Influence

(click on images to enlarge)
images from Open Secrets

Two roads lead to profit for large food corporations. Both must be taken. First costs must be reduced. There are limits unless one chooses to substitute real food for fake food.

The second road leads to D.C. Years of effort went into making certain the public was not short changed. Now, it would seem, honesty in food is being seriously eroded.

Both consumers and dairy farmers are paying a price. You will notice that Kraft really seems to not care which party is in power - they pay to the powerful.

Descending

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"Open Secrets" at: http://www.opensecrets.org/ has a wealth of information about money and politics. Above is DFA's Political Action Committee (PAC) donations for the current, 2010, cycle.

I pasted the data to an Excel spreadsheet. Excel has a sort feature for either "ascending" (highest at the top) or "descending" highest at the bottom. Somehow, it seemed more appropriate to sort "descending", which leaves Colin Peterson at the bottom.

Peterson is head of the House "Ag" committee and an old hunting/fishing buddy of former DFA head Gary Hanman. Nothing gets past Peterson.

As can be seen from his total dairy PAC contributions, Peterson is pretty well taken care of.

What is neede is a new GPS (Global Political Scheme) to navigate around the guy.

Bickering System Going Nowhere

If you look at the recent DOJ hearings in Madison Wisconsin, you might note there is not one Republican politician in the lineup. See: http://www.justice.gov/atr/public/workshops/ag2010/wisconsin-agenda.htm

We are 18 months into a dairy farm milk price depression and there is really nothing out of DC.

Nobody really talks about the situation but, a two party system can be like a couple bickering. Not much discussion and nothing really changes.

NMPF has a program which it is promoting. FAPRI's analysis says there is little change. See: http://www.fapri.missouri.edu/outreach/publications/2010/FAPRI_MU_Report_05_10.pdf

Those on the gravy train try to keep their seats. In the 2006 election cycle the dairy PACs gave 34% to Dems / 66% to Repubs. In 2010 it is 56% to Dems / 44% to Repubs.

As you can see it is not the principle,it is the money.