There's no corruption in capitalism. Really. : comments [Battles with Integrity]

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.

[parent entry] [link] [parent] [reply]

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.

[link] [parent] [reply]

Sun	Mon	Tue	Wed	Thu	Fri	Sat
				1	2	3
4	5	6	7	8	9	10
11	12	13	14	15	16	17
18	19	20	21	22	23	24
25	26 1	27	28	29	30

Battles with Integrity

(no subject)

(no subject)

September