Posted by mack on September 4, 2019, 11:18 am, in reply to "Re: 'Cheaper food'"
This is why I don't usually get involved in this nonsense.
Last words on this:
'Subsidies, as Keith pointed out (particularly in farming) are to protect the market, not the farmer or the consumer.'
That's a pretty gross over simplification. The point of the subsidies is to stabilize the market which is not the same thing as protecting it. The effect is that it does indeed protect the farmer and the consumer, obviously. There are all kinds of things wrong with the SFP - the largest payment, but I'm not going down that road.
'Surely that is obvious'
NO it is not obvious. It's an over simplification. There's a lot of that going on.
'The single farm payment is without any doubt a market protector and nothing else.'
There you go again. It helps to regulate the market and prevents excessive swings on prices; uncertainty for consumers and farmers alike.
But let's get to the real meat; let's explain yet again what happened here.
Someone, when asked, made a claim that 'Cheaper food' would be a benefit for the UK working class as a result of leaving the EU. When challenged for some source of information that would support this all he could muster was a question: So who will pay the CAP? Obviously this person believed that the subsidy payments made to farmers keep prices higher (which is not true), but equally he knows precisely nothing about his own argument because the answer that contradicts his belief that cheaper food will come when the CAP is no longer paid is that the UK govt. will continue to pay all EU farm subsidies without exception. Funny how this hasn't been acknowledged as it's hard to imagine someone being more wrong than that. Instead, name calling is employed; how mature and reasonable.
What to do? Acknowledge you were wrong and reconsider? No, we'll have nothing so obvious and reasonable here, just continue with your usual bollocks.
Funny that the the most rampantly pro leave voice on these pages, when - for the first time I can see - actually attempted to give some substance to his argument in place of childish comments about 'millionaire's masturbation clubs' or some variant of 'fascists' (and so on ad nauseam), that person came up with the idea that cheaper food would materialize as a result of the farm subsidies no longer being paid. But they ARE being paid, aren't they. So his argument could hardly be more wrong; it's just a fantasy he has. The fact that he can't make a coherent argument about the one single issue he has raised speaks volumes. Why do you skirt around this glaring load of bollocks instead of telling him he's flat wrong, as I'm pretty sure you know he is. His reaction to be shown to be a bit mixed up? Abuse. He should try thanking me for educating him, so he doesn't make a bigger fool of himself trying the same thing elsewhere. Alo, given that his argument is so wrong on this, perhaps he'd like to try another idea on how things might get better? I doubt it though.
Let me just reiterate - I don't take a side in this - so please don't try to put me on one. It just gets my goat when people make absurd claims like the above that are demonstrably wrong. And the reaction is both priceless and a litte disturbing in its unreasonableness.