One of Your Colleagues Just Woke Up, V

[oldpollock]

What do the Chinese do with soybeans anyway?

They take the oil out of the beans, turn it into plastics, make sex toys out of the plastic, and sell the toys to us.
That's my story and I'm sticking to it.

[Minimalist]

That's a good story!

[Anomalocaris]

What do the Chinese do with soybeans anyway?

Make tofu.  Seriously.

China is incapable of feeding itself with its own agriculture because even though it is similar in size to the US, the amount of land suitable for agriculture is small.   Urbanization and industrialization has paved over some of its best agriculture land.    The remaining prime agriculture lands are increasingly  being used for cash crop, not staple crop, thanks to capitalism, so they make money, but not calories.   The secondary agricultural land are on hilly or otherwise second rate land, and are unsuitable for mechanized agriculture.  Consequently their productivity are low relative to the amount of human labor input.

Chinese Agricultural tariffs is in someways not a bad thing for the world.  By making American agricultural surpluses more expensive in China, it decreases Chinese consumption, and force the Americans formers to sell at lower prices to the world market outside China to make up the difference.   There are several other major countries that also rely on food import to meet domestic needs but are,generally unable to afford the prices levels created by demand from China.

It would also not be unfair to say one of the fundamental, but unattributed, cause of the upheaval in Egypt, Syria and Tunisia that contributed to the rise of ISIS was the industrialization of China, which turned China from a poor agricultural exporter to a comparatively wealthy major agriculture importer willing to pay high prices to secure large imports of food stuff.  This has been an amazing boon for farmers in the food exporting countries,   But this greatly worsened the fiscal situation and materially increased the social stresses in major food importing countries in the Arab world like Egypt.

[Minimalist]

The WSJ worried about soy bean farmers?  Well, not really.  But it plays nicely for the rich, corporate, fucks they serve.

https://www.rawstory.com/2018/07/isnt-wi...trade-war/

‘This isn’t winning’: Wall Street Journal sarcastically batters ‘master negotiator’ Trump for plunging US into trade war

Noting the launching of Trump’s tariffs with the U.S.  “imposing tariffs of 25% on $34 billion of Chinese imports, and Beijing retaliated on an equal value of U.S. goods,” the Journal said the war has already battered soybean farmers deep in Trump country, as well as a wide range of U.S. products.

“The damage is already serious for American soybean farmers whose biggest customer is China. They now face a 28% tariff while competitors in Brazil and elsewhere pay no duty. The cash price for U.S. soybeans recently fell to its lowest level in about a decade,” they wrote. “Producers of beef, pork, chicken and seafood will also take a hit. U.S. automakers, which will now pay a 40% tariff after it had recently fallen to 15%, will lose sales of highly profitable SUVs that are increasingly popular with Chinese consumers”

[Crossless2.0]

I expect we cargo ship agents will see at hit as a result of this -- the company I work for perhaps less so than some others.

I often have vessels complete discharging cargo in the Mississippi River with no orders in place for loading in or out of our port system. In at least half of those cases, orders will eventually come to have the vessel anchor in the river to clean holds in preparation for loading grain (usually soybeans) for export to China. Now, with the tariffs in place, there will be fewer charters for these cargoes and ship owners will have collective breakdowns, waiting for someone -- anyone! -- to charter their vessels, whose day-to-day expenses (wages, fuel consumed, provisions and stores, maintenance costs, etc.) typically mount to the tens-of-thousands of dollars per day whether the ship is active or idle.

Even before Trump blundered into trade policy, ship owners had been hurting. There are hundreds and hundreds of ships anchored off Singapore, just waiting for orders. Last week, I finished working a ship that had been anchored at Singapore for a month before receiving orders to proceed to New Orleans to load cargo for export to Mexico. No word on what they are to do after discharging at Altamira.

[Minimalist]

Maybe it can sail to China and pick up a load of those stupid, fucking, hats?

[Whateverist]

This sounds like one unhappy soybean farmer!

https://www.rawstory.com/2018/06/trump-b...ial-peril/

Trump-backing soy bean farmer rails against president’s tariffs: ‘You are putting families in financial peril’

Dear Unhappy Soybean Farmer,

The only family that pig cares about is his own.

Yeah, not nearly as much fun as when it happens to someone else.