Hacker News new | past | comments | ask | show | jobs | submit login

Given the level of agreement, you will have a hard time finding much disagreement from any source.

I would even suspect that a significant number of those who "disagree" disagree more on technicalities than on the general idea that the US's agricultural subsidies are a bad idea as implemented. For instance, I could argue:

1. A free market economy tends to surprisingly precisely match production to demand; producing extra costs you more than your competition is spending and tends to drive you out of business.

2. Food is subject to unpredictable random failures on a large scale.

3. It is better to have too much food than too little.

4. The economic effect of a subsidy is to cause overproduction. (As opposed to price fixing, which is to cause shortage. Rather a lot of verbiage is expended on the internet trying to explain away these two facts, yet the facts remain.)

Therefore, it may actually be desirable strategically for a country and even for the species to subsidize food production, in the hopes that the excess will offset the unpredictable disasters that a free market would tend to produce very little slack for. This will cost the society as a whole more than a "precise match" produced by the free market, but it only takes one bad harvest for this insurance to pay off bigtime. This could lead an economist to vote "disagree" on principle, even if they probably would agree the current subsidy is not an efficient way of accomplishing this goal. As others have pointed out, slamming this to a "true/false" question does erase many of the finer distinctions.

But other than those directly monetarily benefiting and those who don't understand the economics well enough to understand how bad these things are, you're not going to find much thoughtful support of these subsidies as they currently exist.




Governments could buy up large strategic reserves of grain and twinkies. They've done this since Joseph and the Technicolor Dreamcoat.

Overproducing beef and corn syrup won't be as efficient. In fact, it might even bring on the "random failure", by screwing up the water table.




Guidelines | FAQ | Lists | API | Security | Legal | Apply to YC | Contact

Search: