• About Us
  • Activity
  • Advertising
  • Books
  • Business
  • Contact
  • Entertainment
  • feedback
  • Government
  • Home
  • Interviews
  • Members
  • National
  • Nevada
  • Nevada News and Views
  • Newsmax
  • NN&V Ads
  • Opinion
  • Politics
  • Polls
  • Privacy Policy
  • Subscribe
  • Subscription Confirmation
  • Survey
  • Survey
  • Terms of Service
  • Today’s Top 10
  • Travel
  • Travel
  • Travel
  • Welcome!
  • Yop Poll Archive
Nevada News and Views
  • Home
  • Muth’s Truths
  • Politics
  • Government
  • Entertainment
  • More
    • Nevada
    • Opinion
    • Business
    • Travel
    • News
    • Sports
  • Facebook

  • Twitter

  • Pinterest

  • RSS

Business

It’s Not a Free Market if the Government Makes it “Compulsory”

It’s Not a Free Market if the Government Makes it “Compulsory”
N&V Staff
March 21, 2018

(Chuck Muth, President, Citizen Outreach) – Earlier this month President Trump imposed tariffs on foreign competitors to the U.S. steel and aluminum industries – with temporary exemptions for Mexico and Canada as NAFTA is re-negotiated.

The decision was consistent with campaign promises the president made to pursue smart trade agreements that didn’t place U.S. businesses at an unfair competitive disadvantage – like how American sugar farmers are constantly undercut by global competitors that unfairly, and in some cases unlawfully, subsidize their sugar industries or otherwise meddle in the market and distort it.

For example, the Business-Standard reported just this week…

“India has scrapped the 20 per cent sugar export tax, a government source said on Tuesday, to help boost overseas sales in a surplus year of production.  Last week Reuters reported that India, the world’s biggest consumer of sugar, would axe the export tax on the sweetener and then make it compulsory for mills to export 2-3 million tonnes to cut bulging stocks at home.”

It’s not exactly a “free market” when the government makes it “compulsory” for sugar mills to export their product and takes other actions to manipulate the global price.

But that hasn’t stopped Big Candy and its lobbyists from mounting a multi-million dollar propaganda campaign urging Congress to eliminate the U.S. sugar program that protects American farmers from bad trade deals and unfair government-manipulated foreign competition.

For example, Kirk Vashaw, the president and CEO of Spangler Candy in Ohio, claims that “the high cost of sugar in the United States is the reason that the company has moved some operations to Mexico.”

The truth is the so-called “high cost of sugar in the United States” is actually just about the same as it was before Ronald Reagan was elected president.  That was almost 40 years ago!

On the other hand, sweets and treats manufacturing costs for labor, health care benefits, insurance, taxes, rent, equipment and regulatory compliance have shot through the stratosphere.  And eliminating the sugar program would do absolutely nothing whatsoever to bring them back down to earth.

“We don’t think there should be price fixing in the sugar market,” Vashaw added in an interview with the Hagstrom Report this week.  “Let our company buy sugar on the free market and the jobs will come back from Mexico in five years.”

Not likely.

Again, it’s NOT the cost of sugar that’s driving up prices.  But more to the point, it’s not a “free market” when foreign competitors are interfering with it via government subsidies.  Eliminating the U.S. sugar program unilaterally wouldn’t be free trade.  It’d be really, really dumb trade.  Fortunately, we have a president who appears to understand that.

Prev postNext post

Related ItemsbusinessGovernment
Business
March 21, 2018
N&V Staff

Related ItemsbusinessGovernment

More in Business

Myth-Buster: Sugar Policy Misconception Debunked

N&V StaffFebruary 23, 2021
Read More

Cheat Sugar, Not Cheap Sugar, is the Problem

N&V StaffFebruary 16, 2021
Read More

India Battling Sugar Subsidy Addiction

N&V StaffJanuary 25, 2021
Read More

Trump, Biden and U.S. Sugar Policy

N&V StaffJanuary 11, 2021
Read More

GUEST COMMENTARY: How the Whiskey Industry Could Point Way for Sugar Sector

N&V StaffDecember 14, 2020
Read More

What Congress Can Learn from Vietnam on Sugar Policy

N&V StaffDecember 8, 2020
Read More
Scroll for more
Tap

Subscribe Free By Email

Looking for the best in breaking news and conservative views? Let Chuck do all the work for you! Subscribe to his FREE "Muth's Truths" e-newsletter.

* indicates required
Nevada News and Views
Nevada News & Views is an educational project of Citizen Outreach Foundation, a non-partisan IRS-approved 501(c)(3) organization. It is not associated or affiliated with any political party or group. Nevada News & Views is accessible by the public at no cost. It funds its operations through tax-deductible contributions from donors and supporters and does not accept government money or grants.

TAGS

Featured Article Nevada Politics Muth's Truths business government Government Opinion Obama News Donald Trump GOP Republicans Ron Knecht Adam Laxalt

Copyright © 2021 Citizen Outreach | Maintained by VirtualAlly

The False Argument about “Exorbitant” Sugar Prices
The Candy Man’s Straw Man