NCBA President Bill Donald on passage of trade agreement

[mrj]

Sorry to disappoint you, but I don't know what gin tastes like, since it isn't my 'drink' of choice. However, I may find out as I'm getting desperate for safer help for arthritis pain and just might give the raisins steeped in gin a try.

Is NAFTA the ONLY basis for your belief that trade agreements only benefit the 'other' nation(s)?

mrj

[Oldtimer]

[mrj]

OT, how many people in this country do you think are on some sort of assistance? Especially for food. Remember, the poorest in this country are considered wealthy by even the middle classes in many nation, and truly are, judging by what even the poorest families have here, compared with many other countries.

When I eat out, I see an awful lot of people also eating out, and they ARE eating steaks. The Texas Roadhouse and Out Back and other decent steak houses were so full, we gave up and went to a burger place a couple of times during the Cheyenne Frontier Days rodeo last summer. Granted, we don't eat out much excepting when we travel, and these mid-western states are not suffering as much (yet!) as in more heavily populated places. But, that is largely because people out here don't live as 'large' any time as many do in more populous places.

If any of you who believe we should not export, and that we should make sure everyone in this country can "afford to eat steak", how little are you going to be able to get for cattle you sell and still make a living raising cattle???

BTW, no small amount of what we export is parts of the animal people in the USA do not eat!!! Are you all going to find a market for all that stuff???

Something the Beef Checkoff has been doing is to work with many grocery stores and consumers, getting the stores to show consumers how to cut up larger cuts of beef into steaks and small roasts to put into their freezers at lower cost than buying a meals' worth at a time. Some stores even do the cutting themselves at no or very low cost, ending up with consumer paying considerably less than in buying a piece at a time. The consumer groups they have worked with appreciate the effort, as well as the lower priced, quality beef, they say.

Since schools no longer teach much in the way of home economics, some supermarkets are stepping up and showing consumers how to make better choices, and the Beef Checkoff benefits us by partnering in the effort to show how to make better beef choices for the consumer families. And some supermarkets in larger places have been doing this for a very long time, even assisting the Beef Checkoff in getting involved, especially with the recipes and beef information we did the research to assure accuracy of the information.

Re. export trade, it is a fact of life, and it is about time the US ag folks get a fair shake in the tariffs. Those three bills have been ready for a very long time, waiting on politicians to get desperate enough to finally act on them.

We have pushed for a long time to get some people involved in negotiations who had a prior experience as GOOD horse traders, tho. Ours in the past have been way too generous wih ou good products, and too willing to let others' keep their tariffs way too high.

mrj