[Stormsmith]

Canada?

[jimjam]

Canada?

and Brazil. Both countries were tauntingly mentioned by a Chinese official.

[Stormsmith]

I suppose Russia, too. Canada and Russia are huge, with smaller populations. And global warming is to our mutual advantage, agriculturally.

[Kaiserschmarrn]

The Chinese government has been and will continue to use its economic muscle to strengthen its own industries and domestic companies at the expense of companies outside of China. They have laid out a plan whereby government investment in certain industries will result in China's eventual leadership in these industries. They are not acting fairly, but this all gets lost by Trump's bellicose behavior. There has to be a better way of negotiating better trade deals between the two largest economies, but Trump can't seem to get out of his own way. He's using an antagonistic approach that may have worked in the real estate industry but does not work between governments.

Trump fired the first shot in this war towards his allies. He started by leaving the Paris agreement, then he tried to force Europe to pay more for NATO and has been throwing insults and lies in Europes general direction.

China has never acted fairly and everybody knows it. Yet nobody seems to think that China's protectionism is detrimental to its prosperity, whereas protectionist policies in America will surely be its economic downfall or something. If Trump's tariffs mean "starting a war", then China has been at war with the west forever, and it doesn't look like China is going to come into the fold of the free trade world to the extent it was hoped and expected, much less into the democratic world. It's about time this is openly acknowledged rather than continuing to hope and even styling China as the new free trade leader, as has happened in Davos last year.

The same can be said about NATO. If countries are not paying their fair share towards what is supposed to be a military alliance, then pointing this out and demanding that the amount pledged is actually paid seems rather benign. It's the free riding that should be regarded as insulting and the starting point of the conflict, not the legitimate response.

If your gripe is purely about style, then this is even more of a non-issue. The world knows Trump by now and has adapted to his unconventional behaviour.

[Crantag]

Are you claiming you could sell it for more than you paid for it? This sounds like bullshit.

Give me the model, trim package, and list of modifications if any. Give me what you paid for it, where you bought it. Was is used or new? If used was it certified pre-owned? How many miles were on it when you bought it, and what are the miles on it now. Last, in which city would you resell the car?

Wasn't claiming that at all.

I was claiming that over the past couple of months, the value has depreciated at a negative rate.

I.e., the value is well down of the mark of when I bought it, but the past couple of months the value has increased over the month before.

I have an interest rate of less than 1%, also.

I bought the car brand new, and of course it depreciated very much as soon as I bought it. According to the Bluebook tracking, last month the value went up 3% over the month previous, and it went up the previous month a little as well.

[Crantag]

China’s aggressive response to Mr. Trump’s tariffs is aimed squarely at products produced in the American heartland, a region that helped send him to the White House. A trade war with China could be particularly devastating to rural economies, especially for pig farmers and soybean and corn growers. Nearly two-thirds of United States soybean exports go to China. In the meantime, Mr. Trump has been escalating his threats, and shows no sign of backing off. On Thursday night, he threatened to impose tariffs on an additional $100 billion in Chinese products. The White House strategy to press China to reform its economic behavior seemed unclear.

No problem .... trade wars are easy to win.............I got this from a guy who sells real estate :?:

At the same time Brazilian farmers are lining up and tipping their hats to China.

A reduction in soybean production might be a good thing too.

Just how would you suppose that?

You know, Soybeans are a really important input, in foods like soy sauce, tofu, and indeed a lot of other things, so there is a persistent demand. That's sound economics to have such a market. You know that soybeans are also a relatively good crop to grow from an environmental standpoint.

Soybeans have a pretty interesting history. In Japan, soybean husks replaced fish refuse (herring in particular if memory serves) in Japan as fertilizer, when the latter became scarce. Soybeans also fed Japanese troops in what was then Manchuria during the Russo-Japanese War (while at the same time, they also fed Russia's draft animals). In addition to this, Japan was once mostly vegetarian, and soy protein provided needed sustenance to the country.

Soybeans are actually a pretty good crop to be into.

[One Degree]

@Crantag
98% of soybeans are used for animal feed. I don’t mind going back to corn fed beef.
It is only the oil that has wide spread food use.

[Crantag]

China has never acted fairly and everybody knows it. Yet nobody seems to think that China's protectionism is detrimental to its prosperity, whereas protectionist policies in America will surely be its economic downfall or something. If Trump's tariffs mean "starting a war", then China has been at war with the west forever, and it doesn't look like China is going to come into the fold of the free trade world to the extent it was hoped and expected, much less into the democratic world. It's about time this is openly acknowledged rather than continuing to hope and even styling China as the new free trade leader, as has happened in Davos last year.

The same can be said about NATO. If countries are not paying their fair share towards what is supposed to be a military alliance, then pointing this out and demanding that the amount pledged is actually paid seems rather benign. It's the free riding that should be regarded as insulting and the starting point of the conflict, not the legitimate response.

If your gripe is purely about style, then this is even more of a non-issue. The world knows Trump by now and has adapted to his unconventional behaviour.

You just need to have more than a base ignorant understanding of China to be disassociated of the delusions you mentioned. China is, in fact, a socialist country. China also has no pretenses of moving to Democracy. It is not even in the cards in China.

The American supremacist view is that Democracy is the ultimate form of government, but this is just a group think, which is born of the traditional outlook of the US. China determines its leaders in an entirely different way. Politicians rise through the ranks of the Communist Party. Xi Jinping was a provincial governor before. Prior to that, he spent a short time in the military, and prior to that he was a youth workers' leader. How did he arrive in the latter position? His father was purged and imprisoned during the Cultural Revolution, his sister was murdered in his home by a mob, and he was sent off to dig ditches in the countryside. He subsequently rose up from this humble position.

How did Trump get where he is? He managed to garner enough votes to muster an electoral college victory, on the basis of his recognizably as a television celebrity, while garnering constant television coverage by saying outrageous things one after the next, and thus driving TV ratings for the networks that provided him all the attention.

So yeah, China isn't looking to emulate the US on this. You can let go of your delusions to the contrary (which were merely grounded in ignorance from the start).

[Crantag]

98% of soybeans are used for animal feed. I don’t mind going back to corn fed beef.
It is only the oil that has wide spread food use.

Soybean meal.

And so what. That just shows that once the beans are pressed for oil there is a ready use for the meal which is left over. That sounds like nothing other than an additional benefit.

Soybeans actually return nutrients to soil. I am presuming corn production is much more dependent on chemical inputs.

[Kaiserschmarrn]

You just need to have more than a base ignorant understanding of China to be disassociated of the delusions you mentioned. China is, in fact, a socialist country. China also has no pretenses of moving to Democracy. It is not even in the cards in China.

The American supremacist view is that Democracy is the ultimate form of government, but this is just a group think, which is born of the traditional outlook of the US. China determines its leaders in an entirely different way. Politicians rise through the ranks of the Communist Party. Xi Jinping was a provincial governor before. Prior to that, he spent a short time in the military, and prior to that he was a youth workers' leader. How did he arrive in the latter position? His father was purged and imprisoned during the Cultural Revolution, his sister was murdered in his home by a mob, and he was sent off to dig ditches in the countryside. He subsequently rose up from this humble position.

How did Trump get where he is? He managed to garner enough votes to muster an electoral college victory, on the basis of his recognizably as a television celebrity, while garnering constant television coverage by saying outrageous things one after the next, and thus driving TV ratings for the networks that provided him all the attention.

So yeah, China isn't looking to emulate the US on this. You can let go of your delusions to the contrary (which were merely grounded in ignorance from the start).

I have described the hope and expectation of the west, not mine. It's obviously not happening and there may have never been a good reason to believe it would in the first place. My point is that too many people still believe that the western system - liberal democracy coupled with free trade and capitalism - is so attractive and irresistible that every country will eventually fall in line. There's a similar thinking going on to what underlies the Paris agreement: lead by example and the rest will somehow miraculously follow.

[One Degree]

Soybean meal.

And so what. That just shows that once the beans are pressed for oil there is a ready use for the meal which is left over. That sounds like nothing other than an additional benefit.

Soybeans actually return nutrients to soil. I am presuming corn production is much more dependent on chemical inputs.

So you don’t really care what your food tastes like as long as it’s efficient?
Admittedly this next part is a guess, but when corn became fuel instead of food the profit probably disappeared because of who they were selling to and competing with. This made soybeans more profitable, but my steak is disappointing.
The government is also instrumental in deciding what gets planted. If they want soybeans to go to China then soybeans will be more profitable.
I never said we should quit planting soybeans. I said reduction may not be all bad. Soybeans are planted because of profit, not benefits. This is due in large part to demand from China. If they don’t buy then that land will be switched to other crops. Many of which we now supplement from other countries. Turning a soybean field into a tomato field is easily done. I believe we should be more locally self sufficient in food. Reduction in soybeans would encourage that.

[Crantag]

So you don’t really care what your food tastes like as long as it’s efficient?
Admittedly this next part is a guess, but when corn became fuel instead of food the profit probably disappeared because of who they were selling to and competing with. This made soybeans more profitable, but my steak is disappointing.
The government is also instrumental in deciding what gets planted. If they want soybeans to go to China then soybeans will be more profitable.
I never said we should quit planting soybeans. I said reduction may not be all bad. Soybeans are planted because of profit, not benefits. This is due in large part to demand from China. If they don’t buy then that land will be switched to other crops. Many of which we now supplement from other countries. Turning a soybean field into a tomato field is easily done. I believe we should be more locally self sufficient in food. Reduction in soybeans would encourage that.

I quite doubt what you said there about meat quality. But, who knows. I am pretty sure you are just guessing though. It's pretty baseless as a matter for discussion, unless you can cite scientific research that a.) cows are being fed soybeans now as a result of soybeans being grown in response to increased demand from China and b.) that this has degraded the flavor of the meat. So, I think it is just baseless as a discussion topic, after all.

The government doesn't decide what farmers produce. The huge corporations which control the agricultural supply chains decide that.

And the use of corn as ethanol would not erode the profit basis. What it would have done is shift the demand curve because of the expansive new market for outputs. In economics, do you know what happens to price when demand increases?

However, it is possible that an oversupply of corn would result in a subsequent shift of the supply curve, once the corn was found to be not as suitable for fuel production as had been previously thought.

Here's a bit of trivia. There was a year or so when a surge of demand for corn from China occurred, in response to a shortage in the year's harvest in that country. This resulted in a temporary surge of demand for imported corn. Producers subsequently called for more corn, in the hope that this new source of demand would be a persistent one, but it turned out it was more of a one-time thing, and this led to an oversupply.

I think that was around 2004, if memory serves me right. Or maybe it was 2008 or so. Been a while since I read about that.

[One Degree]

Feeding Whole Soybeans to Cattle - AgEBB - University of Missouri
agebb.missouri.edu › mgt › lane
The bottom line when feeding whole soybeans to cattle can be summarized as follows: Whole soybeans can be used efficiently to supply protein in beef cattle rations. For best results limit whole soybeans to 15% of the total ration dry matter. Raw soybeans contain urease so they should not be mixed with urea in a ration.

@Crantag
Just first one I saw. You are the first person I have met that doubted the reduce use of corn affects taste. Most people prefer corn fed beef if they can afford it.
All of that is really besides the point. Reduced China demand will have a short term effect. Farmers will change their crops as demand requires. It has happened many times before as you point out. The farmers will adjust and we might even receive some of the benefits I mentioned. There is absolutely no reason to believe American farmers won’t simply adjust. They survived a long time without China or soybeans. Your arguments are based more on this affecting our farm exports and therefore trade imbalance. This seems a very minor concern to me in a world of 7 billion. Export of US farm products will always be in demand.
Edit: @Crantag
As far as the government in farming, they subsidize $25 billion a year which affects what farmers plant.
https://www.downsizinggovernment.org/ag ... /subsidies

[Crantag]

@Crantag
Just first one I saw. You are the first person I have met that doubted the reduce use of corn affects taste. Most people prefer corn fed beef if they can afford it.
All of that is really besides the point. Reduced China demand will have a short term effect. Farmers will change their crops as demand requires. It has happened many times before as you point out. The farmers will adjust and we might even receive some of the benefits I mentioned. There is absolutely no reason to believe American farmers won’t simply adjust. They survived a long time without China or soybeans. Your arguments are based more on this affecting our farm exports and therefore trade imbalance. This seems a very minor concern to me in a world of 7 billion. Export of US farm products will always be in demand.

It is still not clear that exports of soy to China have effected a degradation in the quality of meat, from that little instructional you posted about how to feed soy to cattle.

You seem to be grasping.

My cursory glance at the 98% figure you posted earlier seemed to suggest that it was mostly fed to pigs and chickens, anyway. Moreover, what is done with the byproduct of soy oil production doesn't necessarily substantially relate to the overall condition of meat farming, in the USA.

The point is you seem to be grasping a little.

I am just pointing out factors of consideration. The soy export market in China seems to have been a boon, and the proof is in the pudding moreover, given that farmers have shifted to meet the demand.

Because agriculture is annual, the circumstances will cause disruption and loss in the current annuum. The shift also might not be entirely as seamless as you suggest.

Loss of markets is not good for business, in a general sense. There is a difference between "agriculture will be effected" and "agriculture will go under", however.

[Godstud]

Corn-fed beef? A total waste of money, and food, that has no bearing on taste. Canadian and Australian beef are consistently high quality and among the best tasting in the world(ranking higher than the USA) and guess what? They aren't corn fed, but range raised with grain feed.

They have much higher standards for meat, than in the USA, however... It's that pesky socialism, right?

Soy to cattle as a food source? If it works, why not? I don't see this as being detrimental to the quality, however. Do you have evidence of this, or is it just cheeky banter?

[One Degree]

@Crantag
I added an edit above showing the US government pays $25 billion a year to farmers in subsidies which determines what farmers plant. You apparently were unaware of our government in farming.
As far as my ‘grasping’, you said I had no proof corn was being reduced in cattle feed. I provided a source that clearly indicated soybeans were being added. Why do you think the University bothered to provide the information?

[One Degree]

Corn-fed beef? A total waste of money, and food, that has no bearing on taste. Canadian and Australian beef are consistently high quality and among the best tasting in the world(ranking higher than the USA) and guess what? They aren't corn fed, but range raised with grain feed.

They have much higher standards for meat, than in the USA, however... It's that pesky socialism, right?

Soy to cattle as a food source? If it works, why not? I don't see this as being detrimental to the quality, however. Do you have evidence of this, or is it just cheeky banter?

Views on the quality of beef from anyone other than Americans or Japanese is meaningless. Only Americans really appreciate it.

[Crantag]

@Crantag
I added an edit above showing the US government pays $25 billion a year to farmers in subsidies which determines what farmers plant. You apparently were unaware of our government in farming.
As far as my ‘grasping’, you said I had no proof corn was being reduced in cattle feed. I provided a source that clearly indicated soybeans were being added. Why do you think the University bothered to provide the information?

I am fully aware that the government subsidizes farmers.

The government doesn't determine what farmers farm, that is done by corporations (and not farmers, by the way).

It's a distinction with a difference.

And LOL at comparing Japanese beef to American beef. Japan does import a little beef from the US, but they are very selective. They also import beef from Australia, by the way. When I lived in Japan, I think I prefered the Australian beef (the Japanese beef was way too exclusive and I almost never ate it--and if I did it was on 50% markdown).

Walmart owns one of the biggest supermarket chains in Japan (Seiyu), and they sell a number of American products, and that could have been why they had American beef.

All this to say, I sort of favor Godstud's line a little more.

Finally, the link you provided was an instructional on feeding soy to cows. It had nothing to do with any of the critical questions which I raised.

[Godstud]

@One Degree Poppycock! Beef, worldwide, is known to be best produced by Australia, Canada, and Japan, that score, in international testing/competition, significantly higher than most American beef products. Your immense American ego is meaningless!!!

Japan, Canada, and Australia produce better steaks and beef products(quality). USA just produces the most(quantity).

[One Degree]

I am fully aware that the government subsidizes farmers.

The government doesn't determine what farmers farm, that is done by corporations (and not farmers, by the way).

It's a distinction with a difference.

And LOL at comparing Japanese beef to American beef. Japan does import a little beef from the US, but they are very selective. They also import beef from Australia, by the way. When I lived in Japan, I think I prefered the Australian beef (the Japanese beef was way too exclusive and I almost never ate it--and if I did it was on 50% markdown).

Walmart owns one of the biggest supermarket chains in Japan (Seiyu), and they sell a number of American products, and that could have been why they had American beef.

All this to say, I sort of favor Godstud's line a little more.

Finally, the link you provided was an instructional on feeding soy to cows. It had nothing to do with any of the critical questions which I raised.

Really? If the government tells you they will give you more money to plant one crop than others, this has no effect on what they plant? Who is ‘grasping’ now?
And then you say corporations decide, not the farmers? I need to talk to my farmer friends who spend so much time studying subsidies and potential market demands, and tell them they are wasting their time.