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posted by [identity profile] caramida.livejournal.com at 11:24pm on 11/12/2006
But the idea of small business loans, and the stated goal of the SBA, "to aid, counsel, assist and protect the interests of small business concerns, to preserve free competitive enterprise," belies the fact that those aren't Small Businesses, they're just small branches of Big Business. Oh, and who gets the profits from those little 'largely independent' companies? When someone says the words, "Small Business" are we talking about Jim's six-person roofing operation, or are we talking about the latest tax shelter for MBNA? Free competitive enterprise indeed.

As for paying folk not to farm, it might have been a reasonable thing to do back when family farmers needed help as a result of overproduction, but now the vast majority of farm supports are going to corporate welfare so that companies can make money by selling crops for less than the cost of producing it. Your taxes and mine at work. You call that free-market? I call it welfare for people who already own private jets.
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posted by [identity profile] knaveofhearts.livejournal.com at 01:59am on 13/12/2006
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.
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posted by [identity profile] caramida.livejournal.com at 02:12pm on 13/12/2006
Actually, "free competitive enterprise" are the SBA's words, right from their mission statement. It's great that small branches of big companies are more nimble than the big companies that own them, but does that mean they should get taxpayer dollars? The original intent of the SBA was to help folk who don't already have deep pockets. Now instead, folk like you and me (without deep pockets) get to pay folk like IBM and ExxonMobil (whose pockets are somewhat more capacious).

Paying folks not to farm was somewhat reasonable 75 years ago, when it was necessary to keep some folk from starving. Now, it's corporate welfare, pure and simple. If the market is resilient, then farmers can stop growing wheat for a couple years, and switch to soy for example, which replenishes the soil (which is what family farmers have done for dozens of generations), price supports undermine the resilience of the markets.
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