Taxpayers to Buy Off Sugar Extortionists

[Puppycow]

Taxpayers to Buy Off Sugar Racketeers

A Not-So-Sweet Environmental Victory

There is currently a proposal for the state of Florida to buy out U.S. Sugar Corp. for $1.7 billion, a premium over its fair market value, so that that part of the Everglades given over to sugar cane production can be restored to its natural state. This is good for the environment, but the only reason it was ever economically feasible to grow sugar cane in Florida, not an ideal climate zone for sugar cane, is because of the protectionist racket of the Sugar Barons. American taxpayers and consumers have been subsidizing unnecessary destruction of our precious and irreplacable natural environment so that a few wealthy Sugar Barons could make unreasonable profits by excluding foreign competition.

Let's ignore, for the moment, the absurdity of Florida's paying a premium price to a company that has done hundreds of millions, if not billions, of dollars in damage to the state's most precious natural resource, draining swaths of the Everglades and polluting the rest with fertilizer runoff.

Instead, let's get in touch with our inner libertarians and fulminate about this deal's biggest outrage: it rewards a company that has been gouging American taxpayers and consumers for the better part of a century. In 1937, for example, only six years after U.S. Sugar Corp.'s creation by General Motors tycoon Charles Stewart Mott (obligatory Web tangent: his son, the frisky philanthropist Stewart Mott, just died), the company was already getting a $430,420 government subsidy, or about $6.4 million in today's dollars. Now, as the country's biggest cane-sugar producer, the company enjoys annual subsidies worth tens of millions.

The U.S. sugar industry as a whole has been fattening itself at the taxpayers' expense since the War of 1812. In a 2000 study, the Government Accountability Office estimated that the various sugar quotas, tariffs, and price supports cost American consumers about $1.9 billion a year. Thanks to these policies, we pay considerably more than the world market price for sugar. We lose more jobs than we gain. (In fact, the Commerce Department reported that for every job saved in the sugar industry, three are lost in the confectionery industry.) And we punish poor countries that grow the stuff more cheaply by blocking their exports, then bitch about the billions in foreign aid we send them each year. Meanwhile, our elected representatives are so busy diving for sugar cubes ($2.7 million worth of congressional campaign contributions in 2006, mostly to Democrats) that when the Farm Bill recently passed, it included increases in the support price for sugar. Ain't that sweet?

 

[WildCat]

Yep, Chicago used to have more candy manufacturers than any other US city. But because of high sugar prices, most moved or went out of business.

 

[Puppycow]

If this leads eventually to the end of sugar protectionism, it will be worth it, even if it is galling to have to buy off the racketeers.

 

[Babbylonian]

Yep, Chicago used to have more candy manufacturers than any other US city. But because of high sugar prices, most moved or went out of business.

Aye, and how about the evil use of high-fructose corn syrup in our sodas. I'd certainly prefer to rot out my teeth using Coca-Cola with real sugar in it (and not have to pay an import premium).

 

[Darth Rotor]

In 1937, for example, only six years after U.S. Sugar Corp.'s creation by General Motors tycoon Charles Stewart Mott (obligatory Web tangent: his son, the frisky philanthropist Stewart Mott, just died), the company was already getting a $430,420 government subsidy, or about $6.4 million in today's dollars.

FDR, no surprise.

It would be better to ensure that Cuba devastates its natural resources making sugar, rather than Florida, so that Cuba can strip its island to the dirt, as Haiti has done, and then ship its poor and starving and huddled masses elsewhere, like Florida, where they can live in the Everglades.

Related idea: how are the sugar beet farmers handling this, I wonder?

DR

 

[Beerina]

A Not-So-Sweet Environmental Victory

There is currently a proposal for the state of Florida to buy out U.S. Sugar Corp. for $1.7 billion, a premium over its fair market value, so that that part of the Everglades given over to sugar cane production can be restored to its natural state. This is good for the environment, but the only reason it was ever economically feasible to grow sugar cane in Florida, not an ideal climate zone for sugar cane, is because of the protectionist racket of the Sugar Barons.

Careful. Twisting and twisting and grrrrrrrrr twist! like that and you may strain your neck.

Free market capitalism is why people tried sugar cane in Florida. This is how it is supposed to work, and will work, barring government intervention.

Which is what is apparently happening.

This is only a problem for people imagining some great problem occurs when part of the Everglades is filled in and used. You people voted for this nonsense, and now you're surprised you're actually getting it?!?!?

 

[quixotecoyote]

Careful. Twisting and twisting and grrrrrrrrr twist! like that and you may strain your neck.

Free market capitalism is why people tried sugar cane in Florida. This is how it is supposed to work, and will work, barring government intervention.

Billions of dollars in government subsidiies is the same thing as free market without intervention?

 

[corplinx]

Well, I'm glad the guy ahead in the polls to become the next president isn't a naive protectionist.

Crap.

 

[Puppycow]

Free market capitalism is why people tried sugar cane in Florida. This is how it is supposed to work, and will work, barring government intervention.

Which is what is apparently happening.

It's not a free market when there are subsidies on US sugar and quotas on foreign sugar.

Well, I'm glad the guy ahead in the polls to become the next president isn't a naive protectionist.

Crap.

If there was a candidate who was right about every issue it would be nice.

 

[TragicMonkey]

If there was a candidate who was right about every issue it would be nice.

Sorry, I won't be eligible to run for the presidency until 2012. Stupid age requirement!

 

[corplinx]

Sorry, I won't be eligible to run for the presidency until 2012. Stupid age requirement!

If you loved america more you would be the right age.

 

[davefoc]

Well, I'm glad the guy ahead in the polls to become the next president isn't a naive protectionist.

Crap.

As a person that intends to vote for Obama I'd like to make a small defense of him here. I doubt that he is naive about this. I think he realizes that the American agricultural subsidy program is disastrous on many levels and wildly against the general interest. I think he voted for the agricultural subsidy bill because he is a cynical politician trying to get elected.

Did you have somebody running for president that isn't a cynical politician trying to get elected that I should vote for instead?

 

[Puppycow]

As a person that intends to vote for Obama I'd like to make a small defense of him here. I doubt that he is naive about this. I think he realizes that the American agricultural subsidy program is disastrous on many levels and wildly against the general interest. I think he voted for the agricultural subsidy bill because he is a cynical politician trying to get elected.

Did you have somebody running for president that isn't a cynical politician trying to get elected that I should vote for instead?

It wasn't just democrats, either. They couldn't have overridden Bush's veto without a lot of help from republicans.

I think the basic problem is that 80 or 90% of people hear words like "agricultural policy" and their eyes glaze over. They just don't care: let the experts handle that. The only people who do care about agricultural policy are those who have vested interests. So we get the agricultural policy that the vested interests want.