Ken, You should know that it is the very superior efficiency of the Canadian single desk system of the wheat board that completely discredits the neo-cons (and Charles Mueler on the PKT net) and which requires these economists, (including my colleagues) to rail against the marketing system -- simply because it works, and works well and more efficiently that the private enterprise system. I used to teach the seminars in ag ec on the marketing boards because there was no one in the ag ec department at the U of M who knew enough about them to teach it -- and they wouldn't learn because the marketing boards produced superior results to open markets and since that was contrary to neoclassical ideology, it must necessarily be wrong. The wheat board has had its failings, though moderate ones I would argue, but on the whole it has been a great benefit to the Canadian farmer for over half a century. That is the essense of the beef of the American farmers. They can't have a wheat board because the cappos won't let them. As to Jims complaints about Indian exports -- sorry Jim, but I can't support an interpretation of aboriginal rights that serves a small (and I would argue, questionable) economic interest at the expense of the rest of rural society. Paul Phillips, Economics, University of Manitoba.
