words, not mine. You may call it free-market, I did no such thing.

A small branch of a Big Business isn't always a tax shelter -- it's a way for a Big Business to be nimble and flexible like Small Businesses are. Twice I have worked for small branches, and they are very different from their parent companies.

Paying folks not to farm can make sense if it ensures that the soil is properly being taken care of and that the market isn't being totally screwed over. Both of those bother me as a libertarian, but destroying the soil by making wheat until nothing else can be grown just because wheat is the most profitable doesn't help everyone.