A skilled cattleman in Kansas forwarded me an interesting blurb.  The CEO of the National Pork Producers' Council has evidently been begging for funds from the federal government.  He wants the feds to buy up pork product to "support" the hog market so that producers won't have to liquidate any sows.

You would think that a CEO would understand that liquidation of sows is exactly what the market is dictating.  Too many sows = too many piglets.  What do they teach in these universities these days?  Even if the feds were to step in and buy a bunch of pork, that would only be a very temporary salve.  There would still be too many sows and within a very short period the pork industry would be right back in the same situation - begging for more government handouts.

As an aside, a lot of people ask why the hog markets are so much more volatile than the cattle markets.  Manipulation?  Pork Belly traders? No.  It's mathmatics.  Cattle reproduce one offspring per gestation.  Swine reproduce ten offspring per gestation.  It's just math, specifically geometrical progression. 

If I were one of the huge pork companies, the LAST thing I would want is my national organization begging our fascist government for bailout money.  Please remember, I am using the word "fascist" in its academic sense, not as a meaningless pejorative slur.  Fascism, by definition, seeks government control of businesses.  This is called "corporatism".  Our current government is unabashedly fascist, having already taken control of GM, Chrysler, multiple banks and multiple insurance companies, and attempting to take over the entire health care industry.  This point is completely beyond debate. 

As a young, single female, I know that rule number one for my personal security is to never let a strange man into my home.  To do so would be begging for horrible, horrible things to happen to me.  The auto manufacturers, the banks, the insurance companies all ended up being taken over by the government because they invited the government "in the house" by begging for bailout money.  The pork industry is now doing the same thing.  The NPPC has effectively thrown open the front door, chugged a fifth of Jack, disrobed, and sprawled itself out on the sofa (If you're waxing nostalgic for your days in the frat house right now, shame on you!).  Will it cry "date rape" after the fascist government siezes it entirely?

This is the actual reason why vertical integration is so dangerous - and this has only become clear to me in the last 6 months.  Vertical integration leaves an entire industry completely vulnerable to swift government takeover.  Non-integrated industries (like the cattle industry) have a structural firewall in place against the villanous designs of fascistic tyranny.  If the government wants to take over pork or poultry, they need only sieze a very few companies.  If they want to take over the entire cattle industry, they would need to sieze hundreds of thousands of sepeate business entities.  I despair that I have to even write this, and up until a few months ago, such a notion was unthinkable in the United States of America.

My advice to the cattle industry:  first and foremost, get your acts together.  If you are profitable, there is absolutely no reason to ask the government, or anyone else, for bailout money.  Competence is the best defense against failure, profitability is the best defense against Marxism.  Second, if anyone in the NCBA is reading this, don't even THINK about begging for money from the government.  Don't be the stupid, drunk sorority girl described above.  Stay out of the Fascist frat parties if you don't want to get ravaged.  DON'T OPEN THE DOOR.

I'll be in Sioux City, Iowa weekend after next teaching cattlemen how to be consistently profitable in the CASH cattle markets.  I cover cow/calf, stocker AND feedlot profitability in depth.  It is NOT a hedging school.  The concepts are CASH market concepts.  There are still seats available.  See my tower ad above and to the right.

Forecasters are killing the North American Cattle Industry.
"Global warming" is a complete fraud designed to advance the cause of socialism and enslave humanity.
Abortion is the murder of an innocent human being and is never justified under any circumstance whatsoever.
Every human being is a question, to which the ONLY answer is Jesus Christ.