Obama: The government will buy meat and drive the price up, okay?
Seriously, does this man even have a clue? Here he is in Iowa using taxpayer money to, well, drive the price of meat up to consumers and, of course, buy the votes of farmers:
President Barack Obama, campaigning in Iowa today, announced $170 million in government meat purchases to help farmers struck by drought, helping to send hog prices to a one-week high.
The purchase of as much as $100 million of pork, $50 million of chicken, and $10 million each of lamb and catfish come on top of $30 million in assistance announced last week. Farmers and ranchers are struggling with the worst combination of heat and dryness since the 1950s, the administration said.
Obama said he also directed the Defense Department to speed up purchases and hold the meat for later use. The buying will help farmers, and the government will get a better price on products than if they were bought later, he said.
Now what do those pesky economic laws of supply and demand say? That’s right, price adjusts to supply. More supply, prices normally go down. Less supply, higher price.
And you naysayers trying to wave this off:
Hog futures rose today following the government announcement, Smith said. The October contract climbed as much as 2.7 percent to 77.6 cents a pound on the Chicago Mercantile Exchange, the highest price in a week. Cattle gained as much as 0.9 percent.
So, anyone? What will be the result of a massive meat buy by the United States Government? See above.
And who will pay the price?
But don’t call it a tax on the poor, okay?
~McQ
Twitter: @McQandO
Facebook: QandO
The reason they’re killing off the livestock and selling the meat? – is they can’t get enough feed for them at reasonable prices….and what is the feed? Why…CORN mah boy! And why can’t they get corn to feed them? Because it’s being used to satisfy the ethanol mandate son.
“Go away boy, ya bother me.”
“Because it’s being used to satisfy the ethanol mandate son”
There is simply no argument, you’re right. We are showing some love to livestock producers, but not nearly as much love as we show Monsanto and the rest of the BigAg industry who have lobbied very hard (read PAID A LOT OF POLITICIANS) for the ethanol subsidy.
The way our government works, winners pick themselves, as long as they are already winners.
Yeah, it’s a government issue. Bush pushed it. Obama could derail it, if he wanted to.
Picking winners and losers has other effects that are never foreseen , like when they become a trade issue …..
BEIJING — China’s government has ruled that U.S. government support to six American solar and wind power projects violates free trade rules, adding to strains between Beijing and its trading partners over renewable energy.
The United States and China are the two biggest markets for renewable energy and have pledged to cooperate in developing technology. They accuse each other of improperly supporting their own producers and obstructing foreign competitors.
They will probably use the cattle for Predator targeting practice, using Hellfire missiles.
I always liked the mad cow mine clearing plan for Southeast Asia myself.
Well, what do you want to bet there were a flock of Obami who sold futures at those artificially inflated prices? That’s one result.
Another…inevitable…result is that the signals the market would normally send to everyone up and down the line are now scrambled and distorted.
But why break with his pattern and practice of screwing up everything he touches. Obama is a genius.
buying votes with tax dollars man, it just don’t get no better than that. Think of all them pigs, chickens, and lambs saved or created.
Heh…if I had to guess, Harry Reid would be at the top of that list. The man has made a career out of engineering the market to his advantage.
And I’d just like to point out, we don’t want the proles eating all that meat anyway, it’s bad for them. This will encourage them to eat quinoa and bean salads and meatless cabbage sloppy joes, not corn salads though, it’ll cost too much.
I’m still waiting to see the result of the Shell ‘breakthrough’ for using sugar cane to make ethanol. Corn syrup, sugar, what WILL they use in those nasty bad soft drinks that we’d rather people didn’t drink in the first place?
Yeah, there’s no major government skewing of markets going on.
What will they do with the meat? Destroy it? If they sell it it just goes back on the market and lowers prices again.
Knowing these idiots they will probably give it away.
And, with moonpony engineering, there is no cost to “holding the meat for later use”.
Plus, when that meat is cheap at market pricing, following the announcement of this stupidity, what does the market price do? Look at the futures for the answer. Duh.
“And, with moonpony engineering, there is no cost to “holding the meat for later use”.”
That’s where the ‘science’ in ‘military science’ comes from. Nothing but the finest aged beef for our boys in uniform.
As any veteran can tell you, the Army has been “holding the meat for later use” for generations. The length of that holding period is a matter of dispute, but ten years is a minimum.
Think government cheese. So, yes, give it away. And buy even MORE votes.
The “poor” is his strongest constituency. They put him in office, let them endure the consequences.
“directed the Defense Department to speed up purchases and hold the meat for later use”
Ah, memories. Well, aged beef is supposed to be better, and DOD already has an established record of using well aged beef; some might say over aged.
“…they gives me beef so very very salt, like Sodom’s wife you know, I surely think they put him in the brine one hundred years ago.” from “Corporal Schnapps”
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I am waiting for the Administration to buy up all the prostitutes and lend them out to the unemployed.
Another kind of meat program…?
In September of 1933 FDR’s Agricultural Adjustment Administration(AAA) ordered 6 million young hogs destroyed in order to keep pork prices up! Unemployment was 22% and millions were hungry but FDR did manage to make a single slice of bacon to expensive for most Americans. The AAA was later ruled unconstitutional. Is history repeating itself?
This is exactly what they did during the Great Depression.
God help us!
Taiwan does this all the time. Whenever some commodity falls too low, the farmers grumble, and the government buys it up and makes their army eat it. They actually had a plan to force them to eat port cutlets for all of their meals, but then some soldiers complained that they couldn’t eat 10 per day.
Same “Densa” (inverse of Mensa) econ geniuses (Ozymandias-on-the-Potomac being #1) that propose releasing gazillions of gallons from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve expecting to LOWER prices at the gas pump, but who simultaneously reject (REJECT, I say!!) the preposterous (did we mention “preposterous”?) idea that drilling for and releasing onto the world market many, MANY times MORE oil/gas will in any way reduce the price at pump (or lower “oil futures”). Nope, that’s just plain silly Conservative rhetoric, my boy.
Bunch of power/vote-hungry ersatz banana-republic tyrants…