How Sugar Subsidies Ruin Halloween

Crony capitalists are getting rich off your candy.

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How Sugar Subsidies Ruin Halloween

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This Halloween while you're getting pudgy from candy, crony capitalists are getting rich off of sugar subsidies. The system is rigged through price controls, subsidies, and tariffs, all designed to protect the sugar industry from competition–and basic math. In the latest "Mostly Weekly" Andrew Heaton tears into the Willy Wonkas gaming the system, and shows why an open market can more than handle your sugar craving.

Mostly Weekly is hosted by Andrew Heaton with headwriter Sarah Rose Siskind. Watch past episodes here.

Script by Andrew Heaton with writing assistance from Sarah Rose Siskind, Brian Sack, and David Fried
Edited by Austin Bragg and Sarah Rose Siskind.
Produced by Meredith and Austin Bragg.
Theme Song: Frozen by Surfer Blood.

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Comments

[Fist of Etiquette]

I didn't realize Heaton was based out of Detroit.

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[Griffin3]

I have so little left, and now you are taking Halloween from me?!?!?

[H. Farnham]

Heaton, just in case you ever take a break from making the world laugh to read the comments, I wanted to tell you that 'Mostly Weekly' is absolutely hilarious, and I enjoy it immensely. Also, I went to the mightyheaton website and watched your 'Cap South' sitcom; I laughed my ass off, well done. Also... you punch like a girl.

[BlueStarDragon]

Last I heard most sugar now comes from beats not cane.

[Leo Kovalensky]

*Beats BSD with a cane.

It's beets.

[Telcontar the Wanderer]

In fairness, pi?atas are normally filled with candy, not beets, so it's not an unreasonable assumption for him to make. Not to mention the fact that a pi?ata is commenting on H'n'R at all is just impressive.

[Longtobefree]

Cultural appropriation.

[C. S. P. Schofield]

You'd think that with all the concern the environmentalists have for the everglades, AND the anti-sugar state of the health food fascists, killing the subsidies that make growing sugar cane in florida practical would be a slam-dunk. No more sugar cane, no more sugar cane related runoff, and the sugar industry gets it in the shorts.

But the Left is always blind to the simple.

[SamHell]

I work at a sugar beet factory, the profit margins are so thin there's no way that we could compete on the world market. Most of the factories in the Great Plains area are a hundred years old and barely scraping by on old run down equipment. This sugar subsidy problem will probably resolve itself as more and more farmers switch to more profitable crops (like ethanol lol).

[guy who doesn't care]

don't care

[Last of the Shitlords]

Can we PLEASE stop using the term 'crony capitalism'. It isn't capitalism, but most people think it is. Just call it 'cronyism'.

[Devastator]

No we can't, it's a well established word combinations and everyone knows what it means. Capitalism isn't some sacred word not to be tarnished, it's just a word. When you start holding up things as "holy" you toss reason and science out the door.

[Longtobefree]

Or maybe go all out and call it bribery?

[Longtobefree]

Or maybe go all out and call it bribery?

[No Yards Penalty]

The system described in the video is pretty much how large swaths of Canadian agriculture works.
Farmers are protected by govt price supports and outright handouts. Consumers pay higher prices. Value-add ag jobs are either lost or never get started because it's not worth starting a value-added ag business when the govt guarantees you a price on your commodity. Also, b/c of those price support and welfare payments to farmers, the licenses to produce are monetized, driving up prices on the land that sits under that ag production.
The whole thing is fucked.

[Crazy mick]

Yeah hardly anyone is going to use subsidies as the determining factor as to whom they vote for so nothing will change. If you're a dimwit Trumper you can hope he and his flunkies do it if they get tired of enriching themselves and start draining the swamp

[Cromulent]

Is it that hard to say this is a case of corn-y capitalism?

[Eman]

I wonder what role this plays in making sure soda in the US is mediocre at best (corn syrup).

[Carter Mitchell]

Why not name names? U.S. Sugar, controlled by the Mott Foundation in Michagan, led by CEO William S. White (who also runs the Mott Foundation.

That's just one example. Stop talking about these gangstas like disembodied entities: call out the actual criminals BY NAME for public shaming.