Farmers Making $100 Billion Don’t Need Subsidies to Grow: View

Imagine an industry on a roll. Its income surpassed the $100 billionmark last year for the first time. On top of these riches, those in the business got an additional $25 billion or so in federal handouts.

The 1 percenters of Wall Street? Not even close. The beneficiaries are America’s farmers, or to be more accurate, the wealthy owners of very big farms.

Considering how flush the farming industry is these days, thanks to surging commodity prices, Congress should have no qualms about eliminating the most egregious agriculture policies and using the savings to chip away at the budget deficit.

Every five years, Congress writes a new farm bill -- the next one must be adopted in 2013 -- which means that Congress might start drafting new legislation soon.

A lot of the political horse-trading in this cycle involves the worst of the giveaways -- the roughly $5 billion in direct payments -- that go to a small slice of the largest agribusinesses, most of which produce a handful of commodity crops such as corn, wheat and soybeans. The owners receive these subsidies regardless of need or the health of the farming industry.

Promised Savings

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-01-31/farmers-making-100-billion-don-t-need-new-federal-subsidies-to-grow-view.html

View: iPads Won’t Make Textbooks More Affordable

Q

In his State of the Union address, Barack Obama called on colleges and universities to control their costs -- a message he reinforced in hisspeech a few days later at the University of Michigan. One good place to start would be to reduce the price that college students pay for textbooks.

If ever an industry were deserving of digital destruction, it would be the$10 billion textbook market. A handful of companies sell almost all primary, secondary and higher- education textbooks. At the college and university level, where 19 million students spent $4.5 billion in 2010 on texts that they were all but compelled to buy, many schools own bookstores and get a cut of the sales.

The rationale for pricing can be opaque: You can buy Paul Krugman’s economics textbook for $166 at Barnes & Noble in the U.S., or you can purchase it from Blackwell’s in the U.K. for less than half that. The federal government helps to underwrite annual textbook price increases by baking their cost into financial-aid calculations.

No wonder textbook prices rose 186 percent in the U.S. from 1986 to 2004. That’s slightly more than 6 percent a year, versus an overall inflation rate of 3 percent. Although students at four-year private institutions might not blink at spending well over $700 a year on books and supplies, for students at public two-year schools, who account for roughly 40 percent of all post-secondary students, that can represent more than half their academic costs.

Interactive Texts

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-01-30/why-ipads-won-t-make-students-textbooks-more-affordable-view.html

Technician Alan Newman: Buy Gold, Buy Gold Stocks

Also Ryan Puplava with his market wrap-up and Rob Bernard with the Fixed Income Report

James J Puplava CFP with Ryan Puplava CMT, Alan M. Newman, andRobert Bernard

Jim is pleased to welcome back technician Alan Newman this week, who is very bullish on gold and gold equities. In addition Ryan Puplava wraps up the week with a market overview and Rob Bernard joins Jim with his Fixed Income Report. Jim also takes some of your Q-Calls this segment.

Ryan joined PFS Group in 1995. He holds a B.S. in Business Administration/Finance from San Diego State University. His professional designations include FINRA Series 4, Series 7, and Series 66 Uniform Combined State Law Exam. He earned the Chartered Market Technician's designation in 2007. Mr. Puplava is Senior Trading Manager and works closely with Jim Puplava on PFS Group's Growth investment objective. He also contributes a monthly Market Observation to Financial Sense and co-authors In the Know—a weekly communication for Jim Puplava's clients only—with other members of the trading staff.

Alan M. Newman, the Editor of Alan M Newman's Stock Market Crosscurrents, was born on June 24, 1940 in Brooklyn, New York. Mr. Newman has formerly enjoyed careers in acting, computer programming, game design and real estate and currently resides in Nassau County, NY, where his recently retired wife Ali received a Doctoral degree in Literacy Studies.

Rob joined PFS Group in 2011 as an independent broker. Rob holds a BS in Business Administration from San Diego State University, and his professional designations include FINRA Series 7, Series 31, Series 63 and Long Term Care and Variable Annuity Insurance Licenses. With over 30 years of experience in the investment management industry—including 11 years as a Senior Vice President at Morgan Stanley, as well as other asset management and administration experience at Prudential Securities, Wells Fargo Securities, and PaineWebber—Mr. Bernard's expertise includes: Income strategies, diversification strategies, specialized high-level corporate executive strategies, particularly with SEC Rule 144-related services, long-term care insurance and variable annuities.

http://www.financialsense.com/financial-sense-newshour/big-picture/2012/02/04/01/r-puplava-a-newman-r-bernard/buy-gold-buy-gold-stocks