How importants is American Business? An open letter...

First off, I want to start by saying that this debate originated in the
fact that not one candidate or another cared about poor farmers. I
wanted to point out that American farming is no longer the same.
Farmers, whether your friend at the TN Agriculture department wants to
admit it or not, are highly subsidized and can only compete in our
market because of tariffs on incoming (imported) goods are so highly
levied that many foreign firms cannot compete.



Furthermore, the American farmer does not have the same face as he once
did, so there is a problem in your definition of "poor farmer". Now
farming is largely corporate. In fact, most farmers are only on contract
with larger producers of food that buy the raw product from the farmer
and sell it at places like the Chicago Merc. Exchange. These economies
of scale and corporations that control them are American farming. While
it is true, as referenced in my included chart, that small farms make up
91.2% of the numerical value of farms the 7.1% of corporate farms do
59.1% of production. These "large family farms" can best be categorized
as contract farms with very little "small town farmer" involvement past
production and meager pay.







Now I realize there was some confusion of my point of view. I am not
saying farming is not vital because of course we need farming to survive
because of the ultimate product; food. However, American farming is not
important; food products can be grown anywhere. Those jobs in farming
would be filled in efficiently by any country surrounding our own. In
fact, if farming left, I believe it would take one season (per crop) to
recapture the market and bring in the equalizing price that we have now.
That is based on the market theory that the American economy would be
such a great need for food in the US that outside producers would be
stupid not to bring food to our market.



Here is an Indicator of the current decline in the American agriculture
market taken from a USDA study.





When 65% of farms specialize in one or two things there is a red flag
that must go up. This economic theory of specialization indicates that
they only have the resources to compete doing one thing otherwise they
would do multiple things so poorly they could not compete. In most cases
livestock can quickly account for this 65% on single-specialization
farms. However, it is fair to say that and increasing trend in product
specialization is an indicator of a fiercely competitive market. A
competitive market indicates competitors outside large corporately
backed, Gov't subsidized farms. Where is that competition coming from?
Why of course, the people that can do it better or else we would not
have oranges from Mexico and coffee from Bolivia because we would be
able to compete with their pricing and force them out of the market. So
if they can still produce something, bring it to market (the US) and
still under price after tariffs; then I say they can do it much more
efficiently than we can.



The farming economy is largely protected by tariffs and pro-American
farming laws. Do I want that to go away? No, I think the jobs are needed
because in many cases this is all many of these people know how to do
and "you ain't no man unless you got land". However, I do believe that
it is ridiculous to say that agriculture continues to be the strong arm
of America. I may give it a leg feature or perhaps the lean side of the
buttocks, but it is by no means our back bone. Let me give you an
indicator here. When oranges have two consecutive freezes, domestically,
people buy oranges from Mexico for a relatively similar price with no
real strain on the economy or GDP. But when a few banks have a few
problems there is a downfall in markets. When the automotive industry
has a bad quarter it spreads to oil commodities and to the common stock
market. No one is hugely concerned about agriculture because we can get
products from other places and frankly, as I write this, I am getting
mad that my tax dollars go to subsidize American farming when a few
miles over the borders they can do it better and cheaper.



And to answer the terrible logic of "The world not being able to grow
our food" theory, that is purely a capital (money) problem, we do not
have magic soil or expertise, we just have American money. In fact,
there is often better growing conditions elsewhere. If there was a free
market in America that allowed foreign firms to compete then you would
see regions like Central America produce the majority of our raw food
products because they have an influx in capital that allows them to
build an infrastructure that can meet our demands.



So when you say that Hillary is better for the American farmer, yeah she
probably is but she is not better for the American economy. Just because
one interest group, farmers in this case, are dependent on the US to
subsidize them does not make them the backbone of the economy, it make
the "poor farmer" a leech. So Hillary ultimately would provide a way to
help farmers leech off the economy. Free markets create jobs, gov't
subsidies drain the market of jobs because productivity is not maximized
and efficiency is not fully realized.