White House can't explain lurking trade imbalance

[Judi Lynn]

White House can't explain lurking trade imbalance



Tuesday, December 7, 2004

For nearly two years, U.S. farmers and ranchers watched as the second shoe grew bigger and bigger.

On Nov. 22, it officially dropped. According to U.S. Department of Agriculture Economic Research Service estimates released that day, 2005 will be the first year in nearly 50 that America will not turn an agricultural trade surplus.

The dubious milestone was met with odd silence at USDA. Odd because throughout the fall presidential campaign, Secretary of Agriculture Ann Veneman talked herself hoarse each time some farm community in a swing state dedicated a new, USDA-sponsored street light.

Now, as America is about to become a net food importer for the first time in generations, Veneman has no explanation of how Bush administration economic and trade policies have taken American agriculture from a $13.6 billion trade surplus in 2001 to a flat line in four short years.
(snip/...)

http://www.pjstar.com/stories/120704/ALA_B4UEM1VT.027.shtml

[fertilizeonarbusto]

1. Gee

Shrub fucked something up? A giant surplus turned into a deficit? IT MUST BE THAT DASTARDLY LIBRUL MEDIA! AND THE TERRISTS! AND THE FRENCH! AND HOLLYWOOD! AND KOFI ANNAN!:silly:

[StClone]

2. You forgot Clinton

Mr Clenis as the root all evil.

[fertilizeonarbusto]

8. How could I forget!

AND HITLERY!
AND FEMINISTS!
AND MARRIED GAY COUPLES!
:silly:
:silly:
:silly:

[mulethree]

31. the effete intellectual snobs!

Them damn big city folk who like to eat a different vegetable with every meal.

Them blasted multilateral folk who prefer persimmons and Lycee to apples. Who say American rice tastes like putty and only eat that Thai rice.

Them durned low-carb diet people who preach agin flour and corn syrup.

[The Doctor.]

4. No - the decline in agri-export is CLINTON'S FAULT!

[talk hard]

74. No, no, no.

It's Clinton's penis' fault.

[GHOSTDANCER]

78. not just agriculture either. He sold the boat to China.

[distantearlywarning]

6. No, no, no. It's the fault of the internet conspiracy theorists! n/t

[Judi Lynn]

18. Yeah, THAT'S it!That's the ticket. It's the Internet Conspiracy Theorists.

Make that the INTERNETS Conspiracy Theorists....



"I've heard rumors on the internets....."

[alittlelark]

25. Thank God, I feel much better now!!!

I thought it was all MY fault!

[AuntiBush]

48. MOORE! It was Michael Moore...

Oh, and let's not forget those Dixie Chic's! Reaping (pardon the farm pun) what they soughed!

[devinsgram]

84. You forgot Clinton,

You know everything is Clinton's fault! (sarcasm)

[Demeter]

3. What's To Explain?

Bush has set out from Day One to destroy the US economy and political system. He has said so, frequently and publicly. It's been in the Corporate Media and the anonymous blogs, the formal statements and the campaign stump speeches. It is the only true thing he's said, but it's been concealed by all the whoppers, ignored by the terminally polite, who insist "He didn't really mean that" and prettified by the "Think Tanks" that perpetuate the Neocon Nonsense (I call them Stink Tanks).

[KingChicken]

35. I agree, I really think the objective is to destroy the U.S.

Why, I’m not quite sure, but it's deliberate and systematic, who could make so many bad decisions, that produce the opposite of the intended outcome, in such a short period of time?

They are doing a good job keeping people in the dark too, so many Bush supporters are running around like the war in Iraq was actually intended to benefit America, it was intended to contribute to the downfall of the U.S. from day one.

[SammyWinstonJack]

49. Too bad you don't know the reasons for him doing this.

BECAUSE I WOULD REALLY LIKE TO KNOW! Gawd, I hate bu$h*! :argh:

[lulu]

59. Easy

Make money for his family and corporate friends. It's the only reason he's in there. He doesn't give a crap about the USA.

[SammyWinstonJack]

70. Steal all he can while he is able to.

"He doesn't give a crap about the USA." So why doesn't Mr and Mrs "One paycheck away from the poor house" see this?

[GHOSTDANCER]

79. It's the only way we don't have to repay this............

<>
Think of it as chapter 13 on a national scale.

[Sugarbleus]

83. This is why...............!

http://www.uua.org/news/2004/voting/sermon_loehr.html

I know people have heard the word fascism bantied about a long time. This article (a UUChurch Sermon actually) says it all; and does so quite clearly and succinctly.

Check it out.

Living Under Fascism

...snip
“The really dangerous American fascist,” Wallace wrote, “… is the man who wants to do in the United States in an American way what Hitler did in Germany in a Prussian way. The American fascist would prefer not to use violence. His method is to poison the channels of public information. With a fascist the problem is never how best to present the truth to the public but how best to use the news to deceive the public into giving the fascist and his group more money or more power.”

In his strongest indictment of the tide of fascism he saw rising in America, Wallace added, “They claim to be super-patriots, but they would destroy every liberty guaranteed by the Constitution. They demand free enterprise, but are the spokesmen for monopoly and vested interest. Their final objective toward which all their deceit is directed is to capture political power so that, using the power of the state and the power of the market simultaneously, they may keep the common man in eternal subjection.” By these standards, a few of today’s weapons for keeping the common people in eternal subjection include NAFTA, the World Trade Organization, union-busting, cutting worker benefits while increasing CEO pay, elimination of worker benefits, security and pensions, rapacious credit card interest, and outsourcing of jobs — not to mention the largest prison system in the world.

..................
This is only a small portion of the entire article. It's well worth reading.......much much more at the site.

[Kellanved]

89. Hitler did nothing in a "Prussian way".

Prussia meant "Freedom of Religion", "Freedom of Science" and a host of other things - yes, it also meant dangerous militarism.
Anyway, it always was the "red" Prussia; there is a reason that Hitler and his thugs came mostly from Bavaria and Austria.

[ooglymoogly]

51. fo lo lo lo lo lo lo lo lo leeee. folly pure and simple

israel now controls this country so you might as well get used to it.

[ooglymoogly]

5. another milestone for our fearless leader

may god help us

[Ganja Ninja]

12. His incompetence is the stuff of legends.

He's trying to insure his place in history as the worst president ever.

[mmonk]

13. done

[dkofos]

28. He did that in the first year.

[canadianbeaver]

33. You have to be voted president to be put in history.....

I mean you have to be voted legally to be a president that can go down in history....I wish he would just go down...to hell already!!

[meow2u3]

65. Not necessarily

Illegally installed tyrants like * usually go down in history as infamous losers.

[llmart]

61. Oh, I think he's already done that.......

in the first 4 years. I know in my lifetime he's certainly the worst ever.

[Mokito]

64. He can stop trying. He succeeded brilliantly in assuring that place.

[Deja Q]

86. I worry that God is.

If God doesn't take sides (which is contrary to what those overpaid sports players want to believe :eyes: ), then what God is doing right now is as impartial as God gets.

[Bouncy Ball]

7. So what does this mean in a practical sense

for Americans?

Even higher food prices? Does this have anything to do with food prices having gone up in the last six months? My checkbook has sure felt it.

[fertilizeonarbusto]

9. *ting!*

You hit it right on the bell.

[Bouncy Ball]

14. Good.

So even MORE of us will have a hard time feeding our families. Well that's just great.

Richest country on the planet, my ass. We're gonna have to stop saying that soon, aren't we?

[strategery blunder]

40. You do mean "putting food on your family," right?

:puke:

[Deja Q]

87. Many vegetables and such are out of season, hence higher prices.

Though $2.69 for a teeny tiny head of cauliflower is heart-attack inducing, as is $1.49 for one small head of broccoli.

(then check out Sam's Club wholesale price for that 5Lb veggie party package and wince. They're not the only ones fleecing us, the grocery stores are even moreso.)

[WildClarySage]

10. This is news?

This white house admin can't explain why 2+2=4. What's next, "Bush doesn't understand Newton's Law of Gravity"?

[DireStrike]

17. Newton? Why are you spewing that heresy on the imperial messageboard?

[UpInArms]

47. there you go - quoting "junk science" again. .... eom

[Mokito]

66. Newton!?

Argh, science! Science!
Get away you heretic! Shhh! Shhh!

(/makes crucifix with both digits)

[livinbella]

11. But what actually caused this?

[Bouncy Ball]

15. Good question, I'm curious to know, too.

[MadHound]

55. I'll give it a shot

Being in a farming state, with a father who was a farmer and went on to teach vocational agriculture and other farm sciences, I've always kept a close eye on the agriculture sector.

What we are seeing now is the logical conclusion of three decades of driving out the small farmer, and turning farming into a multinational industry. During the seventies and eighties we saw the rise of the large corporate farms. Buying up foreclosed farmland on the cheap, these megalith companies streamlined the farm to an assembly line production that even Henry Ford would envy. And in that transforming process, they drove many small family farmers to ruin and despair, resulting in even more foreclosures and misery. Right now, aprox 75% of this country's domestically produced food is grown on corporate farms.

The folly of NAFTA hurt the family farmer even more. Unable to compete with the low wages in Mexico, and an almost year around growing climate, farmers in the US were simply unable to compete. And the big corporate farm giants, always eyeing the profit line, moved their operations oversees. Monsanto, ADM and others became multinational conglomerates. And while they reaped the profits from their low wage workers in Mexico, they collected the federal monies that were traditionally granted to family farmers, resulting in even more profits, many from not growing crops here in the US.

Even further blows came in the form of GM crops. Unable to continue with the traditional, money saving practice of seed saving(unless they wanted to face a patent lawsuit), family farmers were forced to buy seed every year, along with the requesite pesticides, herbicides, etc, all at a back breaking cost. By now, most family farmers have either been reduced to weekend farmers, working a forty hour job and taking care of the reduced farm output on their free time, or having been forced to sell their land to ADM etc, are now working as virtual sharecroppers on a farm that was once in their family.

Meanwhile, the continued onslaught of free trade has simply drained farming to south of the border. There is no way to compete with the lower wages, lower safety standards, and year around growing. Many corporate farms are simply keeping their land to retain the grant monies and tax breaks they recieve for leaving their fields fallow, or waiting for the housing development people to offer up the right price.

I myself have a small spot of land, and quite frankly I am going to farming a bit a try. I will specialize in exotic crops, shitaki mushrooms and the like, along with an orchard of heirloom fruit trees and a garden of organic, heirloom vegatables. I have no illusions of making a full time living from this land, but it will put a decent chunk of change in my pocket, and if all else fails, hey, I'll be able to feed myself and my family.

It used to be that major cities were only three days away from major food riots. I suspect that that time frame has considerably shrunk, what with the food being imported on an as needed basis. And once again, we see corporations wringing a few pennies of profit at the expense of much human misery.

[fishnfla]

56. "our competitor is our friend. our customer is our enemy"

coporate motto of ADM

[NickB79]

58. Excellent points

Just one point of contention:

"Even further blows came in the form of GM crops. Unable to continue with the traditional, money saving practice of seed saving(unless they wanted to face a patent lawsuit), family farmers were forced to buy seed every year, along with the requesite pesticides, herbicides, etc, all at a back breaking cost."

Most farmers stopped using seed saving with the advent of hybrid crops (especially corn) back in the 1950's and 1960's. By the time GM crops came into the market in the late 80's/early 90's, very few farmers still used saved seeds for next year's planting.

That, and the expenditures my father has had to pay for herbicides and pesticides have dropped since he started farming GM crops, not increased. He has to buy more Round-Up than usual, but less atrazine (a far more environmentally toxic compound). He doesn't have to spend days cultivating soybean fields to keep weeds down, burning fuel and wearing out equipment, because he can spend half a day spraying the field with Round-Up and get the same effect. Overall, the money he saves on fuel, equipment upkeep and labor more than offsets the increased spending for herbicide.

[MadHound]

63. Good point, however I was thinking

More along the lines of the small organic farmers. They are getting killed by GM crops. If a GM crop pollinates theirs, not only is their crop worthless for it's intended customer base(now being non-organic), but the ultimate owner of the GM patent can(and quite often does) come in and seize the entire pollinated crop, with no compensation. They claim it is infringement on their patent rights:eyes:

And you are correct, seed saving has gone out of style. There are still some folks around who are practicing it, keeping heirloom crops alive and viable. I still know some real old boys who still save seeds, out of habit I suppose.

[BronxBoy]

85. Good Analysis

Perhaps you can shed some light on something which I am curious about. I recently moved to Northeast Georgia from NY because we wanted to buy a piece of property where we expand on our gardening efforts and self-sufficieny plans. I had fully expected the produce prices to be cheaper than what we were paying in NY but I was astounded at how much higher some of the prices were for staple produce items. I had always paid for green peppers by the pound and everywhere I go in this area, we are paying in the neighborhood of .75 to $1.50 PER pepper. The price of other produce like various kinds of greens (collards, mustards etc are sometimes at least 3 times what we've paid up north)

When my Mom came to visit, I took her around to some of the stores and she also remarked about how high the prices were. With Georgia being an agricultural state, I would have expected the reverse to be true. Any ideas on why this is?

[amandabeech]

67. How would you characterize larger farms which

are owned and operated by a family, nuclear or extended? I'm talking 250+ acres of fruits & veggies, or maybe 1,200 (at least) of corn/beans.

I grew up in a farming area of a blue state. I know several farmers in the area. Their farms are owned by "close corporations" in which they and their immediate family own the stock, or are in partnerships (usually brother-brother or father-son). A few are sole proprietorships. I consider these family farms, too. They really are family businesses.

[Barkley]

68. A: Comparative Advantage

That will be the official economic theoretical explanation.

Some countries are better at producing food than America despite our genetically modified (GM) seeds.

So its more efficient that they concentrate on food production while we concentrate on weapons production (for which we have the comparatie advantage) and trade resources at the end of the day.

It used to be that one American farmer could feed 100 people. I'm not sure if that's still true.

[Endangered Specie]

16. Shit, this don't suprise me... they couldn't explain a Ham Sammich!

[talk hard]

73. mmmmmm ... ham sammich.

:}

[genieroze]

82. doh! eom

[saigon68]

19. Its EASY --- LOOK AT WALMART

they buy very little from the good old U. S. OF A.

[mmonk]

21. And bush represents

a "Walmart" society.

[noshenanigans]

37. Good point.

My mother actually bought groceries there and the last time I was home I looked at the baked beans. We had some "regular" brand, and then some "Wal-Mart" brand.

The "regular" brand said very plainly "Made in Alabama". There was no such label on the Wal-Mart ones, the closest I could find was "Marketed by Wal-Mart Brands, Inc."

No telling what kinda commie beans those were.

[susu369]

20. Personally, I like this writer's style

Has the new Secretary of Agriculture been named by "Our Leader" yet?

[FULL_METAL_HAT]

24. ... That's "Dear Leader" ;^) n/t

[Mend]

22. Maybe they're boycotting the u.s. over there....eom

[AP]

23. It's no accident. Republicans/big business are doing what they can to make

agriculture more expensive.

People can't live without food? Hmmm. There must be huge profits in food then. So let's bring an end to reproduceability with GMOs. Let's kill the small farmer and concentrate ownership in the hands of a few large corps, and let's just make the whole thing much less productive, especially if it makes what's left over more expensive.

It's not unlike oil. Let's create chaos so that oil prices go up which means oil companies can make more money. Sadly, unlike oil, there are no alternative energy sources for humans besides food...

People are giving Bush a lot more credit than he deserves if they think this is just the result of ineptitude.

[shrike]

26. Oh, this is great. Just great.

Agriculture -- one of the few exports we've got left.

[AP]

27. Yeah. You'd think that even if we shipped all our factories overseas...

...at least we'd be able to do something on the land we can't ship overseas.

[Judi Lynn]

29. Leaves room for more golf courses, AP!

Except in red states, where it leaves room for more NASCAR race tracks.

[AP]

30. Or hunt clubs! Horses and hounds in the blue states. Just hounds in the...

...red.

[VegasWolf]

45. Exactly, but these desert mountains make a tough par 4. n/t

[hatrack]

50. There was a thing on the news about a year ago in Washington State

It was all about farmers plowing under their apple orchards, orchards that had been in their families for two or three generations. They couldn't compete with cheap imports from South America and Asia.

Those everyday low, low prices - you don't pay them just once at the supermarket checkout.

[AP]

52. And they'll probably have to sell their land to a big agro-business

or some developer who's a big donor to the Republican Party.

I would bet, well, the farm that the delcine in competitiveness of US farmers vs foreign competition is partly about getting these farms out of the hands of independent farmers.

[XemaSab]

80. One of the problems...

In washington state and here in California is water. A few years ago they told the apple farmers that they just weren't going to have a crop that year because the fish needed the water. To which the apple farmers replied that if their trees died, they wouldn't have apples for a LONG time, not just that year.

Here in Cali they're talking about taking agricutural lands out of production because they're too salty from years of bad water management. It's just not worth the cost.

[mamalone]

53. This has happened in Upstate NY as well..

Our town was surrounded by orchards and the lot we built our house on had them on three sides. The county had been growing apples for generations. I would say that at least half of those orchards are gone now..the trees pulled up, chopped up, piled up into great heaps and burned. Apparently the farmers just couldn't make enough money growing fruit. Very sad..it feels like the community is losing its identity:(

[sherilocks]

94. Look at it this way when it comes to living next to apple orchards

I, too, lived in upstate NY surrounded by apple orchards. The insecticides that were sprayed on us constantly were the most noxious smelling stuff you can imagaine. I kept a small garden where the produce was raised without insectides and I had to keep it as far away from the orchards as possible. I was also afraid to drink the well water because of all the spraying. But I do miss those incredibly delicious mac apples and the cider from those orchards.

[msgadget]

32. China,

soon to control the world...wait, maybe it does already.

[Igel]

34. PRI had a report a week or two ago.

Apparently agricultural exports have held steady. But imports have been consistently increasing for the last couple of decades. This rings true.

I did a kitchen survey. For example, I went shopping today: tomatoes, yellow squash, poblanos (Mexico & S. America); basmati rice (India); mixed pickle, achar gosht masala (Pakistan); wine (Chile); baby crackers, pear juice, cereal, milk (US); chunk of dead cow (US, maybe S. America). Four years ago it would have been US rice, soybean oil, green peppers; California or New York wine; and instead of having achar gosht for dinner, we'd have had something else.

Don't know about you all, but my diet's changed a lot; I visit my parents, and their main imported foods are fresh vegetables (and maybe beef).

[Barrett808]

42. Yes, our diet has changed: we buy locally grown organic produce

With the dollar crash iminent, this is the future.

[DS1]

36. Yurps never did like GM. The cars or the food

Suck it down, farmer Bob!

[trogdor]

38. The weather sucked this year.

Bush is only indirectly responsible for that (see Cheney, Dick, also energy policy, ineffectiveness of). Our tomatoes were pitiful. Too much rain. Everything else got hammered by a freak hailstorm in mid-May. July had less sunshine in it than November did. About the only thing that grew with any regularity was the lawn, which I had to cut every four days. Maybe I should have gotten a steer or two to eat it.

[RPM]

39. hmmmm - could it be

all the damn farmland turned into suburban subdivisions and wal-marts?


Christ - we cant fucking feed ourselves or make things for ourselves.

We are so fucked

[iam]

41. Flat line?

dumbya will have the entire country flat lined by the end of his reign of darkness.

[Zorra]

Support Bu$h and lose the farm. Doh! Nice going, Middle America!

When you are in the bread line, fighting other homeless folks for a crust, remember those good old days when you were the folks that were producing the bread before you allowed Bu$h to sell us all down the river.

Fucking idiots.

[Supersedeas]

62. Odd silence...all the way round--odd, whisper of "least he got values"

[brentspeak]

43. Well, I can explain it

1) Walmart

2) Wine-and-dine sessions at the White House

3) China

4) Washington lobbyists

[fshrink]

44. In case you had not noticed, here's the new situation:

The WH does not have to explain anything to anybody. The WH has managed to put together something that might pass for a "political capital" and "intend(s) to spend it " because that's its "style". In other words, the WH will do, or not do, whatever it pleases, the only exception being, of course, what the holy voices say.

[VegasWolf]

46. They better ramp up the gay marriage issue before the sheep

go off the reservation.

[FreeCajun]

54. My family is about 2/3 farmers

And they all voted for Bush very self-righteously. *sigh*

I got the red-state blues!

[kodi]

57. well, i can. its called warfare by other means, and we're losing the war.

its otherwise known as asymmetrical warfare.

[Megahurtz]

60. Just like they can't explain.....

their lurking deficit.

[gatorboy]

69. They're doing a great job suppressing this story.

It came out the 4th and the only place I can see running it is the Globe gazette!

http://www.globegazette.com/articles/2004/12/04/business/doc41b28c4b7d16f185886258.txt

[napi21]

71. I suspect Ann knows and won't or isn't allowed to say why.

A big part of it is the beef industry. You do remember the one case of suspected mad cow, and exports to Japan, Canada, and elsewhere were stopped immediately. Even with all the subsidies, it's still cheaper to import fruits and vegies from Mexico and other third world countries.

The problem with the ag deficit is no different than the deficit with everything else. Keep the dollar down and improve imports...and destroy all export business!

[Massachusetts]

72. I'm Sorry one more time...

NO TAXATION WITHOUT REPRESENTATION. Starve the beast buy local.:mad: :mad: This is the only way to be heard.

[pig.]

75. HOW THE HELL

are we going to survive four more years of this???

[pig.]

76. kick

[goforit]

77. Tic Toc TicToc..............Hmmmmm......smell a rat????

[genieroze]

81. It's Carters's fault. eom

[Guarionex]

88. more evidence against Bush

Now you swallow this shit whole, you goddamned Red State Republicans...you take the bad environment, you take the bad Iraq policy, and you take this agriculture shortage and swallow it whole, ya hear!

I don't want to hear complaints from you ignorant Bush voters....eat it...eat it!!!

[daleo]

90. A good chunk of this is probably devaluation of the U.S. dollar

At the start of 2002 it took about 90 cents to buy a Euro. Now it takes about $1.35. As with the Euro, so with other currencies. It used to cost 62 cents U.S. to buy a Canadian dollar, now 82 cents. Japanese Yen has gone from 76 cents to 97 cents per Yen. British Pound has went from costing 1.44 to 1.92.

So, even if the same amount of goods are traded, imports have become way more expensive, and exports fetch way less dollars. These levels of moves in currency markets will wipe out an agricultural trade surplus pretty quick, it seems to me.

That is the monetary price of annoying the entire world, and giving the rich huge tax breaks.

http://futures.tradingcharts.com/menu.html

[sweetheart]

95. But the stats are dollar denominated

I respect that the appreciating dollar has made food cheaper, and
therefore "more" exportable, so that is a weird excuse for why.

Pushing a GM foods adgenda has certainly not been a winner for
american corporate food. Too bad, the corporates can override
democracy at home, or americans would be demanding food that still
has taste after being engineered for shelf life. I remember the
first time i ever tasted a real banana... wow, what a different
and more rich flavour than i had ever come to know from the corporate
ones.

One of the framing memes of the article is brilliant "flat line
bush" This is potentially very usable in other areas.

[daleo]

97. Well, I may be mistaken, but this is how I see the currency thing

Suppose in 2002 you bought 1,000,000 units of wine at 10 euro per unit.

So in 2002 it would cost you $9,000,000 to buy the 10 million euros you need to buy the wine. In 2004, you would need $13,500,000 to buy the million Euros needed for the same amount of wine. So, you are spending $4,500,000 more to get the same amount of wine, at least as expressed in U.S. currency. At least that's my simplistic way of thinking about it.

I imagine there are lots of other things going on, though. I have read that GM foods have been an overall money loser for agriculture, as well, so I am not defending them.

[sweetheart]

99. I see what you're saying

I wonder what the truth is with independent currency units. Have
exports really fallen, and imports risen, or, as you say, imports
merely being valued more on the spreadsheet.

[msgadget]

91. Y'all gotta trust the free market!

>Veneman has no explanation of how Bush administration economic and trade policies have taken American agriculture from a $13.6 billion trade surplus in 2001 to a flat line in four short years.<

[bettyellen]

92. Falling dollar + US. factories closing + Brasilinian Produce + Increased

Imports of clothing, textiles + electronics from China and India.
What is so hard to explain? Don't they read the papers?

[Art_from_Ark]

93. No, they don't read the papers

At least, Fearle$$ Leader doesn't-- he was even proud of his non-reading "skills"

:argh::argh::argh::argh::argh::argh:

[Willy Lee]

96. Sounds like the Global Economy is leaving us behind.

nt

[Beetwasher]

98. The Worlds Best Kept Secret: THEY ARE BOYCOTTING US PRODUCTS

Much of the world is making a conscious decision not to buy US anything and you just ain't hearing about it much, except through stories like this that give hints. The world is boycotting the US and it is really starting to catch up to us.