Monthly Archives: July 2009

Milk Duds

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Milking cows is a faster way to lose your shirt than building boats. I should know. I’ve done both. At least boat builders aren’t mandated to sell their boats for less than it costs to build them.

Etienne Desmarais has a dairy farm down the road a piece. It costs him about a buck and a half to make a gallon of milk he can now sell for a buck even. We used to dip our milk out of the bulk tank from Dory Simon’s dairy farm on the other side of us; 30 years ago we paid him a buck a gallon for the freshest, sweetest milk around. Dory sold his herd to Etienne some years ago because the production costs were bankrupting him. Etienne still rents his land.

The economics of farming haven’t gotten any better since we were dipping the bulk tank.

New England dairy farms produce 20% of the country’s milk and employ about 145,000 people. Vermont has 1,045 dairy farms today. A few are like Etienne’s, milking more than 300 or 400 head. Many milk less than 100. Vermont lost about six dairy farms last month alone. Guess why.

Uncle Sam essentially sets the milk price that farms receive through the 2008 Farm Bill (the Food, Conservation, and Energy Act of 2008) and its MILC (Milk Income Loss Contract) Program. That USDA program “provides direct counter-cyclical style payments to milk producers on a monthly basis when the Boston Federal Milk Marketing Order Class I price for fluid milk falls below the benchmark of $16.94 per hundredweight (cwt).” Milk prices have been a political cow pie since the first Farm Bill set a benchmark decades ago.

  • Somehow I’m thinking $11/hundredweight (about a dollar a gallon) is below the benchmark.
  • I’m also thinking three bucks or more is a lot to pay in the store for a bottle that cost one dollar at the farm.

Roger Allbee, the real Vermont Agriculture Secretary, just returned from Washington, D.C., where he asked for emergency money via increased payments through the MILC program.

This (latest) decision is expected to take months.

I have to wonder why we should pass the two trillion dollar health plan tomorrow when it takes months (or years) to fix milk prices.

“We’re from the government. We’re here to help.”

Hmmm.

Here’s an interesting progression for the reader’s further consideration:

Since the same Federal Government that mandates milk prices will now set car prices at Government Motors, I reckon your next new Chevrolet or GMC pickup truck will cost the same as I paid for one in 1988. About $10,000, right?

Cool.

I don’t know what to do about the price of milk, though.

Get a Backbone, Dodd

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The AP reports that, “Facing the toughest re-election fight of his nearly 30 years in the Senate, Sen. Christopher Dodd (D-CT) boasts about snubbing lobbyists.” That hasn’t stopped him from cashing their campaign checks and schmoozing them at fundraisers and party gatherings.

I gotta tell you, Senator, if you took my money in the bedroom and lied about me on the street, it would be the last time you got any from me.

Take a lesson, politician. It is time to put your mouth where your money is.

Change

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FaceTwitSpace has a Universal Healthcare Poll running this week. As of this writing, over 107,148 other people have voted on the question, “Are you in favor of a Government run healthcare system.”

My vote was ‘Hell, No!’

This Health Care argument has nothing to do with health. After all, all the people who will vote on it will not be covered by it.

It’s about the money. And power.

If you can drive the private insurers and private providers out of the market, whatever is left controls who lives and who dies. If you have private insurance, you can change insurers if you don’t like your coverage. If the government says “You must have insurance and you must get it from us,” they put you in jail if you change insurers.

That’s Change We Can Believe In.

If you can drive the private insurers and private providers out of the market, TWO TRILLION more dollars end up in Washington. Each and every year. Except next year when it will be more. And the year after when it will be more still more.

Trillion.

That’s Change We Can Believe In.

President Obama told the nation Wednesday night that we must “change the health care system to reduce the costs and restore the economy.” That is exactly correct. Unfortunately, Mr. Obama did not say another word about reducing the cost of service or restoring the economy; he spent his news conference time on changing the health care system to one run by Uncle Sam’s bureaucrats instead of one run by insurance bureaucrats. That doesn’t fix the problem. It just changes its location. Two trillion more dollars change hands from the private sector to go to Washington. That is exactly wrong.

That’s Change We CAN’T Believe In.

Pundits have said that new Administration’s need to stack accomplishments during the first 100 days is the reason for the rush to ObamaCare. Nothing could be further from the truth.

It is critical that the Administration fast track Universal Health Care through immediately, just as they did the “Stimulus Pack” and the theft of the auto industry and their concessionist international diplomacy and the bank bailout that somehow forgot to make any mortgage money available and the 100 days/100 press conferences.

Why is it critical? Because even Congress would rebel if they actually read the bills.

That’s No Change At All.

Cap Cancer Raised Funds and the Sun

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Yesterday was a pretty darned good day.

The Cap Cancer Festival in Highgate Municipal Park yesterday brought out hundreds of people, three bands, a ton of hot dogs and birthday cake, and even the Sun. The event used hair cuts and music to raise funds for Camp Ta-Kum-Ta and for cancer research.

And the rain stayed away. Mr. Sun broke through for the first time in days at just as Pat started cutting my tail.

“We are not styling hair here today,” I told the crowd between music sets. “People who undergo cancer treatment often lose their hair. We’ll buzz it off or shave your head to show solidarity.”

And to raise money. The Festival raised more than $1,200 on Sunday alone for Camp Ta-Kum-Ta and the American Cancer Society. We don’t have the final PayPal totals yet and donations are still coming in as of this morning.

Scott Martin starting off
Pat Gagne of Elite Hair Salon in St. Albans buzzed or shaved 8 men and women throughout the day: Anne Harper, Hayes Johnson, Ed Jones, Scott Martin, Steven Martin, Richard Menard, Karl Schraut, and yours truly. She shaved Messrs. Jones and Schraut and me. Every participant received a ball cap from the cap sponsors.

“It’s the best haircut I’ve had in five years,” Highgate Moderator Scott Martin said. Martin said his sports teams at MVU cut his hair most seasons.

Karl Schraut getting shorn
The festival collected several pony tails including the first from Karl Schraut of Barre, Vermont, for Locks of Love.

The free concerts began at 4 p.m. with fine artist Pat Murphy and Colleen Murphy on guitar and fiddle playing folk and popular music and even a waltz. The indie rock group Rockfish offered original music. The Nobby Reed Project anchored the Festival in an evening Summer Sounds concert.

The Cap Cancer Festival is an all volunteer community effort with support from the All Arts Council, JC Image, KOOL 105, Peoples Trust Company, the St. Albans Messenger, the Town of Highgate, and the Highgate Volunteer Fire Department Auxiliary. The bands donated their performances and Ms. Gagne her tonsorial art. The Highgate Auxiliary donated the entire proceeds of their social to Cap Cancer.

Dick Harper at the Mohawk stage
Look for the performances, and my own hair cut, on the Almost Live concert series on Channel 15.

Many years ago, my mom taught me the secrets to gracious living. “Your lawn should never look freshly mown and your hair should never look freshly cut.” The weather has made sure my hayfield never seems fresh mown but we surely demolished the second one for a good cause.

And it looks like my son-in-law, a sergeant for the Franklin County Sheriff, is now the long hair in the family.

Guest Post: George on Buggered. Really Really Buggered.

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This column responds to
Bugged. Really Really Bugged.
posted July 13. The author calls it
“purely, ideologically speculative
and opinion by Mr Poleczech.“

I have to come back here to discuss the real issue — I am persuaded that the real issue is neither about religion nor about civil rights.

The Southern Christian Leadership Conference is strongly opposed to same-sex marriage; and that conservative stance is directly contra to the political stance of the Democratic Party. That fact has to gall party leaders who do everything possible to woo homosexuals to the Democrat side–and keep them there.

You can well bet that Rev. Lee made his pro-gay marriage proclamation after consultation with top party leaders and with a promise of $trong $upport. If we could follow the money trail it would lead us right to my next paragraph:

This whole thing has everything to do with patching a rift in the Democratic Party by bringing that faction (the negro voting bloc) fully into the fold by supporting one of the party’s biggest priorities: placating the homosexual community.

Reverend Lee did his part by bringing it to the forefront and forcing a vote where negro Democrats will have to stand on one side of the line or the other. Either they are pro gay or not. There will be no line straddling.

Of course, the party will be relying on the ancillary support of liberal republicans and wide-eyed moderates, who would be the last to suspect disingenuous intentions by an organization of “Faith”. These helpers will gasp and take an immediate 90 degree turn and tackle the seemingly obvious — but fake — reason for all the ado. These helpers will, of course, come out on the side of homosexual civil rights with a denunciation of religious beliefs — adding additional props, when all the while the Party of Roosevelt and LBJ can stand by with a pious expression and click its tongue at those who might still have the balls to stand in opposition.

So. it’s all about solidifying the Democratic party. Nothing else.

 — George Poleczech