Corn Commentary

Corny Analogy

It’s not every day that the mayor of the nation’s biggest metropolitan area uses a farming analogy to make a point, but that’s what New York’s Michael Bloomberg did today in a speech to the U.S. Conference of Mayors. While accepting the National Mayoral Leadership Award for his efforts to combat climate change, Bloomberg launched into a tirade against Congress and the federal government that slammed agriculture in the process.

AP reports the “metropolitan mayor used a farming analogy to heap scorn on the current crop of Washington leaders.”

“They spent most of this past decade when things were good running up bills with reckless abandon, and when the economy started heading for the ditch, the special interest giveaways got even bigger. I think they ate the seed corn without worrying about the next year’s crop. Here we are, the seed corn is gone, and all we’ve got is a barn full of IOU’s,” he said.

Ok, so the analogy sort of works (if anyone actually ATE seed corn), but what does the son of Jewish immigrants who grew up in Boston and became a multi-billionaire financial tycoon know about seed corn in the first place? And its not like when Jesus spoke to people using farming parables so they could relate – his audience was a bunch of fellow metropolitan mayors who also probably don’t know seed corn from popcorn.

The comment makes a bit more sense when you read the entire text of Bloomberg’s remarks, which transition from seed corn to attacking the farm and energy bills:

“We all know that spending decisions in Washington are driven by whatever will attract votes and campaign cash. You can see it in the farm bill: 10 percent of farms – the large agribusinesses – captured 75 percent of the benefits, while the small family farmer got a few crumbs. You can see it in the energy bill, which was also a gift to agribusiness – and the rest of us are paying higher food prices as a result.”

Perhaps Mayor Bloomberg would like to see how the people of New York City would fare trying to grow their own food and he could learn first hand what it would be like when the seed corn was gone and the barn was empty.