Trump threatens to withdraw from NAFTA
It's not a done deal. It's probably a negotiating tactic, but it's something no Democratic president would ever do. Trump could forever turn the Rust Belt red with this.
The Trump administration is weighing an executive order on withdrawing from the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), according to multiple media reports.Administration officials who spoke to CNN cautioned that the order is not finalized and changes could still be made as aides offer input.
If the administration follows through with the order, it could signal its intent to begin the process of the pulling out of the major trade pact with Canada and Mexico.
Politico first reported the order is being considered.
President Trump would not necessarily need an executive order to withdraw from the trade agreement. Under NAFTA, any parties are allowed to leave six months after providing written notice to the other countries.
Goodbye Blue Wall forever.
Democrats will either reform or die now.
TPP and TTIP are still dead as well.
Comments
If done it will resolve an argument
1] NAFTA is good for Americans
2] NAFTA is bad for Americans
Once and for all.
Depends what it is replaced with WTO rules? A unilateral withdrawal without a replacement would mean the only applicable regulations would be under the WTO.
I don't think there is much debate
Nafta is good for consumers and multinational corporations.
Nafta is bad for the working class.
With or without NAFTA and no provision to deal with
the future Atomisation and AI the working class and middle class wont have much to do.
Then of course there is the climate change business.
I suppose this will mean the closure of the Keystone project [in a pigs ear it will]
the problem, of course, is that the set of "consumers"
intersects the set of "the working class". Nafta is also bad for "people who depend on a clean and healthy environment" -- i.e., the 99%, working class or otherwise.
Nafta is very good for a few people all sides of the various borders, and not very good for almost everybody else.
It's worth noting that one of its original selling points was that it would make it relatively easy for people to move across the borders. This turned out not to be remotely true.
I have a jacket at home that a Canadian friend of mine picked up in a thrift store. It's a custom job, originally made for somebody's recreational sports team (almost certainly a hockey team). The logo is a beaver furiously humping an eagle. The team's name is "Free Traitors" -- get it? "Free Traders"? I found it astonishing that some folks decided to make such a weirdly ironic political statement in their team name, but it gives you a good idea of how some Canadians view the odious Nafta agreement (and their fellow citizens who support it).
The earth is a multibillion-year-old sphere.
The Nazis killed millions of Jews.
On 9/11/01 a Boeing 757 (AA77) flew into the Pentagon.
AGCC is happening.
If you cannot accept these facts, I cannot fake an interest in any of your opinions.
Free Traitors
Suggesting that very pun is the closest that the banhammer ever got to me over at TOP. There are plenty of folks there who still beLIEve in unfettered free trade.
"US govt/military = bad. Russian govt/military = bad. Any politician wanting power = bad. Anyone wielding power = bad." --Shahryar
"All power corrupts absolutely!" -- thanatokephaloides
NAFTA could have been different
Trade liberalization could have been coupled to strong environmental standards, worker protections and fair labor practices. In effect, there could have been a race to the top. Instead Clinton and co chose to structure NAFTA such that environmental damage and wage depression was inevitable. In addition, export of corn from the US to Mexico undercut Mexican corn prices and made it difficult for Mexican small farmers to make enough money to survive. This contributed in no small part to the flux of undocumented aliens from Mexico into the US. Undocumented aliens, in turn, put downward pressure on low end wages, further damaging the US working class. Downward pressure on wages creates a drag on consumption, of course. This was compensated for by creating bubbles or allowing bubbles to form (i.e. the internet bubble and the housing bubble).
gee, it's almost like they wanted it to happen.
The earth is a multibillion-year-old sphere.
The Nazis killed millions of Jews.
On 9/11/01 a Boeing 757 (AA77) flew into the Pentagon.
AGCC is happening.
If you cannot accept these facts, I cannot fake an interest in any of your opinions.
@Roy Blakeley I hate to be
I hate to be simplistic, but this is what happens when a handful of bastards have all the power.
"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha
"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver
@gjohnsit But the working class
But the working class comprises most of the consumers.
"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha
"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver
Bingo
The media calls us consumers.
In reality we are workers.
we save a lot of money, spending money we don't got ...
The earth is a multibillion-year-old sphere.
The Nazis killed millions of Jews.
On 9/11/01 a Boeing 757 (AA77) flew into the Pentagon.
AGCC is happening.
If you cannot accept these facts, I cannot fake an interest in any of your opinions.
On unrelated note
this happened today
Macron The Banker steadfast defending globalism to striking workers. This is smelling like the Trump upset all over again.
Double post
native
I think Macron is in for a rough ride,
even if he does win.
native
I said that just last night.
It's the backlash to Neoliberal extremism.
IMAGINE if you woke up the day after a US Presidential Election and headlines around the the world blared, "The Majority of Americans Refused to Vote in US Presidential Election! What Does this Mean?"
Macron is a more extreme version of HRC
According to the Guardian (itself now largely neoliberal)
Macron Policies
Remake the “failed” and “vacuous” French political system; relax labor laws; cut business taxes; reform unemployment system; encourage social mobility; cut public spending (but boost investment); shrink public sector; reduce the number of MPs; establish eurozone government; hire 10,000 more police and gendarmes.
Many of these phrases such as "relax labor laws" are code words for screwing the working classes.
So Macron will win, screw over the French working class as much as he possibly can, leave office and be richly compensated by the the bankers he represents.
Wonder what the autos think of that?
"Religion is what keeps the poor from murdering the rich."--Napoleon
and the oil bunnies.
No problem
Canada will buy auto parts from China. Maybe even start making Chinese electric cars in Canada. Who needs the US when you can have a much better partnership with "mutual respect" from China?
Increasing tariffs on Canada's soft wood lumber
Import charges will increase the cost of building homes in the USA.
Meanwhile environmentalists where I live in BC are grateful for anything that will slow down deforestation. No doubt the lumber companies in Canada (many are US firms) will turn to other countries where the demand for soft wood lumber is high.
To thine own self be true.
Wonder what the autos think of that?
"Religion is what keeps the poor from murdering the rich."--Napoleon
Oh, please, do it!
It's a start. Perot had a good point, back in '92.
And Trump is pressuring the Canadians now about milk - a lot of dairy farmers in my state will be suddenly ruined on May Day, and all their cows slaughtered, if Canada doesn't back down on what it just did to them, with only a month's notice. Dairy farming is a very hard life, even without what's been going on.
You might want to check into
that. I read an article yesterday about Trump's new "war" on Canadian dairy farmers and how they are to blame - not so apparently, the issue is over production of milk, not Canadians importing more than needed.
www.commondreams.org/further/2017/04/25/blame-canadas-dairy-farmers-our-...? "upon hearing that dairy farmers feel threatened by his own immigration policies and a milk surplus he learned about on Fox, once more slammed NAFTA - which in fact doesn't apply to milk or lumber...."
Only a fool lets someone else tell him who his enemy is. Assata Shakur
No, Canada changed the economics
of US milk exports, so that the US processor would lose money continuing to export ultra-filtered milk - so with only a month's notice (making it even harder to find any way to survive), about 75 Wisconsin dairy farmers (my neighbors) are about to lose everything.
And all those carefully bred and nurtured cows will go to slaughter. Cheaply, of course, because they were bred to give milk, and have recently calved; they weren't bred for beef.
Here in NY
Dairy farms are expanding. They can't keep up with the demand from Chobani.
" In the beginning, the universe was created. This has made a lot of people very angry, and is generally considered to have been a bad move. -- Douglas Adams, The Hitch Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy "
Too bad we can't ship to Chobani.
At least, I think it's probably too far.
US farm policy has been terrible, too. It always pushes for more production (gotta feed the world, you know, except that the hungry part of the world just can't afford food), so that more-production leads to surpluses, which lead to lower prices, so farmers have to produce more, which leads to ...
About 400 Wisconsin farms a year have been going under, even before this latest disaster.
These things always hit the small family businesses hardest. And the big guys keep expanding, becoming more monopolistic. Farmers only get about 2%, I think, of retail prices.
Common Dreams is wrong on that.
And Trump got an earful of our crisis when he recently visited Wisconsin.
This has been a very big issue in Wisconsin; it is really nothing to be deprecated. Our farmers did nothing to deserve what Canada is suddenly doing to them. I suspect few people have any idea how hard dairy farmers work, what long hours, 365 days of the year, and for how little money. Farms that have been their families for generations will be lost - out of the blue.
What is it that Canada is doing then?
And does NAFTA have anything to do with dairy production? I'm really just asking here. If the problem is lack of regulation in the US and the result is over production, then I'm not seeing how Canada is to blame?
Only a fool lets someone else tell him who his enemy is. Assata Shakur
Canada has a 270% tariff on milk,
under NAFTA. Ultra filtered milk wasn't included in that. So they bought it from US farmers, who developed their small businesses based on those conditions. Now Canada is changing its rules.
There is plenty of blame to go around (the processor, our Establishment, etc.), but pressure on Canada, by bringing it up in connection with NAFTA, may just help some of our own hardworking and desperate people. Why would anyone be hostile to that possibility? Don't we want thrm to get help?
If all the small farmers are forced out (Earl Butz, "Get big or get out."), do you think the big factory farms will benefit any of us?
https://beta.theglobeandmail.com/report-on-business/a-guide-to-understan...
I am most certainly NOT disparaging
the small farmer but was asking if this is just one more tactic by Trump to "prove" his populist bromides. As you state, there's more than enough room for blame, but I hardly think singling out Canada gets any real traction on the true underlying issues.
Only a fool lets someone else tell him who his enemy is. Assata Shakur
If it's a tactic that works,
seems to me that's a good thing. And if it does, it solves the immediate problem of 75 hardworking families (and their communities) being devastated. Don't you think that would be a good thing?
It wouldn't make the world perfect, but it would make it a little bit better.
Ultrafiltered milk did not exist when the NAFTA rules
were written. The farmers have taken advantage of this loophole by ever increasing their exports into Canada now that there is a glut on the market. Maybe Wisconsin should use this product to make its own cheese - problem solved.
The cheese plants are at capacity already.
It takes a while to build new plants and train new cheese makers. Meantime, a lot of our economy goes down the drain. You can't just turn cows off and put them in the closet for a couple of years.
The farmers will be bankrupt within a few months, there will be a surge in suicides and overdoses, the carefully bred dairy cows will be hamburger, and a lot of rural communities will be destroyed. By the time new cheese plants could be operating, the cows and farms to supply them would be gone.
That wouldn't be a very nice solution.
That supports my position
American farmers are pushing their oversupply problems onto Canadian farmers. Cow herds in Canada have been decreasing in the last decades with more and more farmers going out of business.
From your link:
OK, our small farmers are disposable. Got it.
We know that "market forces" are controlled by the 0.1%, but the small people producing our food should go under.
Enjoy the future when monopoly factory farms control all our food.
it's not about who is or is not disposable. it is about
whether Canada or the US ought to accept responsibility for the fate of American dairy farmers.
one thing that history makes very clear, regardless of how one feels about how hard farmers work etc etc is that farmers will always respond with excessive enthusiasm and optimism to occasional market opportunities. (in this case they literally bet their own farms that canadians would forever accept the terms of this loophole, at canadian dairies' expense.) and, just like their counterpart decisionmakers in industry, a handful will be over-rewarded for their risk-taking, and in the next cycle these winners will get bigger by buying up the farms of the losers. the last ten years have been boom times for midwestern farmers; meanwhile, in wisconsin, they've voted again and again to fuck madison and milwaukee, as well as to dismantle their own fucking university system -- the one that provides all those extension services they adore, the one that reserves space for them at its flagship campus, the one that gives their kids some other choices in life besides farming, the one that trains their teachers and their nurses and physicians -- while filling their garages with 400-cubic-inch v8s and their sheds with shiny new john deeres.
no, unlike kos, i'm not going to gloat over the plight of these folks -- though they've done much better since 2010 than many of my friends and neighbors whose lives have been nearly ruined by the last 6 years of walker's maladministration -- but i'm also not going to blame canada for not giving a fuck about that plight. if the wealthiest nation on earth wants to support its family farms, it can go ahead and do that -- maybe just redirect some funds from the next P.O. for tomahawks. our farmers are not canada's problem -- we aren't a developing nation in need of canadian indulgence.
The earth is a multibillion-year-old sphere.
The Nazis killed millions of Jews.
On 9/11/01 a Boeing 757 (AA77) flew into the Pentagon.
AGCC is happening.
If you cannot accept these facts, I cannot fake an interest in any of your opinions.
You're confusing dairies with dairy farmers,
farmers with Industry, and citizens with lying, gerrymandering legislators. You're even assuming that the Democrats presented any alternative. The farmers don't deal with Canada, and they've objected to the extension cuts.
You're making a neoliberal argument, that if someone gets hurt, they therefore deserved it. Isn't that Calvinism, too? If you have misfortune, you must somehow be evil. Dog eat dog, winners and losers, zero-sum games, and our country shouldn't protect its own people. Because Markets!
In other words, the dummies deserved it. No, they didn't. But a country that doesn't protect the sources of its food - well, maybe we will deserve what's going to happen to us as a result of so many people letting themselves get scammed into believing something as ugly as neoliberalism.
the only argument i'm making is that canada's
government is not responsible , and cannot be imagined to be responsible, for a "humanitarian crisis" amongst american dairy farmers, the actual basis of which is american culture and american politics. you are quite wrong in calling my argument neoliberal; to the contrary, the neoliberal argument is that it is eebil and misguided for the mean and sociamalist canadian government to protect its own constituents.
The earth is a multibillion-year-old sphere.
The Nazis killed millions of Jews.
On 9/11/01 a Boeing 757 (AA77) flew into the Pentagon.
AGCC is happening.
If you cannot accept these facts, I cannot fake an interest in any of your opinions.
You're making a race-to-the-bottom case
Yes, Canada should protect its own farmers. We should also protect ours, and we haven't been doing that. It isn't all right to sacrifice them this way.
Some countries pay workers $.20/day. That's wrong. Should we, in sympathy, lower our wages to match? No. It is exactly the same issue, except that most of us get wages and can see this case more easily.
@CB "American
"American farmers?"
Do you mean the dwindling population of small, family-owned farms, or are you talking ConAgra and Monsanto and their shitty sweetheart deals with the US government?
Here's the thing. If you're mad about something happening, it's pointless to be mad at people who neither invented the problem nor have the power to do something different. The "little guy" is repeatedly put into situations where s/he has no good choices, put there by bastards with too much money and too much power. Then the little guy gets blamed by other little guys for making a bad choice that hurts them. But the real point is that none of the little guys have any power whatsoever, and it's all being manipulated from above by bastards.
This is the same reason that right vs left doesn't matter much anymore. It matters, but only in very specific situations where working-class right-wing people actually have power, such as when they are cops. Otherwise, who the hell cares--it's not like right-wing voters have any more power than left-wing voters do. What happens is not directed by their decisions. In a similar vein, what small family farmers do in the US and Canada doesn't actually direct agricultural policy, which is, and has been, massively fucked for longer than I can say. What you have is myriad little guys trying desperately to survive in a world of bad choices, and getting mad at each other every time their bad choices interfere with each others' survival chances, when in fact, it's the bastards controlling the menu of choices who are the culprits.
"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha
"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver
From your link
This change didn't happen a month ago. It's been coming for a year, and it was predictable that Canadian buyers for this product would be drying up. Why did the farmers not see this risk looming on their horizon?
I do feel bad for what they are going through. However, if their entire business and livelihood depend on exploiting a trade loophole, and a year ago that loophole started to close, one must wonder why they didn't take steps then to adjust, before it got to this crisis point. As with any business, conditions change over time, and they have to be aware of the business environment and ready to adapt.
Grassland, the company that dropped these farmers on such short notice, is a Wisconsin-based company! They did this to their neighbors. Not Canada. Blaming Canada (always makes me think of South Park) makes no sense. They are not obligated to exempt a specific high-tech milk product from tariffs in order to protect US farmers.
The farmers heard about it a month ago,
and they have no control over where their milk goes once the processor picks it up. Canada may have no obligation to our farmers, but we also have no obligation to let Canada sell its lumber here duty-free. And our country does have an obligation to its people. Trump should be trying to pressure Canada. Even if you hate him, separate that from hurting other people in the 99%.
National security is a country protecting its people and small businesses, not building (and using) a huge military.
Agreed
Which is exactly why you can't blame Canada for protecting its dairy farmers from US imports that are harming them.
These Wisconsin farmers only heard about it a month ago? That's absurd. It wasn't a secret! It's literally their business to know. And again, it was a Wisconsin company that suddenly stopped buying from them. It's ridiculous that this all wasn't discussed farther in advance. But it's not on Canada.
Do you worry about or care about the people in Mexico or Canada who would be personally harmed by Trump's America First attitude? What goes around comes around, as the saying goes.
Mexico is terribly harmed by NAFTA
"Free trade" is very destructive to living beings. It drove huge numbers of Mexican farmers off their land, for starters. Now they are no longer self-sufficient in food, and the world is in danger of losing the priceless variety of the corn genome.
America First would give them a chance to recover a balanced economy, which we have been destroying. They could think about Mexico First, instead of drugs for America (since they can't make a living farming any more because of NAFTA).
We have to stop meddling and tend to our own garden. We haven't been benefiting anyone else. Not by a long shot.
@Sunspots and they have
and they have no control over where their milk goes once the processor picks it up
And that's why this isn't actually a fight between small family farmers and anybody. The small family farmers are caught in the gears of a brutal machine, and it's apparently their turn (again) to get ripped to pieces. You can't blame them for trying not to get ripped apart; nor can you blame them for being upset that their loophole just closed.
The actual fight, if there was one, would be between those farmers and the people running the machine. But that would require rewriting and rewiring our whole economy and political economy.
"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha
"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver
@Sunspots
Sounds like a scapegoating scam - the TPP and other corporate coups offshoring domestic law in all involved countries is not dead and under corporate law, all people, ecologies, economies, democracies, countries and the global life-support system are to be drained of the last drop of life-blood under unlimited industrial pollution, sacrificed to the maximized self-anticipated profits of involved corporations and billionaires.
If we are illegally betrayed into such agreements by traitorous public servants having no right to permits hostile self-interests to poison, control, abuse, kill and loot us for anything remaining to us and accept the false claim of 'ownership transfer' from transient public servants to ruthless self-interests willing to destroy planetary life - including oxygen production - we are doomed only somewhat more slowly than through nuclear War Against The World.
Regarding milk production, under the TPP, Canadians will not be permitted to produce their own milk within 10 years of its imposition.
As for the US, please, if possible, read in full at source for a sliver of the facts involved, including global over-production - and not even mentioning that what countries can supply their own people with involves far less fossil fuel use and pollution than hauling coal to Newcastle from across the world, and supplies their own citizens with jobs, keeping some of their money circulating in their own economies!
https://www.iatp.org/documents/dairy-in-crisis-tpp-dumping-on-dairy-farmers
I'll bet this has more to do with corporate coups like the TPP still being pushed, as well as the global dairy over-supply discussed, than anything else. Trump's probably planning on bombing Canada and is setting up an 'any excuse will do' issue.
Psychopathy is not a political position, whether labeled 'conservatism', 'centrism' or 'left'.
A tin labeled 'coffee' may be a can of worms or pathology identified by a lack of empathy/willingness to harm others to achieve personal desires.
@lizzyh7
Under the TPP - which is still a threat waiting to creep in when the public isn't looking - Canadians will not be allowed to produce their own milk (edit: within) 10 years. It, like many other products, is doubtless intended to ultimately be shipped around the world from ginormous global monopoly sites via oil tankers and produced with no regulations or inspection, of course.
Luckily, we'll probably have been nuked by then and long past such worries...
Time for regime change and the spread of democracy in America! How's that 'snap election' idea coming along?
Psychopathy is not a political position, whether labeled 'conservatism', 'centrism' or 'left'.
A tin labeled 'coffee' may be a can of worms or pathology identified by a lack of empathy/willingness to harm others to achieve personal desires.
Blaming Canada for market fluctuations
Market forces and supply and demand are responsible for the US dairy problems. Canada is not solely responsible. That's a simplistic Trump denunciation based on his only philosophy regarding any conflict between the USA and the world:
"The USA good, all other countries bad."
As usual the problems are complex and far reaching which is above his intellection level:
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/report-on-business/milk-surplus-forcing-c...
[...]
To thine own self be true.
Not SOLELY, no,
but Canada IS responsible for precipitating the present humanitarian crisis. The consequence of which will be ruined lives and the growth of oligopolies.
This crisis will contribute to bigger monopolistic factory farms controlling our food supply.
Don't we all want to help our fellow workers? I don't hear much sympathy for one more disaster in flyover country. Aren't we classy, white collar, and clean enough?
Yes, we want to help our fellow workers
but using unfounded blame isn't the way to fix the problems, but one more divide and conquer tactic. Do you think a trade war with Canada helps workers? Maybe a few, but certainly not all of them, and many would indeed be hurt by that.
And really, we don't need the little insult here, if you haven't figured it out yet, this site is hardly the place to use empty fucking slogans or insults to make points.
Only a fool lets someone else tell him who his enemy is. Assata Shakur
Any sane governments,
not converted into zombies by neoliberal ultra capitalism, could resolve differences such that the workers of both countries could have reasonable lives.
Back when workers were doing well here,
we had tariffs and protected our domestic industries. Other countries still do.
Russia has used our sanctions to develop its domestic industries and become more self-sufficient. That's a national security issue.
We, on the other hand, are now dependent on other, often unfriendly, countries for many of the underpinnings of what's left of our economy. I've heard that if three of our main electric substations went down, we'd have to wait for months for, I think it was, China to build new ones for us.
There's a lot on nakedcapitalism.com about the insanity of "free trade" for everyone but the multinational corporations.
Do you have a link for your comment
Here's one:
https://beta.theglobeandmail.com/report-on-business/a-guide-to-understan...
From the your link
The US Dairy industry floods the Canadian market with a non-NAFTA product, duty free and Canada protects its dairy industry by having it produced in Canada. And this is a crime against humanity?
To thine own self be true.
The Dairy Industry is not = small farmers
The farmers have no control over what processors do with their milk. They're the only ones in this mess who've been operating in good faith.
So of course everybody wants to kick them into the gutter.
I buy from
Tillamook County Creamery Association
Good for you!
Where the farmers are in control ...
Tillamook County Creamery Association
Slow connection so will log off for now.
Tillamook research?
me too Tillamook. It is one of few dairy products I get to eat anymore, except yogurt when affordable. Our local creamery cheese is $7 a pound now, not worth it for the calories. A friend who farms veggies here (not this year, family health breakdown) mentioned Tilamook is now evil. I think she must have realized dairy impact on environment, will find out more today. She is from Roseburg area, lived there some time ago, still has contacts.
I don't have any details about anything yet, so I just bought three pounds at the grocers yesterday. Stomach first, conscience second, is how poverty destroys ecology but I digress. Man, I love grilled-cheese sammies. Mm. No butter, I use California olive oil on everything, even mac and cheese. Mm, mac and cheese. lol Oh boy I do not want to give up my cheese. It's so good and salty. Puts the stroke to my heart attack
The other products I consume are from worker-owned Bobs RedMill, mostly grains and beans mix, and their wheat bread mix, and their steel cut oatmeal (to offset the cheese clog) I can't afford Alvarado Street bread now, so I bake my own little loaves sometimes.
Seeking solidarity, any kind will do at this point. I'm so screwed, and not academically speaking. It's for real, no third party or talk talk is going to save me. Nuke it, why not. Yeah, I understand that psychology better now, I think. Thanks.
Tillamook ... turned to the Dark Side?
Say it ain't so. But if true I would like to know, so I will investigate. Thanks for the head's up.
Twenty thousand cows in one place
Have to note this reply numerology, it is 42121111211. Nice group of numbers to say out loud, and then they become your ID when I hit Save. Cool. Anyway, it did turn out to be an eco-stunner, where she recalled an area where 20k cows were kept, and the dirt that it created was not good. Eighty-thousand hooves can do big damage, around here it's a constant battle to keep the riparian areas free of hooves.
Mostly, she wants an alternative because of the cost. Maybe dairy is finally including environmental cost to the product, wouldn't that be great? Not for the poors, but for the planet, for the future. Thanks.
Peace & Love
when certain citizens of the wealthiest and most powerful
nation in human history experience economic hardship, that can only be the fault of their own policy-makers. expecting the governments of other countries to prioritize the needs of the most privileged class of nationals on the planet is simply bizarre.
The earth is a multibillion-year-old sphere.
The Nazis killed millions of Jews.
On 9/11/01 a Boeing 757 (AA77) flew into the Pentagon.
AGCC is happening.
If you cannot accept these facts, I cannot fake an interest in any of your opinions.
Agree with your first sentence.
And yes, our past policy has been very wrong. But then why would you object to Trump trying to do something to help? These are your fellow citizens. They didn't make that policy, any more than you did.
I saw someone suggesting that farmers are well-off. Funny. Odd that they're going bankrupt and getting foreclosed on so often lately, and that farmer suicides are so high now. A neighbor of mine who has a very good day job but still also works the farm he grew up on, told me recently that when he first got that good job 30 years ago, his farm was making more money than his salary. Last year his farm cleared $4,000.
i don't object to trump placing tariffs on softwood.
the only thing i object to is anyone vilifying the canadians over this, as if our farm policies were their problem to solve, or as if they owed our dairy farmers a damned thing.
The earth is a multibillion-year-old sphere.
The Nazis killed millions of Jews.
On 9/11/01 a Boeing 757 (AA77) flew into the Pentagon.
AGCC is happening.
If you cannot accept these facts, I cannot fake an interest in any of your opinions.
Trump owes our farmers something
And if he can get them some relief by pressuring Canada, he should do it, whether it's by putting tariffs on softwood, or some other import. It's his job, to protect American people.
This is the real national security, not bombs in the mid-East. It isn't just these specific farmers, all of us are vulnerable if we don't protect our national production, and we haven't been doing that. And the 1% plays us off against each other: "That group was stupid and deserves to suffer." No.
If Trump finds some other solution, that's fine with me, too. Blaming our own farmers, though, for issues they had no control over, is very wrong.
Remember when Continuous Quality Improvement was big? Most problems are system problems, not caused by individuals. The individuals trapped in the system shouldn't be paying for system flaws. We shouldn't say that's all right with us.
@Sunspots
Personally, I strongly object to the idea that a military giant 'putting pressure' on any smaller country to force them to sacrifice their own workers, consumers and citizens to benefit the military giant's own corporations (which couldn't care less about smaller farmers of any variety and have been a major factor in the bankruptcy and disappearance of smaller farmers bought up in the consolidation of giant and vastly destructive factory farms) is in any way acceptable.
The propagandized acceptance of such corruption and pathology of this governmental bullying of other people (as well as their own) and countries among US citizens is precisely what's enabled the current situation and actively promoting it on a progressive site seems a little out of place, in my opinion.
Psychopathy is not a political position, whether labeled 'conservatism', 'centrism' or 'left'.
A tin labeled 'coffee' may be a can of worms or pathology identified by a lack of empathy/willingness to harm others to achieve personal desires.
@Sunspots How can we help them?
How can we help them? Can we organize into buying collectives to purchase the milk? Would that even be possible, allowed, legal?
Otherwise, what? Beg the government to be nice, or at least fair? Doesn't work, regardless of which party is in power. And if talking to our own government is futile, talking to another country's government seems even more so.
I'm not trying to sweep this problem under a carpet of futility, but it's necessary to be honest about what's going on. The way agriculture has been handled in this country for the past at least 50 years is the problem, the fact that we don't have a democracy is the problem, the fact that our trade agreements are a pile of steaming shit is the problem, the machine is the problem.
"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha
"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver
The US is really the party at fault here.
Trump is talking out of his ass again. Maybe someone should tell him he is not still on the campaign trail and he has to stop bullshitting.
The Market is always right?
I didn't think many of us were neoliberals here.
There is plenty of blame to go around, for the abuse of the American farmer. Is that any reason to not try to deal with one part of it at a time? Are they/we disposable people?
Once all the "deplorables" are driven out, we'll have monopolistic factory farms controlling our food supply - the bell tolls for us, too, even if we don't care about trying to help the unfortunate.
Did you read the link?
https://ipolitics.ca/2017/04/22/dairy-101-the-canada-u-s-milk-spat-expla...
What gives American dairy producers the right to increase shipments into Canada at the expense of Canadian producers?
For your information, Canada imports almond and soy milk from the US.
I did, thanks for those!
Only a fool lets someone else tell him who his enemy is. Assata Shakur
The dairy farmers aren't doing any of those things.
You're blaming them for things they have no control over.
The farmers are just working extremely hard, trying to do the right things, trying to do what all the experts have told them they have to do, making so little money that most of them have at least one family member working elsewhere full time.
It sounds as though you think our farmers should go under in order to protect Canadian dairy farmers (who aren't about to be ruined in four days). I think putting it into a zero-sum framework like that is unnecessary and awfully sad.
I don't think any of us will enjoy a future of mega-factory farms.
So you think that Canadian farmers should take the hit
from subsidized US overproduction by American farmers taking advantage of a loophole? The US already ships $400 million more in dairy products to Canada.
Maybe Wisconsin should start making cheese with their excess milk product? Of course they will then have to call it "cheese food product" and not cheese.
"Take the hit"?
Canadian farmers aren't about to be ruined in four days. They just want more.
Our farmers are real human beings who are about to be destroyed, along with real communities.
Canadian farmers have their own problems
WI cheese producers are already at capacity
It takes time to build new factories and several years to find and train new cheese makers. By that time, the farms to supply them will be gone, the carefully bred cows will be hamburger, and the communities will be shells.
These are real desperate people who will be committing suicide and turning to drugs.
That would exacerbate the problem
There has been a dairy and cheese oversupply for a number of years and it has little to do with Canada. Maybe the US should stop importing cheap European cheese? The US sanctions on Russia caused them to stop importing cheese and dairy products which greatly affected European production. Their domestic production increased 30% last year. Russia will be self sufficient in a few years so this business won't be coming back.
@Sunspots
And you'd rather that even more of the Canadian farmers did, instead? Because American farmers are just that exceptional, right? You might want to think about the propaganda Americans have been inundated with to create this sort of support where the rest of the world - and America/non-billionaire-Americans, as well - can be sacrificed for American corporate interests and it's OK because of the 'exceptional' thing.
Psychopathy is not a political position, whether labeled 'conservatism', 'centrism' or 'left'.
A tin labeled 'coffee' may be a can of worms or pathology identified by a lack of empathy/willingness to harm others to achieve personal desires.
@CB Oh dear and
Oh dear and forgotten pagan gods of the earth!!!!
Could we stop this pointless fight between powerless people in similar situations? Are we really going to allow ourselves to be divided by national identity, at this juncture!
I'd like 1)buying collectives to purchase the milk so the farmers don't take a complete bath on it, 2)to know what good agricultural policy would actually look like, since it's one of the few places where the left hasn't articulated good policy. In particular, I'd like to hear from farmers what they think would constitute good policy.
"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha
"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver
Milk production in Canada is govered by a quota system
The American production is rapaciously capitalistic. When prices are high, US producers jump in to make a fast buck. When the price bottoms, the producers demand subsidies. To allow US milk producers to dump their excess production into Canada is not fair or equitable to Canadian producers. The US producers now want to increase their exports from 2.5% of Canadian production to 10%. Europe is attempting to do the very same thing in Canada. Canada has every reason to say fuck you to the over capitalistic US producers. Left on their own, they would overrun and destroy Canadian producers.
US dairy farmers got too greedy and overproduced. See my other links above.
Sanctions against Russia are responsible for a considerable part of this problem, both in counter-sanctions as well as drop in Ruble. This made European cheese VERY expensive and unavailable for many poorer people. Russia then very successfully increased their own dairy production and stopped buying from Europe. Europe then turned to America to sell their product. The high US dollar made European cheese very cheep. This oversupply of cheap European dairy product destroyed the US market.
Europe and America both heavily subsidize massive dairy operations. Canada does it more equitable. Cheese has always been more expensive in Canada due to its method of ensuring an equitable price for the farmer.
You be the judge. What system would you prefer? The rapacious out-of-control American capitalistic, dog-eat-dog system or the pinko-commie socialistic Canadian system?
The very same thing is now occurring in health care in Canada. US private health care providers want to come in and skim off the more profitable portions of Canadian health care and leave the Canadian government and people to pay for the more expensive, complex and long term portions. Canadians want US health providers to stay the fuck out of Canada before they eventually destroy it. Unfortunately, they have already got their tentacles inserted into Canada.
American capitalism has and is destroying the entire world like a festering disease and is the major cause of the fucking rampant income disparity now found in the US.
The huge American dairy operations (compared to Canada) should learn how to handle their own problems instead of dumping them into Canada. I don't feel one tiny bit sorry for them. The writing was on the wall years ago. But they got greedy. Now it's time to pay the piper.
BTW, I have/had a foot in both countries. The biggest thing wrong with Canada is that it shares a border with the US.
@CB Did I say
Did I say anything about choosing one system over the other? Goodness' sakes.
And I certainly never said anything about PREFERRING the way the U.S. runs its agriculture; even most U.S. farmers know ag policy here is shit. It's good for very few people. Guess who.
"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha
"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver
@CB A lot of
A lot of the poison comes from here; a lot of the shittiest rich people in the world come from here and were among those who started the world down this path in the 70s (hence the Powell memo, among other things).
That said, do you think the most important word in this sentence is "American?"
American capitalism has and is destroying the entire world like a festering disease and is the major cause of the fucking rampant income disparity now found in the US.
Do you suppose for a minute that if the US were somehow wiped off the face of the earth--without destroying the rest of the earth--that the rest of y'all would have smooth sailing? Do you really think that the power of capital is contained within a formulation called "The United States of America?"
They just use this place to store their weapons, man. Both financial and literal. It would be bad for them if their main arsenal were wiped out, but they'd recover just fine; they have alternative arsenals all around the world, especially in the English-speaking world.
"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha
"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver
Unfettered capitalism... yes
The US has devolved into a military, industrial, congressional complex that has spread its capitalistic influence into every corner of the world (take note that I am using the original three that Eisenhower used). To these, US banking must be added which sets/influences monetary policy in every major nation. The people that head up these power structures are the 0.01% that effectively control the world. It was American policy backed by a powerful covert/overt military that has destroyed much of pre and post-war socialism in Europe as well as in South/Central America and South-East Asia.
The American Empire needs to die but I'm afraid it will not go quietly without a fight.
Chalmers Johnson, author of Blowback, Sorrows of Empire and Nemesis: The Last Days of the American Republic, talks about the similarities in the decline of the Roman and Soviet empires and the signs that the U.S. empire is exhibiting the same symptoms: over-extension, corruption and the inability to reform.
DECLINE of EMPIRES: The Signs of Decay
@CB Fine.
Fine. American empire gone, good, fine, whatever; at least what you want has a better than even chance of happening.
"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha
"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver
Huh, personally I'd bet he's posturing
to the base that he's starting to piss off. We'll see, but somehow I doubt this will be any kind of boon to American workers.
Only a fool lets someone else tell him who his enemy is. Assata Shakur
Let's wish the farmers good luck, how about?
They haven't had much of that in a long time.
I support you Sunspots, and small farmers too
I am avoiding this discussion, can't stand to see us fight about bullshit billionaire free trade scraps.
I never worked dairy, but grew up in Marin and Sonoma, dairies galore. I farmed fish for almost 4 years on a coastal cattle ranch. Nothing like getting a tank alarm at two a.m. in the middle of a thunderstorm, when you have bronchitis, and you have to go out and pick mortalities off a catwalk in the dark in the middle of a gale. Because if no one answers, then no food gets produced or delivered, it is pretty simple math.
Even "small" farmers are pretty big and corporate now. What choice is there? I don't know, but I empathize with the little people, here, Canada, everywhere. Mexico is destroyed, does anyone ever look south? It is stupid to fight each other about food policy, when people are dying on the streets, I think. Dairy has huge impact on the environment, we should be talking about that too. Peace
You make very good points.
Yes, our farm policy, like most of our other policies, is insane. It's designed to funnel money from the 99% to the 1%. But none of us made those policies. We know that legislators pay no attention to our interests, whatever they say in campaigns. Blaming the latest victims ("they should have..") is wrong.
As for the small farmers being big, though, true, some may be, but most are only big in the sense that they have a lot of physical assets for which they they have huge debts. They may bring in what looks like a lot of money, but they don't clear much. Some years they lose money. A lot of them need an outside income to live on. They have to borrow money to plant in the spring, and hope that weather and crops will be good so they can pay it back. I've seen estimates that if labor is accounted for, they clear about $2.00/hour. They don't have pensions or health care they can afford to use.
Working on the land, producing food, is an honorable thing to do. We shouldn't trap people who want to do it in impossible situations and then blame them for it. "They should have" is easy to say when someone haven't tried to do it, as you have, or when someone doesn't understand the traps. It's callous and very long-term counterproductive, for our own interests.
It's what the big corporate farms want us to do, blame other groups of people for their system-caused misfortunes. We have to "feed the world," remember? We have to build up our exports to decrease the deficit. National policy - and yes, that's wrong, and it's designed to drive all small businesses under. We should care when that happens, not shrug and justify it.
"Other countries have problems, too," is more race to the bottom. Wages in some countries are $.20/day - should we justify lowering our wages to match that? No. It's exactly the same issue.
@Sunspots
Actually, understanding that 'other countries have problems too' is part of the the solution, in solidarity with other people - rather than accepting your government allowing predatory corporations to move your once-well-paying employment to other and less-protected countries to pay starvation wages while polluting freely, on the grounds of 'cheaper products for you', while your wages decline.
What can be done to one, can be done to any and all.
And insisting that your neighbour's farmers, consumers and citizens be literally forced to be sacrificed even more for US corporate profits to try to save some of the farmers in your country is dogging the hole deeper, not solving any of the problems.
International trade is not supposed to be about 'competition' for the worst conditions to be imposed upon the people and countries involved to benefit a few greedy self-interests at everyone else's expense - as is being arranged between the corporate and billionaire self-interests of the countries, rather than as required by the public interests and demand of the various peoples - but about the universally beneficial trade between countries who produce things others do not.
We have to quit looking at things from the corporate perspectives and other propaganda we're presented with. And that includes abandoning the notion that 'might makes right' and that one country is far more equal than others and morally sound in imposing the destructive demands of its wealthiest on the world because they're worth more in money and therefore worth more than all others having less. It's humanity, in both senses, that matters and which forms our survival chances, in solidarity.
Psychopathy is not a political position, whether labeled 'conservatism', 'centrism' or 'left'.
A tin labeled 'coffee' may be a can of worms or pathology identified by a lack of empathy/willingness to harm others to achieve personal desires.
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