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July 2, 2009
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Abe Novick: Up, up, and aliya
July 1, 2009
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The Kosher Gourmet
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June 30, 2009
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Caroline B. Glick: Ideologue-in-Chief
June 29, 2009
The Jewish Ethicist
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Steven Emerson: ACLU pushing for more money for Hamas
June 26, 2009
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Caroline B. Glick: Barack Obama vs. International Law
June 25, 2009
Rabbi Shimon Apisdorf: The Absurd Power of Truth
Jordan "Gorf" Gorfinkle's strip:
Everything's Relative
June 24, 2009
Rabbi Yonason Goldson: Advancement of technology is a wake-up call for humanity
The Kosher Gourmet by Andrea Weigl: Summer on a stick: Making frozen treats can be easy, creative and fun
June 23, 2009
Martin M. Bodek: 'On Surnames': And so, We Begin
Caroline B. Glick: The Obama Effect
June 22, 2009
The Jewish Ethicist by Rabbi Dr. Asher Meir: Working for a corrupt firm
N. Richard Greenfield : Where are American Jews?
June 19, 2009
Rabbi Abraham J. Twerski: Emotion v. intellect
Caroline B. Glick: Israel's rare opportunity
June 18, 2009
Jonathan Rosenblum: Sometimes it is more essential to define the nature of evil than good
Jordan "Gorf" Gorfinkle's strip:
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June 17, 2009
Rabbi Yonason Goldson: The Language of Confusion
The Kosher Gourmet by Linda Gassenheimer: Nothing pleases Dad more than a thick, juicy onion-smothered steak. Add home-Baked Potato Chips and …
June 16, 2009
The Jewish Ethicist by Rabbi Dr. Asher Meir: Career v. Careersism
Caroline B. Glick: Obama's losing streak and Israel
Richard Z. Chesnoff: Palestinians: Never Missing an Opportunity …
June 15, 2009
Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu: How Judea and Samaria can become 'Palestine'
Daniel Pipes: Where Netanyahu's speech failed
June 12, 2009
Rabbi Abraham J. Twerski: Some big thoughts about not acting so big
Caroline B. Glick:
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June 11, 2009
Victor Davis Hanson: Our historically challenged President
Mitch Albom: Beware the True Believers
Lewis Grossberger: What we learn from the new Hitler photos
June 10, 2009
Mort Zuckerman: What Obama and his advisors won't -- or refuse to -- grasp about Israel and the Muslim world
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by Steve Petusevsky Lotsa pasta: Tips, techniques and (amazing) taste
June 9, 2009
Anne Bayefsky: Obama's stunning offense to Israel and the Jewish people
Frank J. Gaffney, Jr.: America's first Muslim president?
June 8, 2009
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Mark Steyn: A superpower that feeds on mediocrity cannot survive for long on leftovers from the past
Richard Z. Chesnoff: How do you say 'kumbaya' in Arabic?
June 5, 2009
Rabbi Abraham J. Twerski: In quest of spirituality
Caroline B. Glick: Obama's Arabian dreams
Charles Krauthammer: The Settlements Myth
June 4, 2009
Paul Greenberg: The War Comes to Little Rock
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by Judy Hevrdejs: Splash it on! Tap your inner jazz musician and improvise when stirring up a vinaigrette
June 3, 2009
The Jewish Ethicist by Rabbi Dr. Asher Meir: Q. Should terrible teacher be exposed?
Jonathan Rosenblum: The Israel Lobby: Missing in Action
June 2, 2009
Dennis Prager: The Speech President Obama Won't Dare Give in Egypt
Frank J. Gaffney, Jr.: Pressure on Israel raises war risk
Oct. 29, 2003
Mortimer B. Zuckerman: Graffiti On History's Walls (MUST-READ!)
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Jewish World Review
Feb. 9, 2005
/ 30 Shevat, 5765
Fifth Avenue farmers
By
John Stossel
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http://www.JewishWorldReview.com |
Times Square. The Empire State Building. Grand Central Terminal. Ah, the sights, the smells, the peaceful sounds of farm country.
Farm country? When politicians start handing out subsidies, you never can tell. Hundreds of federally subsidized farmers live in New York City. Among them is Mike Sonnenfeldt. He lives in the same building as Steven Spielberg and Steve Martin, and he gets cotton subsidies. I asked him whether he grows any cotton.
"I have no idea," he said. "I bought a piece of property that got traded for a piece of property. ... I'm not sure exactly even why I get (the subsidies)."
Politicians often think nothing happens unless they do it. Some say we won't have an ample food supply unless we protect farms with subsidies. Congress passes farm subsidies, and presidents sign them.
The politicians don't talk much about people like Mike Sonnenfeldt. They talk about protecting "family farms." Democratic vice-presidential candidate John Edwards spoke of "fighting for family farmers." Actually, big agribusinesses receive most federal farm subsidies, but some of the money does reach real, live family farmers, such as Fred and Larry Starrh.
The Starrhs grow mostly cotton on their 12,000-acre spread in California. It's hard to think of them as needy with all that land, but without subsidies, they say, they couldn't make a profit.
Most businesses that can't make a profit go out of business. Woolworth closed. So did TWA. So do 20,000 restaurants every year. It's that freedom to fail that has helped make America as prosperous as it is, because it frees people to do more productive things.
But not on subsidized farms. When the Starrhs can't make a profit, you give them a handout, although Fred Starrh refuses to call it a handout. "I look at it," he says, "as a way to maintain a viable agriculture in this country."
That's the myth. Subsidies don't maintain viable agriculture. Viable agriculture maintains itself, because people are willing to buy its products at more than the costs of growing them. In fact, most crops are not subsidized. Not lettuce, peas, potatoes, plums, peaches, broccoli or green beans. There's no shortage of any of these. Yet the Starrhs and others say farming can't survive without subsidies.
"If I can't grow my 6,000 acres of cotton because the subsidy's gone," said Larry Starrh, "where am I going to go with that acreage? Do I just idle it?"
Subsidies are like a heroin fix. They feel good, but they lead to more subsidies.
The first subsidy makes cotton more expensive. That causes a problem for manufacturers, so we give them a subsidy, too. That subsidy hurts poor farmers worldwide, so we send them more money in foreign aid. But that's not enough for our cotton farmers. We give them another subsidy for the water they use and another subsidy to advertise their cotton overseas. We give away billions in handouts, without which, say the Starrhs, American cotton which Americans value would be replaced by foreign cotton.
The foreign cotton Fred Starrh mentioned China, India and Pakistan as likely sources sounds like a good deal to me. The free market puts resources to work where they're most productive. If Americans bought cheap cotton overseas, we'd have more money to spend on other things.
If Fred and Larry Starrh got out of the cotton business, they might become self-supporting in some other line of work, and their land could be used, by them or by someone else, for some more profitable purpose. If Third World farmers became the world's leading growers of cotton, we and they would benefit.
But Fred and Larry Starrh maintain that cotton farmers deserve subsidies and that subsidized farmers are not "welfare queens," which is what I called them. "I totally disagree with you, John," said Fred Starrh. "And the legislature is with us at this point, so we're winning, and you're losing." They are winning in the political arena, which shows American politics has degenerated into nothing more than a competition for the privilege of putting public force to work for your private interests and against everyone else's.
The Starrhs find the title of welfare queen offensive. "Change it to king. Welfare kings. Because 'queens' is bad in California," says Larry Starrh, with a laugh. "Call me Sponge Bob, please."
A "sponge" he is, to the tune of nearly $3.5 million of your money.
Give Me a Break.
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STOSSEL'S LATEST
Give Me a Break
Stossel explains how ambitious bureaucrats, intellectually lazy reporters, and greedy lawyers make your life worse even as they claim to protect your interests. Taking on such sacred cows as the FDA, the War on Drugs, and scaremongering environmental activists -- and backing up his trademark irreverence with careful reasoning and research -- he shows how the problems that government tries and fails to fix can be solved better by the extraordinary power of the free market. Sales help fund JWR.
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JWR contributor John Stossel is co-anchor of ABC News' "20/20." To comment, please click here.
02/02/05: Buy a bridge? This $200 Million one isn't for sale it's being paid for by taxpayers and it leads almost nowhere
01/28/05: Aren't science and scholarship supposed to ask questions and open our eyes to facts?
01/26/05: Forced altruism
© 2005, by JFS Productions, Inc.
Distributed by Creators Syndicate, Inc.
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