Re: Economics

"Duncan Rose" <duncan.rose@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote on 27 Jul 2006 11:1:
In the EU, we have these things called food mountains (or wine lakes); this
is where producers of these goods have been paid to produce, but have
overproduced so the surplus is stored in warehouses. Very large warehouses.
The citizenry of the EU pay taxes to fund this production, and pay inflated
prices for food (since there's an overproduction, surely the price should
drop, no?). [...] I think the EU at least is already in a position where
the cost (to the consumer) of food could be reduced. [...] Strange it is,
then, that the costs to the consumer are NOT falling.

Government interference like this in free capitalist markets, while often
well-intentioned, almost always results in a worse long-term outcome for
the society.

Another way to look at it: EU consumers are paying a huge amount (in taxes,
and in higher food prices) in order to support a small number of small
farmers and winemakers, to allow that tiny group to continue to live in the
manner they have historically.

Japan also does this kind of thing with their rice farmers. (You have to
prohibit imports of the goods as well.) Rice farming is culturally important
to the Japanese, and wine making to the EU. But the consumers are paying a
whole lot extra to maintain that outdated system.

I put it to you that many of the 'scarce resources' we find in our
societies are 'artificially scarce'

This is by far the exception, not the rule.

Almost any valuable good you can imagine, there is more human desire for it
(if it were free) than can be provided. Scarcity is a fact of nature, not an
artificial problem invented by the corrupt rich.

-- Don
_______________________________________________________________________________
Don Geddis http://don.geddis.org/ don@xxxxxxxxxx
Love can sweep you off your feet and carry you along in a way you've never
known before. But the ride always ends, and you end up feeling lonely and
bitter. Wait. It's not love I'm describing. I'm thinking of a monorail.
-- Deep Thoughts by Jack Handey [SNL]
.

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