Disconnect

It struck me that something wasn't quite right here.<br />n<br />n<a href="http://www.farmgate.uiuc.edu/archive/2006/07/post_37.html">If You Are A Cowboy, How Do You Plan To Survive?</a><br />n<br />nThe title here really caught my eye. What do they mean? So i dove into the article to find out.<br />n<br />n<blockquote>Little boys and girls want to be cowboys. But today cowboys want to be anything other than that. Cattle are dying from the heat. Pasture land is drying up and burning up. Corn may be cheap this fall, but will be higher priced next year because of growing ethanol demand. And we are just beginning the 10 year cycle of cattle expansion. Do you get out, or do you manage your risk? Look at the calendar; today is the last business day of the month, and that is important for your future.</blockquote><br />n<br />nHmm, I thought, where is this going. In short I will tell you. The whole article touts the benefits of the Livestock Gross Margin Insurance Program. What is that you ask.<br />n<br />n<blockquote>LGMI will provide an indemnity payment as a protection against a decline in cattle feeding margins. It covers your cost of feeders, your cost of corn and then protects you from a decline in live cattle prices. This full meal deal is a substitute for either hedging all of those or buying option premiums for all of those.</blockquote><br />n<br />nLGMI protects against a decline in feeding margins. So, how does this help me, the poor cowboy?<br />n<br />nIt doesn't. This is something to help the feedlot operators in the Midwest but I don't see that it helps the cowboy directly at all. I am not real sure they should have said cowboy in the headline that strongly. Most cowboys I know don't feed cattle so could care less about the LGMI. I know I don't care about it, not my end of the business. Thanks for misleading me.<br />n<br />n<strong>Though analogy is often misleading, it is the least misleading thing we have. Samuel Butler</strong>