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Wait just a minute Mr. Illff
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lorenk
Posted 4/15/2009 19:20 (#681582 - in reply to #681261)
Subject: RE: Gosh, what a topic!!


Grand Rapids, MI
MNRyeGrower - 4/15/2009 13:05

...It seems things boil down to a difference in regard to pure economics vs moral concepts. I believe this is something America has wrestled with for a very long time. At some point, what at first seemed to simply be a moral question becomes one regarding anti-competitive activity. There are anti-trust laws to address this subject. Once the "moral" side of things is overshadowed by the economic aspect suddenly having a negative impact on consumers, anti-trust issues come to light.

Possibly qualifying what these operations are doing as "anti-trust" violations may be a streatch....


Whoh!! You must have a very different understanding of anti-trust than I do. Here is what I would consider a good definition of "trusts" used in this context:

A special trust or business trust is a business entity formed with intent to monopolize business, to restrain trade, or to fix prices
-John Moody (1904). The Truth About The Trusts: A Description and Analysis of the American Trust Movement. New York: Moody Publishing. XIII. OCLC 1832950

Here is the language from the Sherman anti-trust act:

Every person who shall monopolize, or attempt to monopolize, or combine or conspire with any other person or persons, to monopolize any part of the trade or commerce among the several States, or with foreign nations, shall be deemed guilty of a felony [. . . ]

So where is the anti-trust problem here? It seems to me that if all the farmers in a county or region got together and decided that none of them would bid against each other for land, wouldn't that be the anti-competitive action? Wouldn't those farmers be combining and conspiring to monopolize and control the commerce of renting land in that part of the country? Doesn't the large farmer making an offer to a landowner provide MORE competition in this case?

Now don't get me wrong...I am not necesarily saying that everyone should continue to bid land rents higher and higher. That sort of unrelenting price competition has caused major problems in some industries, take the airlines for example. But no matter whether you think it good business practice or bad, I don't see where offering a landowner a price to rent their land which may be higher than the current tenant is paying is in any way anti-competitive.

If you are saying that an operation like has been discussed here, reported to have 32,000 acres this year is going to monopolize the grain production, then perhaps we should consider that it would take 5,032 operations this size to produce all the corn and soybeans projected to be planted this year, not even considering wheat, hay, cotton, sorghum, and a host of other crops. Consider even if every farm would be a million acres, it would still take 161 of them just to plant the corn and soybeans, still quite a ways from having monoply power.
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