Letters To The Editor

Dear Sir,

Defenders of the status quo in the fed cattle markets are loudly sounding alarm calls. They claim that any intervention by USDA would result in an industry "dictated by government regulatory agencies."

I believe they mistake the choice that lies before the beef industry. Our choice is between a captive market system dictated by a private cartel and an open public market system policed by the federal government.

It is the same basic choice faced by the American stocks and bonds industry after the terrible stock market crash of 1929. Working in partnership with the federal Securities and Exchange Commission, business leaders transformed the major financial exchanges from private tools of manipulation into a system of great public marketplaces that have served both western capitalism and American democracy well in the 20th century. The importance of honest, well-policed exchanges is a lesson which Asian financial interests have yet to learn.

Privately organized, but federally policed, public exchanges were found key to stopping the pooling and short-selling schemes, stock manipulations, and insider trading that all but destroyed America's financial industry and our wider economy some 60 years ago.

Today, the key to rebuilding a modern, dynamic quality-based beef trade is again the development of privately organized, but federally policed, public exchanges for cattle and meat. Without great public markets, our industry will degenerate into a private cartel serving only the interests of the few at the expense of both independent producers and consumers.

Jeanne Charter
Shepherd, Montana