A question about farming subsidies and the great depression...
Can someone help me understand this?
A friend of mine asked me a question earlier about veganism and why animal products became so overwhelming in society.
She mentioned how.. Back in the day during the depression she was living through.. Plants were a LOT cheaper to eat, and people were hungry.. So how was it that the more expensive form of food sort of became the norm..? (She didn't quite ask in that exact way, but.. That was sort of what she asked)
I explained some theories especially in regards to subsidization and showed how our government subsidizes animal agriculture to the tune of 99% and less than 1% of that goes to vegetables and fruits.
I explained how they advertised as well and slogans like.. "Beef it's what's for dinner" were orchestrated by the government to sort of condition us or brainwash us into eating like that.
And.. I explained in detail just how overwhelming the statistics are in regards to land usage, water usage, and things like that and how plants are still WAY cheaper and that if the government didn't subsidize animal products so much a $1-10 burger would probably cost $30-50 or more.
Then I mentioned how.. I don't really know a lot about the history of subsidization, when it started, and just general things like that.
I wanted to look into it some more.. And I just did a small lil couple min google search in regards to subsidies and the Great Depression.. And I found this...
"In 1933, with many farmers losing money because of the Great Depression, President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed the Agricultural Adjustment Act, which created the Agricultural Adjustment Administration (AAA).[citation needed] The AAA began to regulate agricultural production by destroying crops and artificially reducing supplies. It also offered subsidies to farmers to encourage them to willingly limit their production of crops.[citation needed] The Supreme Court later struck down the AAA as unconstitutional, so in 1938 the Soil Conservation and Domestic Allotment Act was passed, which essentially created a similar organization for distributing farmer subsidies.[1]"
Can someone help me understand the logic of how preventing people from growing more food, helps with the depression and people starving to death?
Like seriously.. What the hell!
How the fuck does destroying crops and reducing them, help boost the economy and help starving poor people...?
Those are really thought provoking questions, people have to debate over them and come to any conclusion.
Yeah I have the same question as you @apolymask. Hope some body answer.
My husband farms, so he understands this better than I do. But he’s sleeping right now, so I’ll add my two cents. (This is just my opinion btw) As for boosting the economy, when they artificially reduce supplies, the supply is low therefore the demand is high which increases the prices. This helps the farmer out. As for feeding the people, can’t help you there.
That's sort of the conclusion I came to, except.. To me, it seems like all farmers would benefit from more food being grown and sold.
I think and I could be wrong.. But I think what they were doing is trying to prop up the more "established" names and to kill the "smaller" farmers. Which they still do to this day, the smaller farms suffer while the mega farms get all kinds of government love, probably because the owners of these industry are in the same secret societies as the politicans.
Overall though, to me.. I don't know how it would help to destroy crops and create an artificially fake price, that just creates a bubble, just like the housing bubble and the education bubble and all these other bubbles, I can't imagine the people doing this don't realize that, I think they just act ignorant so they can sort of "play the field" and help enrich themselves and their friends as much as possible.
And yeah.. In regards to your last point about feeding starving people during a depression.. That just seems absolutely immoral and wrong to me to reduce their food even more and raise the price of it as well. It's hard for me to understand how anyone could actually think that would be a human and compassionate and wise thing to do.
PS Thanks for your feedback and thoughts.
PSPS.. You're not going to have a thriving economy if your people are starving, I don't believe in artificially controlling any markets I believe in the FREE market, however.. Food is different than other markets, we need it to live.. I can only see this as a way for the rich people in power to gain a bigger foothold at the expense of the common man and the economy and society and culture in general.
I think people are now paying the "process", packaging, transporting food, branding. While before everything was local, so there weren't those added prices, now I can get cauliflower from China, therefore raise of price!?!?
It's all part of the grand scheme to poison your body and mind to death, and to ruin the generations of people in the future. Everything you were taught by any form of government is a lie, with the exception of a small amount of truth to confuse and control opposition.
Here's the truth about how we were designed to eat.
It doesn't. But makes prices higher for farmers and middle men. This gives them a sustainable living as well as being able to hire workers.
I wouldn't use the word "sustainable" there.
Why would making the prices higher for farmers and EVERYONE to eat and live help the economy when people are starving? Doesn't make a lot of sense, sounds more like social engineers in secret societies trying to game the system and enrich themselves and their friends/associates at the expensive of the economy as a whole and almost all of the rest of the people not linked to those subsidies.