Re: Kevorkian Economics- long

["JS M" <jbiggs50@hotmail.com>]

I really like this subject, though I don't know much about it either.  Seems 
to me that environmental protection and maintaining food quality is part of 
the cost of business.  Giving agriculture some kind of exemption from 
environmental regulations gives them some kind of marketplace advantage 
(over what I'm not sure).  Americans are always trying to act as if 
economics is some kind of neutral science, separate from politics, having 
some kind of pure state.  I think that if we decide that food should be 
produced in an inefficient way, through small farms and using organic 
methods, then let economics go hang.  I can think of worse things to 
subsidize with my tax dollars.  I just don't want to hear how we're 
"stifling free enterprise" and not "letting the market decide", the 
arguments used by the mega-corps.  The corporate farms are currently using 
the same subsidies, artificially keeping the price of food low while reaping 
the benefits of the free market structure.  And, that's my uninformed 
opinion.
jm



>Are we really so removed from the source of our food that as long as
>something appears wrapped and ready on the shelf of the grocery store we
>don't care how it got there?  Are salmonella contaminated eggs from
>infected chickens really acceptable?  Is the incredible pollution from hog
>confinement operations ok as long as it's not in "my neighborhood"?  Are e
>coli outbreaks from poorly monitored meat processing plants really
>acceptable as just part of doing business? I think there's more to the
>issue than a longing for old Jeffersonian times.
>
>P.
>
> >It's hard to argue that highly mechanized monoculture, oriented toward 
>export,
> >isn't just another business and therefore should be subject to the laws 
>of the
> >marketplace.
> >
> >It's only our Jeffersonian heritage that allows farmers to argue that 
>their
> >lifestyle is more virtuous than others and therefore should be 
>subsidized.
> >___
> >Ron  Force                                                   
>rforce@moscow.com
> >Moscow, Idaho U.S.A.
>
>
>Peggy Adams
>
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