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“It’s really a perfect storm,” says Schlegel, a hog farmer himself. First is the unprecedented rise in the value of the Canadian dollar — now trading about par with the U.S. dollar — which means pork prices north of the border have halved. Meanwhile, feed prices have almost doubled, which Schlegel says is primarily due to ethanol demand and fuel policies.
Thirdly, Schlegel says, a cure for a difficult hog disease called circle virus has worked “wonderfully” — and cruelly — for the industries in Canada and the United States. “Our pigs are healthy, happy — they’re growing and making it to market,” he says.
The overabundance of pigs means too many people aren’t making enough money. Canada plans to eliminate 2 percent of the North American breeding swine. “Canada and the United States are about 50 percent of the world export market,” he says, indicating the global significance of the North American market.
Cripes!
Here is a concept. How about letting the pigs live and just not slaughter them. What the wonderfully enlightened Canadian government is purposing is flat out murder. Its one thing to kill them for food, its quite another to kill them just so some flapping headed farmer can turn a nice profit.
Didn’t FDR try junk like this? Government managing supply and prices and wages.
GET RID OF THE ETHANOL BIOFUEL PROGRAM!!
That way the piggies can live (until we eat them), we can afford to buy groceries, and the environment benefits.
No-lose proposition.
#1 – Here is a concept. How about letting the pigs live and just not slaughter them…
Remember this day, gquaglia, and remember as well as the day yesterday I told you to remember well…
For on this day, the day after yesterday, I for the second time say, “I totally agree with you.”
.
Do I detect a sparkle in your eyes when I say that?
Send them to I dunno…Africa?
Actually, Hoover started it (the Federal Farm Board), the Board created a bubble whose bursting destroyed agriculture, then FDR expanded it to pay farmers not to produce things, preventing normal market recovery until after he finally died.
Is there nothing but city folk on this blog? Pigs are food not pets.
#7 Lots of farmers have pig pets. People say they are smarter than a lot breeds of dogs. Most people also say they taste better than dogs. That is a double positive in my cookbook.
When you let the piggies live, does that mean they buy their own corn to eat?
If so, I’m all for it. Otherwise, wasn’t it corn prices that is the initial/main cause? How are kiddie piggies going to earn that money?
Same thing happened to beef in USA last year.
Same thing next year with water shortages.
I say donate them to a 3rd world country and give them a tax deduction for the gift.
#10 – Well just write to the Canadian Head of State about it. Oh, wait. Canada’s Head of State lives in the UK…
Pork farmer:”I can’t sell my plunder at these prices and make a profit, gimme 50 mil eh”
Gov:”Here ya go, but you need to kill some pigs”
Pork farmer:”No problimo eh”
gquaglia:”Don’t murder the pigs!”
The Pirate:”I’ll get rid of em for ya”
Suspicious gquaglia & gov: “How?”
The Pirate:”I’ll release em all over in Mecca, greased, it will be a funny”
Gov:”The muslims will kill them”
gquaglia:”They’ll still die, that would be murder!”
The pirate:”Na, it would be a God sanctioned pork jihad haven’t you heard? Thats not murder and the resulting corpses will have no value, except intense irritation, what-so-ever”
>>Oh, wait. Canada’s Head of State lives in
>>the UK…
As I mentioned to you before, Patty: “The Governor General (currently Michaëlle Jean), serves as the head of state except when Queenie is in town.”
Ethanol is bullshit.
Ethanol is bullshit.
Ethanol is bullshit.
Keep repeating that until everybody realizes ethanol is bullshit.
It raises corn prices.
It raises feed prices.
it’s expensive to produce.
it doesn’t help with gasoline
There has been no proven positive impact with the environment.
Furthermore, I’m sure it’s wrapped in scandal.
Ethanol is a lie.
Really, any alternate fuel is a lie until we find a means of using more alternative energy to make alternative energy. I heard Solar’s getting pretty good…
ok thats a fail, my bad 🙂
#14–Brandon==even the current Presidential candidates don’t say “ethanol” these days. I wonder if that is on purpose.
Very sad when the government tries to do something good and fubars.
but then, ethanol never was about finding alternative fuel. It was about selling corporate welfare to the sheeple.
BEST GOV POLICY TO DEVELOP ALT ENERGY AND SAVE THE UNIVERSE?==add tax to gas. Let the market find the alternative.
#13 – That’s right. My bad. He’s also the CiC of the Military and can dissolve Parliament, etc.
>>BEST GOV POLICY TO DEVELOP ALT ENERGY AND
>>SAVE THE UNIVERSE?==add tax to gas. Let
>>the market find the alternative.
I’m with ya there, Bobster. I wouldn’t mind $6.00/gallon gas. I got rid of my car, let my drivers license lapse, and now take the bus, walk, or ride my bike wherever I need to go. On special occasions, I may take a cab, but I try to avoid special occasions. And I use all my powers (quoting Vito Corleone talking to the undertaker) to avoid having to take an airplane ANYWHERE.
#18–Mustard. Yep, and there would be room to spare. Gas over 8 bucks a gallon in Europe, and they are beating us economically.
Still no energy policy from the Repugs==mcain, a gas tax holiday? That was yesterdays thread, as he is yesterdays hero.
#19 “Still no energy policy from the Repugs=”
And the Damns have a workable energy policy? LOL
>>And the Damns have a workable energy policy? LOL
GAS TAX! GAS TAX!! GAS TAX!!!
#20–pat==Bush for some unfathomable reason can get almost any legislation he wants. Nice you want to defend his incompetency by the inaction of his co-conspirators.
Imagine==JUST IMAGINE!!!==where this country would be today if Bush, the oil man/energy expert, had taken his own criticism of late, and initiated an energy program?
He might have gone down as only the second worse presdent of the USA. He had his chance.
#22 – Okay. Whatever. Where is the Damns workable energy policy?
#21 – As I mentioned, just the tax side won’t do it. There are earlier problems that have blocked alternatives. Also, the time between implementing the tax (driving energy prices through the roof) and bringing online alternatives would cripple the economy, especially with its current state due to repub mismanagement.
#23–“Okay. Whatever. Where is the Damns workable energy policy?”
I think they are too busy figuring out whether or not Obama should wear a flag pin.
Fucking idiots all.
#21 A gas tax would be ok if it really helped fund alternative fuels. But you know as well as I do, it will be used for everything but that. More then likely it will end up in some politician’s pork project.
“I say donate them to a 3rd world country and give them a tax deduction for the gift.”
Seriously. I read last week that Hati had no rice and cooking oil.(Cheap American imports killed off their own rice industry and now that prices are rising they have nothing to fall back on.) If they’re just going to kill these pigs anyway. Why not give them away?
Pat,
It’s “Her Excellency the Right Honourable Michaëlle Jean”
Re:piggies
It’s a supply/demand thing. I can’t imagine Ford destroying cars to reduce the supply to drive up prices.
On the other hand, finished cars don’t need to be fed, housed, medicated … all costs that cannot be recovered due to an over supply.
All round sad situation.
#12 “pork jihad”
Is that some kinda euphemism?
#24 “I think they are too busy figuring out whether or not Obama should wear a flag pin.”
At least it’s cheaper that a stupid war.
Try reading the article first.
“Those “eliminated” hogs will be killed — and not all of the meat will end up on dinner tables. Schlegel says food banks in Canada will receive 25 percent of the rendered meat, and the rest will go to the pet food industry.”
So, the pigs killed will be used. Now you can all sleep at night.