>>40090690Would you like to hear a story?
Of subsidies and of smut?
The story is a bit older than most of us posting here, even older than I, and I am 30!
The story reaches back into the late 60's and the presidency of Richard M. Nixon. America was going through a bit of a crises, especially with food. The economic crises of the late 60's if you would, which started because the value of the American dollar was changed from Gold to Reserve Trust...this kind of created a shortage and confusion in the economics. People were hungry, gas prices were exhuberant for the times, and rations were a plenty.
To avoid food shortage, a plan was set in motion; Subsidies for American Farmers! The government would pay farmers for their crops, pay for their land, and give them paychecks in exchange for growing a shit ton of crops, this is how America became one of the biggest argicultural producers in the world.
All was good, the economy slowly began inflating (as do all economies based in Trust rather than Hard Value) people were being fed, and America was a strong arm once again...however there was a bit of a problem.
Since the government was footing the bills and supplies for the farmers (and keep in mind, this was a first run too) they supplied an incredible amount of chemical pesticides that really didn't go through Human testing...and the first harvest season resulted in Corn Smut. Corn Smut, is essentially Corn that has...well...cancer. It's corn cancer. Corn was seen as the backbone of the subsidies as it could be easily planted and easily grown. So, the first, second, third, fourth harvests resulted in Cancer corn. There was a lot of it, and it should've been rejected, however the Nixon administration really needed this win with their subsidies for Corn...so it was thrown out to the public regardless.
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