Misleading Statements

HELLO FOLKS! — The father of a rapidly - growing youngster mumbled to a friend on the bus:

"He's getting too smart to outargue and too big to spank. I can hardly wait for him to fall in love so's some little girl will take him down a notch"

—o—

THERE ARE a lot of false notions going around that if not corrected are going to be used by self - interested parties to forward their own interests.

One of them goes something like this: "The farmer is the only businessman who buys at prices someone else sets and sells what others offer." Or they say, "Everyone else's prices are set but the farmers. They take what they can get."

Without much thinking such words seem to have some truth to them. On the other hand — are they true?

A man said to me, trying to prove his point, "If you go and buy a sack of tankage you pay what they ask, but when you sell the pig that ate the tankage you take what they offer."

Tankage is no different than any other item. The manufacturers get all they can for their product just as the farmer gets all he can for his hogs, or what ever it be. There is plenty of competition in protein feeds. If tankage is too high priced, we buy soybean meal and fortify it with vitamins. Or we may go to another dealer who has another brand of tankage at a lower price. Surely the price they are asking is probably marked on the bulletin board. And the hog prices they will pay are marked, but that doesn't mean they aren't competitive.

Then they will tell you that the auto manufacturers set their own prices. I have bought several cars and I shop around and get the best deal I can. There is plenty of competition in the auto industry. The salesmen are constantly at each other's throats to get that sale and the lowest offer usually sells.

The same is true of the manufacturer. He knows what the car costs him to produce. To that he adds the necessary profits and any other that he thinks the "traffic will bear." If he feels that he has an especially good seller he will add a few dollars to it. The opposite might also be true. He may have to take off a few dollars for the [time] being.

There are [plent]y of manufacturers who have gone out of business because they couldn't meet the competition in the long haul the car producer also takes what the buyer offers just as the farmer takes the highest offer he gets for the animal. And there is of course no law that says the farmer can't cooperate with other farmers and butcher the hogs themselves if they feel they aren't getting enough for their products.




Tankage - a fertilizer or animal feed obtained from the residue from tanks in which animal carcasses have been rendered.

Net Worth; Gross Habit

HELLO FOLKS! — I've heard that a man's net income is in direct proportion to his gross habit.

—o—

Public Law 480 has sometimes been titled "a give-away program" because only a small percentage of the value of the products sold actually returns to the U. S. in immediate cash. I believe the figure is about 3 per cent.

The amount that is not returned in trade is used up by our foreign embassies for their operation expenses, returned as a loan or just held in suspension.

This is not exactly an ideal situation, but under the circumstances it is the only answer to the problem of marketing our surpluses and the needy countries to get food for their people.

In order for Japan to buy food she has to sell her finished products. We have import restrictions that prohibit her from selling to us the amount of products necessary for her to buy needed food. Trade is necessary for the economic life of us both.

If the american farmer cannot sell his surplus food he is placed at disparity with the rest of the economy. The inevitable result of such a situation is an economic tail spin such as occurred in the early 30's. For if the farmer cannot buy the things he needs the whole economy suffers too.

We are draining our economic wealth paying for the storing commodities that should be in world trade. If we fail to move these and generate new wealth into the economy the inevitable happens. The same is true for other countries with exportable items. The ideal situation would be a gradual lowering of nearly all trade barriers.

True, we would be in open competition with foreign industries, but the wealth generated would more than make up for the original loss sustained.

However until the public becomes aware of these economic facts Public Law 480 is a must and is necessary. It benefits the U. S. and the other countries involved. It is not a give away program. It is an aid program.

—o—

You have all heard about the train that runs through the middle of the house. Well, the author of that song has nothing on us. We have got a boy here that has a mania for trains and bridges. So we generally have a train in the middle of our house.

Randy got a book for Christmas entitled "The Little Red Caboose". He knows it word for word, and for a long time it was his companion at night.

The book is still readable although there is more cost in the glue, Scotch tape and cloth that had been used for repairs than the book cost originally.