On 11/15/2020 07:16 AM, Dean Hoffman wrote:
The article mentions the Commodity Credit Corporation. It started
in the 1930s.
I guess the thinking was that there were already too many unemployed
people in the cities. The country's leaders didn't want a bunch of
farmers going broke and moving
to the cities. Farmers would have been ill equipped to deal with city
life.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Commodity_Credit_Corporation
Executive orders existed back then. This is another example of a
government
agency that seems to have found eternal life.

Like everything else, that has history. WWI put European farming on
hold, raising commodity prices. Good times, and American farmers bought
land and put it under the plow. Labor was scarce so they bought modern
equipment, on credit of course. Wars don't last forever, Europe got back
to normal, and Russia became a net exporter. The process was harsh but
the Communists dragged Soviet agriculture into the 20th century too.

With prices down the mortgage payments didn't stop and many farmers were
in trouble. A local woman recalled the times. Her family was getting by
barely. Arsenic compounds were used in an attempt to control the hoppers.

https://livinghistoryfarm.org/farmin.../pests_03.html

Her father mixed up a batch and was out spreading it when a neighbor
came across the fields to ask if he could have some. The neighbor wasn't
getting by at all and had another use in mind for the arsenic.

She was a crusty old woman and the story came out when someone said at
least a farmer could weather a depression. Her reply was 'Bull****!' and
her story.

At least in the '30s the subsidies were an attempt to save to small
farmers. By the Butz era he could say 'We've got too damn many farmers.
Get big or get out!' and the agribusiness companies grew.

The US may not have a Chinese style planned economy but the government's
subsidies, tariffs, and regulations try hard.