New
York City still remains hostage to the plague of locusts that descended
upon it earlier last week in the form of the United Nations World
Summit and anniversary. Just last night I overheard one patron in
a bar complaining that the most immediate economic impact was that
the hundreds of politicians in attendance had bid up the asking
price of prostitutes throughout the city. While I can not verify
the claim empirically I have no reason to doubt that something so
untoward is transpiring as I write this. Nonetheless, triple-parked
government SUV's, security personnel of all nationalities who seem
to think they have jurisdiction in a foreign city (which is also
foreign to a good many Americans but in a different sense), and
persistent gridlock continue to make my life miserable. But just
as it is always darkest before the dawn it appears that a silver
lining may have appeared in the aforementioned cloud of locusts.
Saturday's
Financial Times reported that South African President Thabo
Mbeki, speaking at the Clinton Global Initiative meeting, called
for the United States and the European Union "to end farm subsidies
within three years." The paper went on to add that President
Mbeki accused the US and EU of engaging in "empty rhetoric."
Like a misbehaving three-year-old the US childishly responded to
President Mbeki that it would end subsidies, but only if the EU
did too. The exasperated President Mbeki sighed, "So nothing
moves."
Allow
me to speak for the rest of the American electorate in saying "Welcome
to New York and Welcome to America President Mbeki!" That is
how things work in our putative constitutional republic. But all
is not lost and I am hereby addressing the following comments to
the honorable President Mbeki. While I am physically unable to deliver
the attached letter to the South African head of state I am hoping
that since he has a latent yearning for free markets he might at
some point stumble upon LewRockwell.com and read it there.
September
17, 2005
Dear
President Mbeki:
It
was with great pleasure that I read of your comments in the Financial
Times this Saturday imploring the US and EU to end farm subsidies.
If it's any consolation, my friends and I have been making the
same request for years. While we don't have a similar soapbox
from which to send our message, we like to think that our ideas
go to an audience who cares about what is best for our country,
the citizens who care enough to research the issues and vote accordingly,
while you delivered your message to the caudillos attending
the Clinton Global Initiative meeting. But I quibble. If we can
align our efforts — you speaking to those ignoring the wishes
of their subject populaces while I inform my fellow Americans
of the damage government interference exacts in the sensitive
workings of the markets — perhaps we can effect some positive
change. At this point, as I am sure you will agree, any progress
would be a victory.
First,
a little history. You may not be aware of a few premises that
are vital to understanding American socialist agriculture policy.
In the US farms, farming, and farmers are all sacrosanct. One
would have better luck pulling souvenir teeth from a live shark
than finding an American who would badmouth a farmer. For the
first hundred years or so of my country's existence we were an
agrarian economy. However, as time passed, agriculture began to
shrink as a percentage of our GDP as industrialization spread
rapidly. Nonetheless the sustaining myth of the "nation of
farmers" expanded in inverse proportion to agriculture's
shrinking share of the overall economy. During that same time
period we had a war between several of our states. When the bloodbath
ended, states did not really exist in the same manner as before
and most of the ruling power ended up in the non-state of Washington,
DC (which I fear you know firsthand).
Anyway,
farmers not only occupy a lofty aerie in the American hierarchy
but they often get treated better than the rest of us by the government.
And it's not just in the areas you mentioned. For example if an
American were to die in 2005 with something greater than $1.5
million dollars in the bank, our federal government would confiscate
a large portion of what he was planning to voluntarily leave to
his heirs. But if that same American were a farmer, or to be more
legally punctilious, his entire estate were comprised of a farm,
then he would not have to pay any tax upon his death. I know,
you are probably shaking your head incredulously and muttering,
"So one guy has $3 million held in a bank safe deposit box
and the other guy has a $3 million farm and only the first guy
pays this so-called u2018estate tax' of yours? That makes no sense."
Trust me, I am not making this up but I am trying to buttress
our case. I just wanted to make sure you knew how insidious our
common foe is.
I
noticed that your country produces a lot of corn, wheat, and sugarcane
and I am sorry to inform you that you could not have picked more
politically charged commodities with which to start this fight.
You see, we love our corn so much that we now use it as a substitute
for sugar in the form of high fructose corn syrup. Despite the
fact that it does not taste as good as pure sugar and is quite
a bit less salutary too, our Secretary of Agriculture under Nixon,
Earl Butz, convinced the government that it was a better way to
sweeten things. "Better" in this case essentially means
more lucrative for Midwestern corn farmers who needed to expand
their markets in the early 1970's but let's not split hairs as
the American waistline expands faster than the national debt.
You can read all about it in Fat
Land by Greg Crister.
Wheat
too is one of our main agricultural products and sugar is a nightmare
sui generis. Suffice to say that if you bump into anyone
from America's first family of sugar, the Fanjuls,
during any of your fancy political shindigs (they attend many
of them regardless of who's hosting), you might take the conversation
off-line with them and plead your case. I can guarantee that if
you go the usual route of talking to our elected officials and
waiting for them to check with the Fanjul's lobbyists, several
crop cycles will have passed. The family's heart does seem to
be in the right place though. Several years ago one of the brothers
lost his dog here in NYC and was gracious enough to offer a $5,000
reward for its return. Seems a little less genuine when most
of us view it as a chance to get back some of the corporate welfare
they grab from us annually.
Lastly,
word has it that your country is producing some excellent wines.
We just had a fight about that here. Believe it or not, wine producers
in some states could not ship their wine to buyers in certain
other states despite the fact that our "states" are
nothing more than administrative offices of our Federal Leviathan.
Our Supreme Court stopped the shenanigans but all is still not
well. So hold off on the wine unless the Fanjuls encourage you
otherwise.
President
Mbeki, I think we may be on to something. While the authorities
probably find most of my threats to be as menacing to the status
quo as a nursery school revolt, the two of us together might have
a chance. It is not a high-probability chance but it is a chance
nonetheless. In reality sir, no American has been able to break
the stranglehold that the agriculture lobby exerts on those of
us who just pay taxes but don't hire fancy lobbyists to steal
some money from that bottomless trough that the Leviathan funds
through confiscatory taxation and its currency printing presses.
I have a spare bedroom in my apartment so next year you can stay
with me while you fight the dastardly forces that make Americans
historically pay roughly double
the world's sugar price at your unseemly UN confab. And if
we can get the US Constitution amended in time to allow for someone
not born in the United States to be our President, there could
still be time for you to run in 2008. Heaven knows you speak more
economic sense than anyone currently in office here in the States.
Sincerely,
Mark G. Brennan
September
22, 2005
Mark
G. Brennan [send him email]
writes from New York City.
