[Vwdiesel] Snobbery and Car Fixing

[Harmon Seaver]

On Wed, Jun 16, 2004 at 02:47:26AM -0400, LBaird119 at aol.com wrote:
> 
>  Now that the WTO has mandated that the US stop all farm subsidies, it won't 
> be
> all that long before a whole lot of farmers go tits up when crop prices 
> aren't
> high enough 
> 
>   Hadn't heard the WTO actually HAD dictated policy for us.  I know they'd 
> like to and try to...
> 

    You might have noticed that the last few WTO meetings broke up early with no
agreements. The WTO did mandate an end to farm subsidies in the US and Europe
(and Japan as well, I think) just like they did with the steel industry,
etc. That's the problem for Bush and all the rest of the "free trade,
NAFTA" group, they can't have it both ways, they 3rd world has made it quite
clear they won't agree, so if the US keeps trying to continue the farm
subsidies, there's a very big chance that the rest of the world will tell the US
to stick their trade where the sun don't shine. After all, they don't really
need us anymore -- China and the EU are a big enough market now that nobody else
really needs anything that the US produces, or really needs to sell to us. 
    

> 
> to feed their chemical dependancy, 
> 
>   Ever tried to farm without chemicals?  I mean farm not garden or a small 
> "gentleman's farm."  Size depends on the crop but just try to blossom 
> thin a cycling Golden Delicious without chemicals!  Problem with that 
> is they almost have to anymore due to no production of di-nitro whatever 
> the rest of the name is.  Heck, a lot of use probably were introduced to 
> diesels through farm means.  :)
> 

     Well, there's plenty of farmers who do it with chemicals. And on a fairly
large scale. Frankly, I'll be overjoyed to see farm subsidies end, it would be a
good thing if most of those giant farms went under and the land got broken up
and devalued so ordinary people could buy 40 acres or so and make a living
farming on a smaller scale. The average size of farms in the world today
(including the US) is only 7 acres. A 40 or 80-100 acres should be enough. 
     Back to diversified farming like my grandparents did. 5-10 acres of canola
to fuel the tractor, some hogs, chickens, a bit of dairy (maybe -- I don't
relish being tied down to milking twice a day every again), a few acres of
cattails (rip out those drain tiles and get great crops without ever replanting
or needing chemicals) to feed the hogs, or the ethanol still. 
    8-)  Don't mind me -- I just spent two days in a row driving an hour each
way to do a install some routers and other networks crap only to leave *both*
times with nothing finished after only two hours because crucial stuff was
missing, not only that but because the phones aren't in yet they ate up 150 or
so minutes of my cellphone "anytime" minutes which I won't get reimbursed for --
grrr. NAFTA killed my sawmill with cheap lumber from Canada, now globalization
is destroying my second career in IT. I can't even pay my student loan payments
-- why the hell should farmers get welfare?


-- 
Harmon Seaver	
CyberShamanix
http://www.cybershamanix.com
Hoka hey!