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[Clansgian AT wmconnect.com]

> >The question might need to be asked if the gov't stopped dishing out the 
> hand-outs, would big Ag continue to produce at reduced profits? 
> >Isn't that what James(?) was talking about last week?

I read the article with interest.  The conclusions are a non-sequitor.  

We already have several paradigms to consider.  In this country just as soon 
as investing money in food commodities was less profitable than investing in 
ethanol, all the money, times, land, resources, investments began to go for 
biofuel production.  Food prices went up, not because of a consensus nor 
cartel 
agreeing to higher prices, but rather food was taken off the market because 
something else competed for all the resources needed to produce it, including 
loans and futures.

Look at Zimbabwe.  Just as soon as the complex financial network that 
supported the farms with loans  and a formal commodities market broke down, 
it didn't 
matter how much anyone offered for food -  there wasn't any.  Those holding 
the farms didn't say, "Well, let's grow what we can, after all we can charge 
pretty much whatever we damn well please..."  Instead they farms fell fallow 
or 
fell into ruin entirely.  

James