Wheat Subsidies: A Scam for the Ages

A great example from today's The Gartman Letter about how government agricultural subsidies generate significant and costly economic distortions and inefficiencies: 

"One of the axioms of economics is the simple notion that if you subsidize the production of anything you are going to get more of it… and usually more of it than you need. Our favorite example of that was back in the 1970s and 1980s when the US government subsidized durum wheat production in the Dakotas primarily. We got more durum wheat than we could use, so we had to subsidize the export of that wheat to Italy primarily.

Italian pasta makers gladly took the subsidized overproduction at newly subsidized prices that were below the world price of that wheat, and produced wonderful pastas that they exported to the US. The US pasta producers protested and got the government to put a tariff on the imported pasta! In other words, American tax payers “paid” to have too much wheat grown; “paid” again to have that excess wheat exported and “paid” again to buy the pasta they cherished from the Italian pasta producers… and all along the way there were more and more government employees needed to supervise each level of subsidies and tariffs. It was a wonder to behold! It was a scam for the ages."

Dennis then uses this example to ask "how anyone could be surprised to find that new home sales have fallen off the edge of a precipice in recent months following the “incentives” for buying new homes put into effect late last year and expiring several months ago this year?"

Update: Wheat farmers continue to receive very generous subsidies, more than $30 billion has been paid out between 1995 and 2009 to more than a million farmers, see data here and here.  More than $2 billion has been paid out in each of the last two years (2008 and 2009).