NFO-119 (AV10619): Perilous Conditions

[music] welcome to us farm report to public information program brought to you in the interest of agriculture rural business and the well-being of our nation by members of the national farmers organization in this local area the national farmers organization takes pride in inventing a marketing system to meet the needs of the 20th century Collective Bargaining for agriculture NFO represents new thinking in a new generation of farmers u.s. farm report now presents a look at agriculture and its effect on the economy with some of our nation's outstanding leaders now here is W. W. Swaim we're glad to have this opportunity to present to you some of the outstanding leaders of the nation people that are scattered and diversified walks life all the way from western Colorado East to Washington DC and far north, way up in Wisconsin down into Kansas Minnesota and today we have with us Arnold Paulson an outstanding young man from Minnesota who is doing a terrific job in farming the public of what's really happening the rural America and to our economy as a whole Arnold has been speaking throughout the nation and has studied the economy from one end to the other Arnold would you moderate this show for me today well thank you very much butch and it's a real pleasure for me to have this opportunity to be on your program today and to moderate this panel of distinguished Americans we have just completed a seminar here in Sioux City Iowa this past week discussing many of the economic problems confronting our nat- our nation's economy and with us at this time we have some distinguished panelists that I'd like to introduce to you and to express their comments and I think to start our program out today I'll call on Reverend Giles Ekola from Chicago Illinois who has been a past assistant for the for five years to Dr. Mueller of Chicago and this time I'd like to ask mr. Ekola what your reasons were for attending this seminar or this conference and some of your observations Thank You mr. Paulson really the churches and pastors in the denominations that have a basic concern to relate to the American society and to seek to learn more as to what is taking place in all sectors of the American population and the total American community in the setting of the country we have so much that is none Metropolitan in which takes place all such dynamic processes as the productivity of American agriculture and one of the personal concerns that I have is that we tend not to know sufficiently the productivity and the capability and the quality of our agricultural enterprise and we tend not to know the issues and the concerns and the problems I think that in the very important and very large issues of the urban scene we give a lot of tension to these and these problems and concerns and to get publicized in the various media of our society a great deal now it would seem well that we as people of the various denominations who are concerned for ministering to the American society that we take and examine what is taking place take time to listen that's very important that we spend time learning and not always proclaiming without realizing the social and economic setting of our proclamation that little card just about fell over at the moment now uh farmers and ranchers our basic part of the American society the American economy and I think in the interest of wholeness we in the churches pastors and lay persons of varying assignments and persons of varying responsibilities throughout church structures need to listen and this seminar for me has been a time when a lot of information and a lot of ideas and a lot of insights that I had not had the opportunity previously to become acquainted with in such depth we're brought out in ways that are very helpful and I believe that we need to look at the kinds of concerns that you men are working with in your seminars and for this reason I'm real pleased to have been here mr. Paulson well thank you very much and we've certainly been happy to have you with us another guest that we have with us today is mr. Ellis Kitchen a farmer and also a member of the National Farmers Organization and he's been attending the seminar it's been dealing mostly with national economics but Ellis as a farmer and as a person who is keenly interested in the conditions of our national economy as well as agriculture I'd like to call on you to express a few remarks at this time thank you mr. Paulson I think I'll go back to my local community to start with I live in east central Kansas and live in a community that's livestock rents for the livestock I'm near the wheat belt and they later with a lot of grain this whole area of Kansas seems to have one problem and that is price whether they're in the livestock business whether they're producing grain the price of wheat yesterday was a dollar fifty two per bushel which is approximately 50 percent of the true parity well thank you Ellis did you enjoy the conference very much so well thank you we were certainly happy that you could attend it I'm gonna turn to the other end of the table at this time and this next gentleman is one that I've certainly enjoyed meeting he comes from Colorado he's a manager of the Production Credit Association and I found that he's a very concerned American not only concerned about the economics but also about the problems of his home state at this time Homer Jackson from Rifle Colorado I'd like to ask you to express a few remarks in relationship to your concern about the conditions of our economy and as a rancher and the conditions in Colorado I haven't gained the quite a little from this seminar I came back to Sioux City in an effort to get the thinking of others besides myself I live in northwestern Colorado and thes Arnold told you I am with the Production Credit Association and financed the livestock and farm people in that area we are primarily a livestock producing area the sheep and cattle and as mr. Kitchen mentioned our problem there is price operating costs on the ranches continue to climb as costs go up in line with our national economy except that the price of what we produce our livestock either is stays stable or our prices decline and our ranch people are unable to show an operating profit and in order to offset this lack of operating income we're borrowing more money each year and our loans are getting higher and higher in factor loans have doubled in the past five years now to make it possible to land under those conditions we've had to use the real estate as collateral as a backlog of collateral behind the livestock operations and up until this money situation tightened up and the interest rates got higher we were able to sell our ranches and about any time we wanted to and it had attractive prices but now we're finding that very difficult to do in fact real estate is almost at a standstill so far as moving we haven't dropped the price of it out there much but you can't sell a ranch today just when you want to and now we're up against the proposition of whether to operate for another year at a loss or just what to do and there in our area now we have more cows advertised for sale and any other time that I've ever known of and I've been in the business for over 40 years our livestock operators are attempting to switch to yearling operations or they're trying to get rid of this high operating costs and they're trying to dispose of their base breeding herds now what I'm interested in finding out is why our price is down when we're operating at a time when the demand for meat as is it the highest that any of us have ever known in our lifetime and we there feel it the price control of the livestock industry is in the hands of the retail and the livestock business we think that the retail end of it has they are the principal buyers they have absolute control over livestock markets and they're setting a price for meat today they're buying dressed meat today at a price by pound less than we sold live cattle for on the hoof 15 years ago and while our prices have come down at the ranch level the operating costs have continued to climb during these past 15 years and it's putting us out of business we're our experienced and capable men out there can't show profit it's impossible for young folks to come into the livestock business the ranch and on an ownership scale and we see this thing absolutely going out of the hands of the farm people and we're we're really in Jackson a banker friend of mine in Kansas told me a couple weeks ago that a large commercial feedlot down there had just sold its its livestock and they lost I believe he said 34 dollars a head how does this compare with the profits and losses out in Colorado right now well I've heard of reports that a computer study was run on the feed Lots in Arizona and in northeastern Colorado and those reports bear up with what you've just said they're taking loss of their 25 to 50 dollars a head on all the cattle that go out of that area and those are fairly efficient operations to aren't they yes they are we were interested quite interested in a study that was made recently and published by a Denver paper of the profits that were being made by the three leading retail out lets there in Denver on these same cattle at the feed Lots we're losing $50 a head on this study revealed that the retailers were making a gross profit of as much as a hundred and eighty eight dollars a carcass on the same carcass that the feeder was losing $50 and on out of the feedlot in other words as soon as it goes out of the hands put your price on it and gets the price yes that's a way we see it that when this our commodity our fat lambs now we sold fat lambs out there last week for as low as 18 cents out of the feedlot and as these lambs and fat cattle move out of the feedlots and go into the hands of the retailers they take these commodities into their hands they apparently without regard it spend as much as they like for advertising on them they can evaluate one commodity for the purpose of promoting the sale of another and then they take their markup over that but they set a price to us that we can't live under the feeder is under this dressed meat ceiling and of course we're producers there in our area we sell yearling stares and we sell calves and we sell lambs off the ranches but the feeders can't pay us a price today for our cattle that will meet the cost of production well thank you very much miss Jackson the pleasure not only to have you on this program but to have participated on our conference here in Sioux City this weekend our next guest is father Dismas Trader Franciscan father from Pulaski Wisconsin and father Trader you've traveled a long distance to attend this conference and I'd like to ask you the same question that I asked the other Reverend what was your specific purpose and coming to this conference and what were your observations or what comments would you like to make at this time feel free to make any statement you like I think it's important to demonstrate the necessity of group action I don't think that our religious beliefs should divide us in an effort of the kind that NFO is after namely getting the oil price for the farmer for the things he produces myself being a Franciscan an religious orderman have taken the vow of poverty and as such I may not possess money of my own I have to mission to use it and certainly the vow that does not permit me knowing something about money we too have to live we have to earn a living in order to keep body and soul together we know that in the Old Testaments rather than the new and not be all churches will go along with this that all workers are entitled to adjust wage there has been a sticker called by Supreme Pontiffs in the past about the necessity to get it just wage for labor the last two also have included farmers those who provide us with food so abundantly but unfortunately these poor people do not get the share that ought to come to them of the national wealth there's much evidence that the farmer has been and still is getting the short end of the deal we're certainly not asking for sympathy you can't swallow that and live on it what we're asking for is a just return for the effort the farmer has put in to provide food for abundancy for all the rest of people in the country and also in foreign countries there have been as we know it so-called New Deal at one time there was a fair deal Square to you but all along didn't the farmer was getting a raw deal what we're asking for now is a just deal title to it I'm a farmer myself also a priest farmer and I'm just about concerned about this as the other farmers so the farmer is entitled to this and I feel it proper to work towards that end well thank you very much and it's certainly been a privilege for us to have you with us and to enjoy your fellowship during this conference and we appreciate those fine words the next gentlemen I'm going to introduce I'm doing so with great pleasure and distinction many of you people who have attended my seminars throughout the United States have often heard me remark or refer to mr. Carl Wilken research analysts of the National Foundation for Economic Stability from Washington DC I happen to be a student of mr. Wilken's and I like to look at him as my professor in economics practically everything that I have learned during the past several years I must credit to mr. Wilken. and therefore it's a great pleasure for me at this time to introduce him to you and I'd like to have mr. Wilken point out very briefly the specific purpose that he had during this conference in the presentation of the factual record of the United States during the past year mr. Wilkens is the founder you might say or the author of the first balance sheet that's ever been made available to the American people on the operation of our economy Carl it's a pleasure to have you with us today well I'm glad to be here and my purpose was to point out to the seminar the importance of a balance sheet of the economic record as a guide for Congress in restoring a sound and solvent economy In my presentation I pointed out that in the United States from 1929 up to the present we have the most complete economic record of the most complete economy that has ever been available to man but for some reason or other we have not used this record to set up a balance sheet to find out what happened in 1929 what road we have traveled since that time and where we are headed in my presentation I used a balance sheet using 48-50 as a period of 100 and the 15 years that followed and using it I pointed out the operating loss of the United States and in that period the addition of $884 billion dollars to the total federal, state, local, and private to upset the operating loss now without a balance sheet in the past 15 years we have been operating on theories without any regard to facts and I use the balance sheet to prove that most of these theories aren't true never have been and never will be and finally I, to having the attent- people in attendance use a lead pencil and using their own arithmetic pointed out to them how they could prepare a balance sheet of economic record every year by using the president's economic report to Congress each January and in using the 1967 report which was published this last January I pointed out that in 1966 the United States lacked ninety and four tenths billion dollars of having enough income to meet the wage and interest the principle cost fact is in operating our economy and that most of this shortage was absorbed by a shortage of income for our system of private enterprise consisting of farm operations small business and corporations after taxes now to offset this operating loss in 1966 we reached the peak and increasing the mortgage when the Department of Commerce published its debt figures in their May survey of current business I will predict that in 1966 we added 115 billion dollars to the total debt and this plus 894 but it means that in 16 years we've added 1,000 billion or a trillion dollars to the total debt against the economy and call it prosperity that's right and that we have passed this on to future generations our children and great grandchildren then finally I use the record to prove how each state by use of state records and the balance sheet to determine the operating loss in each and every state now then I pointed out to them that it wasn't necessary that they had any training in economics that all they needed was the record and arithmetic and I think you'll agree that most people know how to set up a balance sheet because they have to prepare their income tax and in preparing the income tax what do they use they use their record and arithmetic and arithmetic is an accurate science now unless we use a balance sheet we haven't any idea of what's going to happen but because of this debt that we have added on if we don't correct the balance which results from low farm prices in turn a relatively low gross farm income which is a source of income for rural America we will duplicate what happened in 1929 to 32 now at the present time if that should take place we have seven times as many dollars at stake and seven times as many financial obligations to repeat it and I think you'll agree that that would be a pretty rough recession it certainly would Carl, Carl I want to ask you one question you used to live in Sioux City didn't you years ago right isn't this where you got your start up in this area I incorporated, I was one of three men that incorporated the raw materials National Council in 1936 and the purpose of it was to prepare a balanced ship to find out why we had the depression following 29 when the experts were telling us we were never going to have another one and I've compiled a thousand sheep every year since that time well Carl in in the very few short words just what effect does the growth price of agricultural commodities have on our national income from 1921 to 1952 for every dollar of gross farm production that entered our economic cycle this newly earned income in exchanging goods with industrial America generated $7 of national income and then the period following 1929 to 41 all it is wrong with our economy was it we didn't maintain the number of $1.00 flowing in to generate the income to consume what we produced well who lost this who who who lost this income as a result of underpayment agriculture was it just the farmer Carl no the entire country lost and the point I want to drive home is that if you do not correct the situation you will continue to lose $7 of national income for every dollar that you under pay agriculture and you will either have a depression or it would be forced to continue adding on more to the mortgage until finally the bubble burst well thank you mr. Wilken I see our time is running out I'd like to once again see if these gentlemen have a concluding statement they'd like to make in closing doctor do you have a statement at this time the only thing I would like to add at this time mr. Paulson is this factor of importance of men and varying professions and occupations telling story it seems to me that quite often people in agriculture farmers farming and ranching have not spoken beyond themselves and I'd like to ask them to speak beyond themselves well thank you mr. Kitchen probably the greatest concern that's been expressed here is about our American system or low farm prices all of these people are here on their own time their own expense some have come over a thousand miles some fifteen hundred some forty meters in various groups and professions are representative well thank you and mr. Jackson again I want to express our sincere appreciation for taking the time to be with us you have a concluding statement I want to say that we as producers must get a fair price on the production of our agriculture commodity will seriously affect food supply this nation at a time when when it can't be reduced because the population is increasing, we must produce more food and we must have a price if we are to produce it, and I've seen we have about 20 seconds Father Treeder to like just a few words I in order to get something out of an organization it is certainly necessary to put something into it not just a little bit but a whole lot if all merely keep drawing out soon there'd be nothing left for all of us who is to take affirmative more therefore everybody certainly ought to put in all you possibly can and that way the agricultural would certainly be able to stand up to the other segments of the economy well it's been a pleasure a pleasure to be on your program Butch would you like to say a concluding I certainly think we're living in perilous conditions in our economy it's time that the farmers of America and real business people join together to solve this problem we found the answers all we need is more people working at the situation and it can be solved through NFO collective bargaining for agriculture American farmers all types of farming and Thank You Arnold for helping me out here today certainly depreciate all you gentlemen coming this far to take part and certainly if we get the churches the businesspeople and all of 'em working together we will win thank you [music] US Farm report has presented to look at agriculture and its effect on the economy with some of the nation's outstanding leaders members of the National Farmers Organization invites you to tune in again next week at this time for more facts on Agriculture and rural America which is the gear wheel in our economy that produces the majority of our nation's new wealth the farm income pattern sets the nation's prosperity and the national farmers organization represents new thinking and a new generation of farmers [music]