Situational Socialism [Trump Bailout for American Farmers]

[rareboy]

^ As I noted above...it is clear that you have no idea about supply management for agricultural products.

But I would point out that once again, this entire line of discussion has nothing to do with the topic....it is the result of you trying to derail the thread in your first post.

 

[KaraBulut]

This story didn't make the national news. If any other administration had been this inept, Congressional Committees would be investigating.

Trump administration showers Brazilian crooks with $62M bailout money meant for struggling U.S. farmers [NY Daily News]

The Trump administration has forked over more than $62 million — taxpayer cash that was supposed to be earmarked for struggling American farmers — to a massive meatpacking company owned by a couple of corrupt Brazilian brothers...
But previously undisclosed purchase reports obtained by the Daily News this week reveal the administration has since issued at least two more bailouts to JBS, even as Trump’s own Justice Department began investigating the meatpacker, whose owners are Joesley and Wesley Batista — two wealthy brothers who have confessed to bribing hundreds of top officials in Brazil.

 

[gsdx]

^ Raping America again.

I wonder how many millions the brothers 'donated' to the Trump campaign?

*sigh*

 

[rareboy]

This story didn't make the national news. If any other administration had been this inept, Congressional Committees would be investigating.

Trump administration showers Brazilian crooks with $62M bailout money meant for struggling U.S. farmers [NY Daily News]

This is as good as the Chinese meat processing plant in the US that is receiving subsidies to offset the impact of tariffs.

 

[KaraBulut]

This is as good as the Chinese meat processing plant in the US that is receiving subsidies to offset the impact of tariffs.

Now that we're back to having oversight in Congress, don't be surprised if "farm corporations" and Trump cronies got a disproportionate share of the "farmer bailout" money. Some of the anecdotal stories seem to imply that not enough of the money reached small farmers.

 

[smokeshadow]

^^You mean like these guys? https://start.att.net/news/read/art...bailout_money_went_to-rnewsweek/category/news

 

[KaraBulut]

^^You mean like these guys? https://start.att.net/news/read/art...bailout_money_went_to-rnewsweek/category/news

Yeah, those were the crooks mention in post #22. Rareboy's mention of Chinese corporations like in this article. Ironically, both of these foreign companies are in the pork business.

Mother Jones did a drill-down on where all the money came from:

This promise comes on the heels of the $12 billion “trade mitigation package” the administration rolled out last year to assist farmers “suffering from damage due to unjustified trade retaliation by foreign nations.” To finance the tariff reimbursement program, Trump and company reverted to grabbing funds from a USDA agency launched during the Great Depression to stabilize crop prices for farmers. The response from farm country to the trade war and Trump’s attempts to salve its effects can be summed up by a recent statement from Roger Johnson of the National Farmers Union, who expressed appreciation for the short-term assistance, but added that “such temporary solutions are not sufficient to address the permanent damage the trade war has inflicted on agricultural export markets.”

This thread's title sums it up accurately- much of these "bailout" funds weren't allocated through the Congressional appropriations process. They were pulled from New Deal era agricultural socialization programs (socialism! *gasp*) by Trump without Congressional approval. The method of the distribution of the funds has been a mystery until now.

Remember all the howling over Obama-era Recovery Act funds - even though there was a [now disappeared under the Trump regime] website that showed where all the Recover Act money went?

On July 20, 2009, the Drudge Report published links to pages on Recovery.gov that Drudge alleged were detailing expensive contracts awarded by the U.S. Department of Agriculture for items such as individual portions of mozzarella cheese, frozen ham and canned pork, costing hundreds of thousands to over a million dollars. A statement released by the USDA the same day corrected the allegation, stating that "references to '2 pound frozen ham sliced' are to the sizes of the packaging. Press reports suggesting that the Recovery Act spent $1.191 million to buy "2 pounds of ham" are wrong. In fact, the contract in question purchased 760,000 pounds of ham for $1.191 million, at a cost of approximately $1.50 per pound."

By comparison, billions of dollars have been diverted by the Trump Administration with nary a peep from the right-wing press.

 

[TX-Beau]

From what I've been hearing in the family, the farm bailout isn't going far enough or fast enough. My farmer relatives are all saying that once you lose that market, the only way to get it back is to lower your prices under whoever the customer is buying from now - and that's after the tariffs are gone. Which effectively means that even if you get rid of the tariff, the damage to the farmer is long term and possibly unrecoverable. Evidently China plans to start cultivating their own soy, and if that is the case, we'll never get that market back.

 

[gsdx]

^ And Trump insists it's an easy win. We're seeing first-hand how he managed to drive so many of his businesses into the ground.

 

[KaraBulut]

From what I've been hearing in the family, the farm bailout isn't going far enough or fast enough. My farmer relatives are all saying that once you lose that market, the only way to get it back is to lower your prices under whoever the customer is buying from now - and that's after the tariffs are gone. Which effectively means that even if you get rid of the tariff, the damage to the farmer is long term and possibly unrecoverable. Evidently China plans to start cultivating their own soy, and if that is the case, we'll never get that market back.

There's different narratives in the media.

The right wing press is pushing the narrative that farmers are fed up with China and even though the trade war is harming their bottom line, they support for Trump's tariffs against China.

The mainstream and left-leaning press is emphasizing the increase in bankruptcies and that falling prices are causing damage to the market that may not be completely reversible.

The truth is for some commodities like soybeans and corn, the damage may be long-term because the Chinese are buying from other countries. If those other countries use the Chinese investment to expand their production, the Chinese may continue to buy those commodities from non-US sources after the trade war ends.

For other commodities like pecans, the damage may be reversible because pecans are not produced in many places outside of the US. Prior to the tariffs, pecans sold for a little less than $3 per pound. They're currently going for about $1.75 per pound. If the trade war ends soon, the pecan producers may recover. If it continues, many will be driven into bankruptcy.

 

[gsdx]

The truth is for some commodities like soybeans and corn, the damage may be long-term because the Chinese are buying from other countries.

Canada's soy exports jumped 80% last year when Trump slapped the tariffs on them.

 

[KaraBulut]

Canada's soy exports jumped 80% last year when Trump slapped the tariffs on them.

Only fair considering all the posturing over NAFTA.