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Why the U.S. Government currently stores 1.4B lbs of cheese
- ggm 5y agoThe wine lake and butter Mountain came in for a lot of flak, some of it relating to US/EU trade wars. The Uruguay round put most of that to bed. the thing with US national cheese is there's two parts to the story: There's the part about the economics, subsidy to dairy farming, the importance of the rural vote and consequently the political inability to remove the supports. Then there's the other part. About how most Europeans think this cheese is disgusting solidified axle grease and gives dairy farming a bad name. I'm in a middle ground on this. I like snacking on junk food, so US national cheese is fine with me, in context. That context is a hoagy or cheese melt on rye, or a sub. But if you actually like cheese, this stuff is bad juju. Economics might hate price support but a hollowed out rural sector is hillbilly elegy on steroids. Maybe this is the price which had to be paid. But jeez, you think they could make parmesan or something, not just solid train lube.
- throwawaymanbot 5y ago
- iamthemonster 5y agoInterestingly, if distributed evenly, this could feed the entire nation for a week at an emergency level of 1200 calories a day.
- bcrl 5y agoI'm always baffled by the United States. Somehow having the government interfere in markets by buying and storing random products like cheese is OK, but addressing inefficiencies in the health care system is forbidden.
- hogrider 5y agoWell it's explained by caving to specific lobbies. There's the we want farm subsidies agriculture lobby and the we want deregulation health care lobby.
- hulitu 5y agoBecause it stinks.