Got Price-Fixed Milk?

http://www.lewrockwell.com/suprynowicz/suprynowicz54.html

Schoolchildren may still be taught that our government has "anti-trust" laws to protect consumers from price-fixing. But Washington actually spends far more money setting up and protecting monopoly trusts than "busting" them.

Under a 1937 law, for example, most American dairy farmers participate in a complex system of interlocking subsidies and protection measures that have the effect of keeping the free market from forcing the price of milk ... down.

That’s right. A recent study by the U.S. Department of Agriculture acknowledges federal "dairy programs raise the retail price" of milk. The watchdog group Citizens Against Government Waste estimates these government-enforced price-rigging programs cost U.S. consumers at least $1.5 billion per year.

Now, an added 20 cents a gallon is chickenfeed to the rich person. But the grocery budget forms a much higher percentage of the spending of a poor family with kids. So here’s a government program that has it all – it subsidizes rich dairy farmers, while placing the bulk of the burden squarely on the shoulders of poor people trying to feed their kids!

A great article on the consequences of government-manipulated markets. Here's a story of someone who didn't join the protectionist government program (though others tried to force him to do so), and not-so-surprisingly, managed to produce more efficiently and cheaply! Of course, such competition threatens the livelihood of the slackers who refuse to rise to the challenge and innovate - who would rather not compete on the merits of their labor, but use force to prevent anyone else from doing so.