Sandhusker said:Burnt, "There you go displaying that faulty reasoning again. You seem to presume that the reason they need bailout money is because of foreign competition."
The presumption is all yours. Where did I even hint that foreign competition was the problem?
Because banning foreign competition is what this thread is about, diverter!!!! How stupid do you think we are to slip that one past us??
You think the country should reward THEM with bailout money just because they are American?
No, I don't. I think that companies that can't compete should be allowed to fail.
Perhaps your would answer this question - would a bank throw free or no-interest money at an inefficient customer when his neighbour could produce the same thing for less money? And that efficient neighbour is also borrowing money from the same bank at premium interest rates?
That's a poor example, a bank doesn't take a cut off of a productive company like the government does. A bank takes the same amount whether you make $50 on your calves or $150.
Well, well, my examples are stupid but yours are solid, it appears. That is why I will not address your "examples".
I don't think that the government should be held hostage by the domestic suppliers as you seem to think. If the Canadian widget is 50 cents and the US one is $1.50, clearly the public's money is better spent on the Canuck version. However, you have to realize that, because of the net effect of the purchase via the collection of taxes, that $1.50 will actually be less. How much less is for a good economist to pencil out, and that will be the decider.
What you fail to realize is that there is often about .50 cents worth of graft money in that $1.50 product because it is a captive market. That is a strange thing since you sure like to rail on the effect of captive supply in the cattle business.
We had an issue much like this in our town. We had a lot that the village was going to sell. We got two bids, one was twice the amount of the other. We accepted the lower bid. The reason was that the guy that submitted the highest bid wasn't going to do anything with the land, he just didn't want the other guy to have it. It would of turned into a weed patch. The guy with the lowest bid was going to build a business on that lot. That would increase the tax assessment of the land. That business would pump revenue into the community and create wealth. If we were measuring how much money we would have in one month, the highest bid made sense. However, we looked at the bigger picture and realized that the village would make much more money over the long haul by accepting the lower bid. This is the same concept as a government buying from those that pay taxes to it. You have to look at the bigger picture and see where the money really is going to be made/saved.
If the buyer got a cheap piece of land because of favoritism, was he not then the beneficiary of an unfair subsidy?? Thus, his product created an unfair market for others in his line of business?
So yes, it was good for him and city hall, but not so good for his competition which would eventually suffer because of unfair government decisions. There you go again with your smoke and mirrors stuff, Sandhusker.