View Single Post
  #15 (permalink)   Report Post  
Michel Boucher
 
Posts: n/a
Default Why is beef so expensive?

"Dimitri" > wrote in
om:

> You are correct however in that the US government does manage
> certain commodities which is why we no longer make Life Savers in
> the US and why the production has moved 100% to Canada. Do you
> want to send those Jobs back?


Do you want them back? Obviously, they were thought at one time to
be unsuitable for Murkins to do...are you saying that now you're
desperate, that you're interested in getting them back? :-)

The GATT/WTO has attempted to develop the concept (not entirely
successfully, nor do I agree with it) of "comparative advantage",
which is a difficult concept to nail down, but essentially it means
that certain crops or products should almost be granted as exclusive
commodities for nations that have a relatively easy time of growing
or manufacturing them. For example, one would not recognize a
comparative advantage in growing bananas to Iceland, but one would to
the island of Madeira. The problem is that economists are the ones
developing these concepts and that truly frightens the bejaysus out
of me.

I see it as a problem wherein local markets will cease to exist and
varieties of cultivars will be eliminated inorder to make the crop
easier to transport. The experiment has already failed in Italy
where a region that was famous for its fifteen varieties of green
peppers has been transformed into large tracts of lad to grow
something completely different and no one ensured the survival of the
varieties so that now they are lots (at any rate lost to consumers).

The problem with agricultural subsidies is that governments will want
them applied on the blandest of products to ensure best iunvestment
return, not the lesser known but more exciting varieties, and we are
that much the poorer or it.

--

"I'm the master of low expectations."

GWB, aboard Air Force One, 04Jun2003