Tim Lamb wrote in message
...
If I could produce figures to show that each euro of subsidy reduced
consumer food prices by more than that amount there might be a
justification. If I could dissect how much of the £4,000,000,000? ends
up as dividends for retailer shareholders and wages for value added
activities beyond the farm gate there might be a justification. If I
knew the proportion which is not spent importing farm
chemicals/machiner
y/fertilisers but is recycled within the UK economy there might be a
justification. But I can't so I will continue claiming and look
forward
to the day when it is someone else's problem.

given that in the UK supermarket chains buy beef and milk at below the
true cost of production and certainly cheaper than they buy them in the
US and yet sell them for higher prices than they could get away with in
the US, I would say that a very high proportion of this money goes
straight into the retain sector.
Given the way that the financial system works in the UK, if you cut
subsidies to agriculture, a knock on effect would be a fall in retail
profitability and share values leading to an awful lot of people out
there having to make larger pension contributions.

--
Jim Webster

"The pasture of stupidity is unwholesome to mankind"

'Abd-ar-Rahman b. Muhammad b. Khaldun al-Hadrami'