Livestock “The greatest homage we can pay to truth is to use it.” – JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL JULY 15, 2014 • www. aaalivestock . com
MARKET
Digest T Volume 56 • No. 7
by Lee Pitts
A penny saved is a government oversight.
W
Middlemen
NEWSPAPER PRIORITY HANDLING
It’s been interesting to see the public relations campaigns of the
various state beef councils to convince their cattlemen that they can be trusted to spend the extra buck a head wisely. Texas even included a refund provision. All the states have bent over backwards to make the point that the federal government doesn’t have anything to do with this extra dollar, but the same thing was said about the national checkoff, only to have the NCBA save the checkoff in the Supreme Court in 2005 by forcefully arguing that it was a government program. So pardon us for being skeptical.
It’s also been fun to watch states try to distance themselves from the big elephant in the room, the NCBA. One article I read in trying to explain the national checkoff made the statement about the original checkoff tax, “That money goes to the National Cattlemen’s Beef Association.” Well, not exactly. Although most of it does end up there, technically it first has to go to the Beef Board, who acts as a middleman before handing over the biggest chunk to the NCBA. Even though all the funds from
the second dollar proposed for these various checkoffs are supposed to stay in their respective states, that doesn’t necessarily mean the money will be spent to promote beef produced in that state, or even in the United States, for that matter. Consider Wendy’s Ciabatta Bacon Cheeseburger.
The North American Beef Council This past February R-CALF USA submitted a complaint to Ag Secretary Tom Vilsack alleging unlawful use of U.S. beef checkoff program dollars. Only it wasn’t the NCBA spending the money in a questionable manner this time, it was the Montana Beef Council. They spent $5,000 of state checkoff money to help promote Wendy’s ciabatta bacon cheeseburger. This was half of the $10,000 ad campaign Wendy’s spent to call attention to their new burger. I think most would agree that was both a good idea and continued on page two
Stop the Big Green mind-killer BY RON ARNOLD, WASHINGTONEXAMINER.COM/
ear is the mind-killer,” wrote Frank Herbert in his 1965 science fiction epic, Dune. With that melodramatic mantra as a guide, we can see how ugly, malicious and wrong the Big Green climate mafia is: It’s making dead minds. Dead minds don’t ask, “If we give in to your fear and stop using fossil fuels, how will we meet our energy needs of today and tomorrow?” Live minds do ask such questions and climate bigots don’t like that. Thus skepticism becomes a civic duty to challenge everything dogmatists say and do. Climate science is crumbling daily. In May, the Wall Street Journal ran an op-ed exposing the claim that “97 percent of the world’s scientists” agree that climate change is both man-made and dangerous. It originated in a
“F
by LEE PITTS
Housebroke Horses
The United Provinces of Mexico hile the low cattle population in the United States has meant great prices for ranchers, it is raising havoc with the budgets of one sector of the beef business: the checkoff industry. While it doesn’t seem to have dampened the demand for our beef any, the Beef Board and state beef councils are bemoaning the fact that they have less money to work with. Yet despite the Beef Board’s regular pronouncements that declare ranchers overwhelmingly support the checkoff, they know that cattlemen, even in their current flush state, are in no mood to be taxed another dollar per head when the biggest share of that dollar is just going to be handed over to the NCBA. Some state beef councils, on the other hand, have had the courage to ask ranchers in their states to vote themselves a 100 percent increase in the tax to two dollars per head, promising that the second dollar will only be spent in state and won’t end up in the bottomless pockets of the greedy NCBA. Results so far have been mixed. States such as California and Minnesota defeated the proposal while ranchers in Ohio passed it. As this article was being written the votes in Texas are still being counted.
Riding Herd
2009 survey two researchers sent to 10,257 scientists. Only 3,146 responded, the researchers tossed out 3,069 replies, selected only 77 favorable answers — and 75 finalists agreed totally. That’s “97 percent.” You judge. Hotshot environmentalists including billionaire Tom Steyer, the Natural Resources Defense Council, Al Gore, and the Sierra Club claim that America can easily switch from fossil fuels to renewables, but don’t say how. Bill McKibben, anti-carbon campaigner, says, “making the transition to 100percent renewable energy is a political decision and an ethical imperative — the technical options do exist.” No they don’t. The Paris-based International Energy Agency says so. The IEA is no panic peddler like McKibben’s mob, with their glib pie-in-the-sky assertions and no responsibility for what they say. The IEA was created in the wake of the
1973 oil crisis to cope with physical disruptions in the oil supply, now a 28-nation energy supply regulator assuring global oil stock levels. The IEA calculates that today’s 82 percent share of fossil fuels in the global mix — even with huge increases in renewable energy — will still make up around 75 percent by 2035, more than 20 years hence. There are no technical options, only ways to stop economic growth, which is the specialty of hedge fund billionaire Tom Steyer (estimated net worth $1.6 billion), Big Green’s latest new action leader. Steyer created Risky Business, an initiative to destroy the fossil fuel industry, and recruited co-chairs Michael Bloomberg, former New York City mayor ($32.8 billion), and Hank Paulson, former U.S. Treasury Secretary ($700 million), for his power elite. continued on page four
he latest ploy of the animal rightists is to get people to think of horses as pets, rather than livestock. The Animal Welfare Council wants teachers to incorporate into their lesson plans the question, “Is a horse more like a dog or a cow?” The animal rightists shot themselves in the foot on this one, after all, when is the last time your Quarter Horse curled up in your lap or sat beside you in your pickup, like some teenager in love? Tell your horse to roll over and lay on his back so you can scratch him in his secret spot and see if his leg jerks uncontrollably like a dog’s does. Throw a slobbery tennis ball for your horse to retrieve and see if he or she retrieves it like an overeager mutt, or just stands there like a common cow. And when’s the last time your horse obeyed your command to “shake” or “sit”? Here is further proof that a horse is more like a cow than a dog: n Many dogs are housebroken but when was the last time you saw a horse enter through a “horsey door” to sit at his owner’s feet while they watch Dancing With The Stars together? And you hardly ever see a horse or a cow drink out of the toilet, or dig a hole in the flower bed like dogs do. n Has your vet ever had to remove a squeaky toy from your horse’s stomach? n I’d guess the average weight of cows and horses to be around 1,100 pounds whereas the biggest dog in history was an old English Mastiff that weighed 343 pounds. n You can go broke raising livestock like cows and horses. Unless you are betting on Greyhounds or have gone completely crazy buying chew toys and designer pet outfits, it’s a slower process to lose your life’s savings on your pet dog. n Horses and cows are vegetarians; dogs are carnivores. Put a flake of hay in front of a cow or horse and it will disappear. Do the continued on page seven
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