Do Dairy farmers really need supply management, in Canada and the United States?
Even when you disagree with a person who represents a large Canadian mainstream media outlet, you can at least respect them for putting their information out there. Jennifer Wells whose a columnist for the Star’s Business section wrote an interesting article that you can read for yourself by clicking the link below:
Jennifer Wells: Dairy farmers need supply management, in Canada and the United States
What’s very interesting about the opinion being put forth by Jennifer Wells revolves around security for the farmers or I guess one could argue the lowering of risk for the agricultural sector which would lead to higher costs for the U.S consumer. Nowhere in Jennifer Wells piece does she make the argument that in fact Countries like Canada are the problem why U.S Farmers can’t achieve better profit margins for their oversupply. One thing I like to point out about America is often the incompetence of their former Presidents to address these issues.
Farmers are often ignored by U.S politicians because there’s an abundance of them, quite frankly I’ve thought about going into the agricultural sector in Canada, but I’ve never liked being in heavily regulated industries which is why at least for now I’ll pass on farming in Canada. The problem that faces U.S farmers today are the same problems that face U.S farmers during U.S slavery. If you know anything about the history of U.S Farming you’d know that the unsubsidized Northern U.S states did a far better job with their farming and land than their southern government subsidized confederated states.
Why did the U.S Northern states do better than the racist south?
Because southern farmers had slaves and once a slave was bought you didn’t have to pay the slave ever again, which meant that farmers in the south could afford to be inefficient with the agricultural land that was granted to them.
In Canada, our supply management system similar to our health care and educational systems allow participants backed by unions and government groups to be inefficient with how they farm which is the only reason supply management works in Canada. Supply Management works in Canada because U.S competitors aren’t allowed to compete freely in Canada.
If the U.S farmers were allowed to compete freely in Canada everything would change, in fact, supply management in Canada would become a barrier for Canadian farmers, furthermore, if barriers were lifted in Canada what would also happen to a lot of U.S farmers is that they’d figure out real fast if their farming models were efficient or inefficient and the fear for Canadian farmers would, of course, revolve around subsidies American Farmers would receive, which would be considered leverage for the Americans over the Canadians depending on what politician Americans hire in the future.
Now, what is really going here you ask? What’s really happening in all of this is the labeling of Canadian products being sent to the U.S. Like Canadians, Americans are very patriotic and in years past you’ve heard me say over and over again that Canadians shouldn’t have a problem with the “Made in Canada” label being put on the products they’re selling to Americans. You can click the link below to get a better understanding of where I’m going with all of this.
Now, even though the above links may seem like they have little to do with powdered milk the truth is, these are the schemes Canada has gotten away with under NAFTA which the U.S is not able to get away within Canada. Last week I bought New Zealand Lamb, now I appreciated the fact that I knew exactly where that Lamb came from. If Trump tears up NAFTA there a lot of industries in Canada that are going to get harmed and this is part of his leverage and this is part of the reason why I’ve been saying for years that NAFTA hasn’t been good for Canada.
NAFTA has been good for the big corporations, lobby groups, Unions and bought and paid for politicians but in regards to the average man and women in Canada NAFTA has been a disaster and it’s also created a generation of entitled Canadians, especially in the corporate sectors.
From my perspective when I read the article by Jennifer Wells, it reads like a propaganda piece. “Dairy farmers need supply management in Canada and the United States”? Says who? The reason supply management doesn’t work in the United States is because there are hundreds of thousands of farmers and if America had a supply management system, something they’ve tried in the past what would happen is there would be tons more lobbyist groups representing different sectors of the agricultural sector and like any union group they’d demand prices be regulated by the government, meaning that prices could go below a margin they set. This is one of the reasons health care is so expensive in America and Canada, once price regulations and standards are set, consumers lose and big businesses win because the barrier to entry as an example is +270%
Why supply management works in Canada is because Americans don’t have supply management so Canadians producers are able to get away with things in America that American farmers can’t get away within Canada. Basically, Canadian farmers have more access to the U.S market than U.S farmers have to the Canadian market. American farmers call Canada Canuckistan because of Marxists style regulations.
I keep hearing and reading about Canadians who say, Canada should look for other trading partners and stop being so reliant on the United States? As I’ve said before the United States is the rarest country on planet earth. Most European countries have more regulations than Canada does so if Canadians think they can simply sell to Europe or Asian countries tariff-free they have another thing coming.
Trump is pointing out the obvious and I highly recommend that Canadians sign a deal before more details of the other ways Canada has the upper hand on the United States in trade start to get exposed. Canada is not in a leveraged negotiation position and the longer this trade war lasts the more this will become a common political issue for Americans. The Democrats want the U.S government back and tariffs are actually a position that Democrats would love to exploit as they could use tariffs to pay for government spending and promises they’ll inevitably make to voters.
The Democrat socialist Wave the NDP in Canada hopes will take root in the U.S is fading fast and the Bill Clinton, Keynesian economic Democrats are starting to formulate a plan to make themselves relevant again. Tariffs are a subject Lefties, love. Canada loves tariffs, as a business person I’ve paid a lot of in tariff charges and consumers usually don’t understand or care about tariffs as long as the politician in power delivers on the stuff he/she promises. Canadians shouldn’t be pro-supply-management for the United States because if this happens Canada is screwed.
The smart thing to do is to get rid of supply management or get out of NAFTA. Trump and any person that knows the free market can see this very clearly. The people that can’t see this are the people that don’t own international businesses or the people that don’t understand international trade. As far as economics and the free market goes there is only one America, yes, there are countries that have higher standards of living than America and freer markets than America, but those countries don’t consume as much as Americans do and they don’t have the worlds reserve currency like America does.
A reserve currency is actually an economic bailout in times of extreme economic turmoil. In case you haven’t noticed whenever the U.S market goes down the markets of the world go down when it when the U.S dollar fades the currencies of other countries including Canada lower their currencies to keep their economies afloat.
I live in Canada and to be perfectly honest with you I wouldn’t recognize an Aussie dollar, a British pound or a Euro unless someone pointed it out to me. If I go on vacation I change out into US Dollars because most people all of the globe have never seen a Canadian dollar in their lives. We’ve become very entitled in Canada and because we’re able to get away economic benefits afforded to the U.S via the government many of us feel that it’s our right to change Americans and force Americans to conform to our ideals, well I’d advise my fellow Canadians to abort this method of thinking or at least reconsider it. Because the longer this trade war last the more likely the Democrats will include TARIFFS as part of their political platform, what that would mean for Canada is more tit for tat tariffs moving forward, which would in effect render most of our regulations useless.
I should also point out that I expect an economic collapse during the Trump Presidency, Trump has been spending a lot of money and Jerome Powell is no joke. I say this because if the U.S economy crashes Canada especially now is more exposed than ever before and unlike America, during an economic collapse Canada doesn’t have the world’s reserve currency nor do we any gold reserves adding to the disaster are public service liabilities. I’ve said this over and over again that in my opinion Trump was tailor-made for the coming economic collapse and I advise Canadians to be prepared because we have a lot of debts, sure it doesn’t make the news much anymore but, the debt problems in Canada haven’t gone away.
Interesting times ahead.