And it is a pretty good column on the problem with farm subsidies.
It’s quite disappointing when Dennis makes a good point. Doing so reduces the amount of snarky material available.
Not long ago, the massive charitable dispensations for farmers were supposed to end with the passage of the Freedom to Farm Act. Something odd happened, though; the subsidies became more generous. So American farmers, driven by subsidies, plant more crops than they can sell on the domestic or foreign market. Not to worry, the U.S. government arrives with what is, in effect, a double subsidy, buying up the surplus and giving it away to hungry or impoverished countries. Humanitarian? Possibly. Crass? Certainly. Counterproductive? Absolutely. It undercuts those countries’ own farmers’ ability to sell their crops, weakens their infrastructure and makes them ever more dependent on food handouts.