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Post by jonnyyuma on Nov 18, 2011 21:02:43 GMT -5
Hello Grunt and Olddog I don't think any corporation can be altruistic at all times. But that is another discussion for another topic. I will pose a question though. Say a company employs 20,000 people and 5,000 are in a division that loses patent on the one product they sale. Should the corporation keep them employed at the eventual expense of the remaining 15,000?
Thanks Jonny
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Post by jonnyyuma on Nov 18, 2011 21:13:24 GMT -5
Alan I agree with you that Monsanto is a catch all, but they seem to really catch all of it. I think it would be a different experience working for Syngenta or Bayer for example. I think breeding for fun and sharing genetics around is a great thing and this is where I disagree with Monsanto in the "wider" plant breeding discussion. However i understand Monsantos position that protection from Syngenta etc is a requirement to survive. Thanks Jonny
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Post by jonnyyuma on Nov 18, 2011 21:19:10 GMT -5
Martin That's pretty funny. I do agree with you, but unfortunately patent lawyers make a living disagreeing with what you said. Thanks Jonny
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Post by steev on Nov 18, 2011 22:51:47 GMT -5
Yes, and Monsanto's lawyers make a living putting the blame for Monsanto's genetic pollution on those they've polluted, unless they pay "protection" by repeatedly buying Monsanto's products. So the farmer has to knuckle under to Monsanto or stop growing the crop for which his operation is geared.
As agribusiness and the commodification of foodstuffs progresses, larger acreages of fewer crops get planted, leading to more crops that are worthwhile developing as GMO's, leading to more patentable crops, leading to more control by giant corporations of the necessities of life.
Does anyone here aspire to serfdom? Big Ag will certainly help you realize your dream, if so.
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Post by grunt on Nov 19, 2011 0:21:11 GMT -5
Any corporation that has only one product for a branch, and knows the patent is running out, should have plans for a replacement project for the branch = unless of course, they are planning to shut down the branch as a tax break.
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Post by davida on Nov 19, 2011 0:53:28 GMT -5
Steeve, You make a good point about serfdom. The individual owners of chicken houses are slaves to "Tysons" of the world. The companies furnish the chickens and the feed and tell the farmer WHEN AND IF they can have chickens. So the chicken house owner are worse than slaves because they have the huge mortage payments. As farmers become addicted to the GMO seeds, the same thing will happen to them. I visited with an elderly farmer recently that was planting GMO corn. His quote was "I have to plant GMO corn, 99% of the county is planting GMO's". When I asked him why farmers were not going to become the next slaves to the GMO seed companies, he had the most shocked look on his face and said "I never thought about that". He had been farming this same land for over 50 years and this thought had never entered his mind. The commercial seed market is nearly cornered, if not already. If the farmer cannot get seeds, the seed companies can dictate which seeds the farmer will plant, how much the farmer will pay for the seeds and how much the seed company will pay for the crop. And the farmer will have to play the game because of the big mortages on his land and/or equipment. So, you make a good point. Thank goodness for Public Domain in the garden world.
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Post by paquebot on Nov 19, 2011 1:45:41 GMT -5
Martin That's pretty funny. I do agree with you, but unfortunately patent lawyers make a living disagreeing with what you said. Thanks Jonny Lawyers have nothing to do with my garden. I will grow whatever I wish as long as it is legal to do so. I do not need anyone else to tell me what I should grow or whom I should obtain the seed from. If there is anyone who thinks that I should do otherwise, submit plan B with the funds to do so. There's a Seminis research facility roughly 3 miles straight south of my main gardens. About the same distance away is a Pioneer facility. Farmer across the road grows for Harris Moran. About 8 miles east is a Ferry Morse station. All get along just fine with each other and none of them are going away no matter how many gigabytes are expended on forums. All interested in the same thing, trying to figure out how to feed 7 billion people now and another billion in another 20 years or so. Martin
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Post by steev on Nov 19, 2011 1:53:44 GMT -5
Twenty years ago, when I was a chemist working for Bayer in its subsidiary, Cutter Labs, Bayer was in process of streamlining its operations in the US. That meant building new operations in Right-to-Work-for-Less states and shutting down "inefficient" (union) operations. A couple months ago, I heard on the radio, that Bayer is in the midst of another round of "efficiency" shut-downs. Another multi-national corporation making decisions about people's lives based on the bottom line; nothing personal, just business.
Monocropping farmers, contract chicken-ranchers, workers in single-employer communities, all the same situation: barely staying afloat and ready to go off on whoever the boss says is rocking the boat and endangering their meager security.
I'm glad I'm too old and disillusioned to give a husky fuck about the whole notion of getting rich and important; I pretty much have what I need, and the rest is just gravy. I don't think I was put here to slave my ass off; play it off, laugh it off, work it off, but not slave it off. The corporations of the world can all kiss the part of me that's most prominent every time I bend down to pull a weed in my garden.
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Post by oxbowfarm on Nov 19, 2011 7:19:10 GMT -5
When corporations are not checked by government they will always act in ways detrimental to society due to forces inherent to their structure and the structure of a capitalist economy. It happened in the 19th century with the railroads, the 20th century with the steel and mining companies, and now with the multinational clusterfuckers. Unfortunately we have a government that is currently not interested in seriously bringing them to heel and you hear a lot of nonsense about freeing corporations from excess regulation so they can "create jobs". Corporations have zero financial incentive to create jobs. They exist to generate profit, jobs are costs. They have an incentive to eliminate jobs and pay people less, ( with the exception of executives who actually get to write their own checks and packages) move operations to areas of cheapest labor, materials, labor, shipping in the interests of maximizing profits. They will always do this, they cannot do anything else, its the soup they swim in. It is the duty of government to "make the soup" in such a way that society is not harmed. Currently the governments of the world are failing in that duty.
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Post by oxbowfarm on Nov 19, 2011 7:31:57 GMT -5
Building on my last post and relating it specifically to GMOs and Monsanto. Allowing GMOs to be patented at all was a serious and egregious mistake made by government. I am of the opinion that genetically modified organisms could in fact be created that would be beneficial to society, but the technology and the patent laws are being used as a method to manipulate agricultural markets and modify the commodity crop distribution system to maximize profit for the corporations who control the technology.
All the talk about feeding the world is bullshit. A corporation like Monsanto or ADM can give a crap about a starving person because a starving person has no money. The way GMO tech is being developed will not result in more food for the future, it will result in war.
That is the big reason I hate Monsanto so much. The work they are doing is laying the groundwork for so much future suffering for literally billions of people all in the name of a higher share price to make Mr. Buffet happy.
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Post by steev on Nov 19, 2011 10:18:19 GMT -5
I don't understand your mention of "Mr. Buffet"; if you refer to Warren Buffet, my understanding of him is that he is relatively responsible.
Other than that, I think you've hit the nail on the head; to pound it further through the board, I would refer to the Clearances of the 18th Century, when sheep were deemed more valuable on the land than Scots or Irish peasants.
The commodification of food is already destroying peasant cultures that can't compete with subsidized agribusiness, the corn economy of Mexico being a good example.
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Post by castanea on Nov 19, 2011 11:33:19 GMT -5
Martin That's pretty funny. I do agree with you, but unfortunately patent lawyers make a living disagreeing with what you said. Thanks Jonny Lawyers have nothing to do with my garden. I will grow whatever I wish as long as it is legal to do so. I do not need anyone else to tell me what I should grow or whom I should obtain the seed from. If there is anyone who thinks that I should do otherwise, submit plan B with the funds to do so. There's a Seminis research facility roughly 3 miles straight south of my main gardens. About the same distance away is a Pioneer facility. Farmer across the road grows for Harris Moran. About 8 miles east is a Ferry Morse station. All get along just fine with each other and none of them are going away no matter how many gigabytes are expended on forums. All interested in the same thing, trying to figure out how to feed 7 billion people now and another billion in another 20 years or so. Martin I agree they're all interested in the same thing - how to destroy competition and make money. If they happen to feed someone along the way, I imagine they're OK with that, but it certainly isn't their primary goal.
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Post by oxbowfarm on Nov 19, 2011 14:10:24 GMT -5
I don't understand your mention of "Mr. Buffet"; if you refer to Warren Buffet, my understanding of him is that he is relatively responsible. I mentioned him because he owns great steaming piles of Monsanto stock. Which makes sense as he is a very famously successful investor and they are a very profitable company. Monopolies are really profitable, especially if you can addict your customers to your product.
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Post by paquebot on Nov 19, 2011 19:33:55 GMT -5
I still don't know why there are so many who think that plant patents are a new thing. The Plant Patent Act was enacted in 1930. The Plant Variety Protection Act dates from 1970. The one has been around for 81 years and the other 41 years. Despite a few people not liking them, revocation any time soon isn't going to happen.
Martin
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Post by oxbowfarm on Nov 19, 2011 21:00:37 GMT -5
Well Martin, I'd agree that it is unlikely to be revoked even thought I feel it an 80 year old mistake is still a mistake.
That being said, before GMOs, if you had your PVP variety in a field next to mine and some of you PVP pollen got into my crop and caused a small amount of crossing, nobody was going to start whipping out the lawsuits. The genes themselves have become the intellectual property, but they can't and won't control where that property goes naturally.
Its like your dog getting loose and pooping on my rug, and then you get to sue me for theft.
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