Iowa State is a land-grant university with three over-riding goals, to wit:
--(a) Teach lads to efficiently grow more row crops than they can profitably sell on the open market.
--(b) Instruct the same lads in means of extorting sufficient taxpayer money to guarantee themselves handsome profits for the unsellable goods mentioned in (a).
--(c) Provide low-level entertainment to the rural masses via wholly-owned subsidiaries playing football and basketball.
Therein comes comes the crisis. Iowa State is a member of the Big 12 athletic conference which seems to be on the verge of going toes up. The sky is falling. What to do?
Why, son, go talk to the federal government in the persons of your senators Grassley (R) and Harkin (D) who have each taken this thing seriously and issued profound statements on the matter.
I'm especially anxious to see reports of President Obama's reaction to this Heartland drama. Certainly his good friend Sen. Harkin will alert him to the national danger of the Cyclones not having a conference to play in.
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Is nothing beneath demands for federal action?
3 comments:
Kind Sir, you begin with a false premise. Your young furrow makers do not produce more than they can sell profitably on a real "open" market. They are denied such by the numerous protectionist policies embraced by politicians. Were the world truly an open market, they could feed multitudes. As for Iowa and the Big 12, the Hawkeyes are entering a truly open sports market, and they ain't got nothing to sell. But, I don't rule out federal intervention--they muck up everytning else. JAGSC
Isn't it an ironic shame that "free market" has come to be such an ambiguous term?
We could experiment with the sugar tariff and domestic subsidies. Kill them dead, then we could have (a) good Coke (b) 25-cent Hershey bars and (c) the warm feeling that comes from transferring a delta cane conglomerate from welfare to earning an honest buck.
But I am afraid the World Federation of Farm Frickers has achieved the statist balance it wants. Tariffs and tradition and the governmental urge to control combine to make things cushy for all concerned, excepting only the consumer and the taxpayer.
(Get the Frog farmers to accept the occasional need to work their fields more than 30 hours a week and I'll change my mind, especially if they agree to quit driving their tractors to the Louvre every time they sense losing a sou in subsidies.)
And JAGS, Old Friend, the Iowa correspondent to "Aggie" is "Cyclone." Not "Hawkeye." :)
Jim, the latter
My bad. Having degrees from one land grant university, and having worked for two others, and having professional relationships with personnel from Iowa State, I knew perfectly well that they are the Big Wind, aka Cyclones. Must be my age catching up with me. JAGSC
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