[sneak]

> Just end those crop subsidies and let things take care of themselves. A few agribusinesses will be pissed but the rest of us will be much better off.

I don't disagree with your conclusion about what needs to be done, but you can't "just end those crop subsidies" with a flip of a switch.

We're talking about millions of people and tens of thousands of jobs directly affected, and huge secondary effects to the entire food industry (and everyone who eats food) in the United States as the price of corn and corn-related products goes up.

This would drive the cost per calorie on the bottom end of the market up not insignificantly.

It would have to be a gradual reduction in subsidy over a period of time, ending at zero after a number of years.

Otherwise, you just fuck millions of normal people over— everyone from the people who work at these agribusinesses to the ultra-poor barely scraping by on the cheapest 1500kcal/day they can find to buy.

[jswinghammer]

I realize all that but pulling the cord is the only sane thing to do. The food that gets produced is basically poison anyway so excluding it isn't the end of the world. I would be fine with increasing food stamps before continuing these market distorting crop subsidies.

[sneak]

> The food that gets produced is basically poison anyway

That's nice hyperbole but there are literally millions subsisting on those artificially cheap, subsidized corn syrup calories.

Not having sufficient carbohydrate intake without resorting to stealing is certainly worse for them, can't you agree?

[jswinghammer]

No I don't agree. If the food you eat is making you sick, fat, and tired then it isn't doing much good for you. There's more than enough food without cheap corn. The problem is distribution and perverted incentives-not lack of affordable food. Also what's produced isn't actually all that cheap. It's cheap for the producers of processed foods but the taxpayer pays the real cost, the farmers make almost no real money from their work (unless they're a very large farm who can operate at a massive scale), and the taxpayer picks up the extra cost of the sickness these awful foods create. It sounds pretty expensive to me.

[Houshalter]

It already costs money, it's just that the money is coming from the taxpayer rather than the people that actually use expensive corn products.