Reminder from Dad

It was my Uncle’s 60^th birthday party this past weekend and I had an interesting conversation with my Dad. We had been discussing the farming practices in the Midwest. I have recently watched two political documentaries “Food, Inc.” and “King Corn”. My Dad has been loaning money to farmers since he quit being one, so as banker now, his perspective is always nice to get compared to the propaganda I have been watching or reading.

For a while now I have been stating, if America is to get healthier, then the “Heartland of America” needs to change. The two biggest crops in the Midwest are corn and soybeans. Both crops are the largest genetically modified crops in our food system today. The people of our country are demanding “health care reform”, but without changing the food we eat and without changing the food supplying our bodies, then the health of the global world will continue to be dis-eased ridden.

There were many informative parts in both movies. My favorite point made in “Food, Inc.” is the demonstration done within the political documentary that shows how, if the people want different food, then the people need to demand it. How can this be done? The movie explains this concept with an example of Wal-Mart carrying more organic selections. People need to demand this by spending their money on the type of foods that are healthy, and then the larger corporations will supply them.

In “King Corn” I learned more about the farming history of corn. It was in 1973 that the Secretary of Agriculture transformed our food supply. Americans have been demanding cheap food and the government has been supplying it by subsidizing farmer’s crops. My dad knew this was Earl Butz.

In having this discussion with my father, I was affixing blame to the government. “The government subsidizes corn, the government does allows these things in our foods, the government allows stage IV approval of a drug to be after publicly releasing and marketing the drug to the population, etc.”

Dad was quick to point out to me though that this does not have anything to do with the government. He would not allow me to blame the government. He reminded me that the government in America is the “people”.

So the next day, I was reading in the forum from www.conspiracyoftherich.com, Robert Kiyosaki asked the question, “What are ways the government could go about creating entrepreneurs instead of just jobs?” I replied,

Subject: Government?

“…I read your question as "What are ways the "people" could go about creating entrepreneurs instead of jobs?" Well this is being done, as others have mentioned with the MLM businesses and the internet. Internet marketers across the world are training others to be entrepreneurs.

People try to join a MLM business, but in order to succeed they must sell. So, then they start the process of becoming a ‘$ales Dog’. This is too expensive for the majority of people to do (in their eyes).

It would be nice to see the people change the government, so the government would subsidize and make it cheaper to learn to be an entrepreneur. This probably will not happen though because of economics.

Economics is based on supply and demand, as each of us learned when we took our first economics class. The "people" choose to demand things such as cheap food by spending their money on such things. So, our government supplies cheap foods through subsidizing farmers to grow corn, and the “people” have dollar menus at fast food restaurants.

A better question Robert, would be, "How can the people create demand for more entrepreneurs so that our government will supply it?"