In article ,
Gordon Couger wrote:

snip

If your governments are going to tie your farmers hands so he can't make a
profit they are pretty much obliged to keep him in business or risk being
very bad way when a food shortage comes along. Get in that position and you
will find how hard hearted the grain merchants really are. They will make
OPEC look like pussy cats. They don't have diplomats.
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Thankyou Gordon.

Let's take a couple of points.

"obliged to keep him in business".
The phrase that comes to mind is "you and whose army?" The UK govt is
showing that they are not obliged to consider anybody else's opinion - not
anybody in the UK anyway. Nobody has the power to force them to do anything
- parliamentary democracy is now dead and gone - so there is no way they
can be considered "obliged" to do anything. The worst that can happen to
them is they don't get back into power and most of them will have other
career paths organised if that happens.

"risk being in a very bad way when food shortage comes along."
Who will be in a bad way? Not the members of govt. It's the poorer
members of UK who will feel the pinch first; govt memebrs are well-off
enough that they will be amongst the last to fail to buy. And who will be
to blame? The UK farmers of course; "We've paid them all these subsidies
out of our hard earned taxes and now they won't provide the food when we
need it". All at a moment's notice, of course.

"Find out how hard hearted the grain merchants really are."
Yes. Well they are in business and business has no place for any sort of
heart; just the bottom line for your investors now and some provision for
future business (either as the current company or a successor which may or
may not be in the same line of business). That is the function of a
business. Any "heart" may be in individual members not in the business
itself. That "heart" is one of the functions of governments; or should be.

I agree wholeheartedly with your sentiments. Just think you are being a bit
over-optimistic if you think that UK govt will feel any obligations in
this line.

Cheers
Jane
Gordon

Gordon Couger
Stillwater, OK
www.couger.com/gcouger

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Jane G : : S Devon