Farm subsidy cuts

Okay, so since I am the eternal optimist, I got to thinking, "Hey! There must be SOMETHING good about massive budget cuts". Well, that's true if you live in the third world and depend upon agricultural products for income! As you all should be well aware, the US (and the EU and Japan) has been subsidizing farmers for Billions of dollars, artifically keeping international prices low, keeping people in, say, Africa (where roughly 3/4 of the entire population depend upon these prices for survial) destitute as hell. So when I read that the Bush Administration is cutting farm subsidies, I was happy, for the first time in years. Okay, not years, but you get the point.

While this article doesn't specifically mention that, it IS one of the major chinks in the BushCo armor which is rarely talked about. People HATE first-world nations for these subsidies. First we say, "Oh, the market will take care of everything...get used to free markets and democracy, baby!" Then we turn around and say, "Oh, the free market is hurting some of our domestic agribusiness (poor Monsanto and Cargill!), because there are so many of y'all growing stuff...so we're just going to give our tax dollars to these companies so they don't go out of business." Of course, third world countries can't afford to subsidize farmers like this, and the farmers depend on these crops for their income, so they're pretty much screwed.

Crap, no time to proofread this, have to go back to work. Bye!

the WSJ also has an article