Oh man, agricultural subsidies. Farm bills in the US, CAP in the EU. They're criminal, and socialist in form and nature. They're designed to protect the livelih

Oh man, agricultural subsidies. Farm bills in the US, CAP in the EU. They're criminal, and socialist in form and nature. They're designed to protect the livelihood of farmers who wouldn't be otherwise economically productive and would fail in the face of labour from other regions which are cheaper, in other countries. This not only impedes development, but results in people selling subsidies to one another, buying agricultural land en masse in order to claim vast subsidies to grow nothing (see Tate & Lyle in the UK - over £1bn a year), and vast amounts of food being burned and buried because it exceeds quota. This is positively insane, even though the rationale (price control - equally insane) makes sense in an obtuse protectionist sort of fashion. Some farmers will fail. Others will prosper. Food won't magically disappear overnight and leave us all starving. Competition is essential, but so is cooperation. Again, though, you need the rule of law to set universal finite bounds on both phenomena, otherwise you end up with cancer in your soda and PMCs in your back yard, even more than already happens in the US. I suppose that at least we live in interesting times.