Thoughts from the Middle of Nowhere

Crop Insurers Piling Up Record Profits Yesterday the Post ran a story about crop insurance, disaster aid and farmers. Today the story is about the business of crop insurance and how the companies that sell it are making billions off taxpayer dollars.

Last year, the companies made $927 million in profit, a record. They received an additional $829 million from the government in administrative fees to help run the program. On top of that, taxpayers kicked in $2.3 billion to subsidize premium payments for farmers. All of that to pay farmers $752 million for losses from bad weather. "We would probably be better off just giving the farmers the money directly," said Bruce A. Babcock, an agricultural economist at Iowa State University who recently published his own study of the program. "That way we would save on all of the fees going to the private insurers."

$927 million in profit. Hell of a business to be in and the good thing is, no competition. The government doesn't allow it. One company tried to introduce competition but nit was shot down by none other than Conrad Burns of Montana. Yes, you Burns haters that stop by here get more ammunition to beat him with, not that you need any more. A real interesting article on crop insurance and the scam it is for the business, not any one else.

USDA stands for United States Department of Agriculture. I repeat United States. Check this out.

USDA’s Inconsistent BSE Policies Continue to Cost U.S. Cattle Industry Billions

Following the December 2003 discovery in Washington state of an imported Canadian cow infected with bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE), more than 50 countries closed their markets to U.S. beef. Now, almost three years later, these markets still remain largely closed, and Congress and the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) still refuse to correct the problems that contributed to the loss of these significant export markets.

“Making headlines this week is USDA’s reported actions of further delaying exports to South Korea at a loss of hundreds of thousands of dollars a day because USDA wants to try to force that country to accept beef from Canadian cattle,” said R-CALF USA CEO Bill Bullard. “That's wrong on so many levels, not the least of which is that it puts the interests of a few meatpackers that want to slaughter Canadian cattle over the entire remainder of the U.S. cattle and beef industry.

“South Korea has made it clear it will not accept beef from Canadian cattle,” Bullard continued. “USDA’s decision not to move forward with the agreement shows that the packers have too much influence over USDA, and these obstructionist practices are hurting U.S. cattle producers.”

South Korea doesn't want beef from Canadian cattle. The USDA says to hell with the US producers, they want to protect the Canadian producers and the meat packers. This is just totally unbelievable. DON'T THEY UNDERSTAND THE US IN USDA MEANS UNITED STATES.

I am so at a loss as to why Johanns is doing this. The only reason I can see is that he is in the pay of the meat packers. It's the only thing that makes sense. Why else would he undercut American producers this way. I've always said the USDA is just a arm of the big meat packers and this just proves it yet again. When is Congress or somebody going to step in and investigate the USDA and how it undercuts American beef producers time and time again in favor of the meat packers.

What really gets me is nobody cares. Screw the American cattlemen, we don't care seems to be the philosophy. I have tried time and time again to get answers to questions about things like this from Burns, Baucus, Rheberg, and Tester and they all just ignore me. They won't respond to any of my questions about Agricultural policy. They obviously don't care about the agricultural segment of the state and feel they can ignore us.

I'm serious here, what's a dumb cowboy supposed to do to get these people's attention? I'm open to suggestions. I write, call, e-mail and they are all ignored time and time again. What do I do wrong when asking the questions? The only thing I can figure is they require too much thought and caring about the public and they can't give a glib answer in response. That must be it, I always ask for specifics, not generalities when they answer my question.

I'm tired of this shit, that's all I know.

I am tired. My arm aches. My head boils. My feet are cold. But I am not aware of any weakness. Zane Grey