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Stupid Government Decisions – Part One
By Teia Griffiths
For quite a number of years, the NDP (New Democratic Party), a socialist party, has ruled the Province of Saskatchewan, Canada. Because they have been in power for long stretches of time since the 1940's, party members believe that they are smarter and more knowledgeable than all the other people in the province. This leads to arrogance and the belief that they don't have to consult with anyone, because “they know best.” Unfortunately, this leads to very costly stupid decisions. Back in the 1960's they built a very large earthen core dam (The Gardener Dam) across the South Saskatchewan River. It was quite an architectural marvel, and I believe, at the time, it was the largest earthen core dam in the world. One of the by-products of the dam was the ability to provide irrigation to the farmland bordering the lake (Lake Diefenbaker). Because they no longer had to do “dry land” farming, many of the farmers switched from grain farming to other produce. The one crop that really took off in a profitable way was the growing of seed potatoes. These seed potatoes were of very high quality and in demand world wide, particularly in the United States. The NDP government looked at this longingly and decided that they had to get in on it. Their decision was to pass a law requiring that all seed potatoes had to be sold to the government which would build large storage facilities. Then the government would sell the potatoes from the storage facilities to potato farmers around the world. Their reasoning was that if they controlled all the seed potatoes, then they could dictate the price that the buyers would have to pay. The law was passed and a political hack was put in charge of the Saskatchewan Potato Corporation, or as it “affectionately” became known as, “Spudco.” “Spudco” built six huge cement potato storage facilities at a cost of one million dollars each. The farmers grumpily delivered their seed potatoes to these storage facilities and received an “interim” payment for them. The final payment, based on the price the potatoes were sold at, would be paid later. By the time all the potatoes had been harvested and delivered to the storage facility, the growing season in the northern hemisphere was over and winter was setting in. A few small sales were made to farmers in the southern hemisphere as their growing season was about to start. As spring neared, orders came in from farmers in the northern hemisphere and shipments were heading out in continuous convoys. Shortly after the shipments arrived at their destinations, the complaints started. When the purchasing farmers opened the bags or containers of seed potatoes, they found that most of them were rotten and useless. Then the law suits started. The government blamed the Saskatchewan farmers for delivering rotten seed potatoes and the farmers blamed the government for not storing them properly. The customers demanded replacement seed potatoes, but there weren't any because ALL the potatoes in the storage facilities were rotten and useless. So, then the customers demanded compensation because they could not plant because it was too late to find another source for seed potatoes. The seed potato growers either went broke or switched to something else because they could not afford to send potatoes to the government facilities. The tax payers footed the bill for all of this and now are the “proud” owners of six empty cement storage buildings. The moral of the story? Don't let people who are ignorant of the fact that potatoes must be stored in wooden buildings with plenty of air circulation have anything to do with potato storage, and NEVER let a government run a business, especially when they are prone to putting one of their political hack cronies in charge. |
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Yeah I know. We have the same issue here. One term for it is "elitism". You see, they know best, and we the public are all stupid.
CONTRIBUTOR'S REPLY
Thanks James, The really scary part is when you vote another party into power and a few months after they get their butts in the power seats, they are just like the party that you got rid of. I wonder if there is something about the chairs that eliminates common sense? Gilbert
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