Inflation and Prices: Food and Energy

[PLAYER57832]

A problem which I mentioned and which you don't believe is that gathering the information required to truly assess certain externalities is costly, time-consuming, not worth the price, and/or incapable of actually being gathered.

"You don't believe" is not the same as truth, sorry. And, "cannot be bothers" does not equal "unimportant. That is MY point.. one you cutely avoid.

What you continue to do is say, NO NO NO, but you don't actually present any empirical evidence on the economical impact of whatever externality you care to draw from the air.

Since you presist in ignoring any empirical data that you don't think fits your model...

Again, not the same as "no empirical data".

To begin, you cannot simply discount externalities because you don't like them. Its like saying that we cannot put a value on human life, so let's just not worry about cancer drugs. Let's just concentrate on cold remedies because they keep more people from calling off sick and are far cheaper to produce.

I'm not discounting anything. I'm saying they're unknown, yet you say, NUH UH THEY'RE KNOWN, but you never show any empirical evidence.[/quote]
LOL

Again, since you ignore anything outside your field, true.. not really true, but true in your narrow world.

I don't have 6 hours a day to dedicate in proving that you're an incompetent idiot.

No, but you did spend a few minutes showing how little you know about anything other than straight balance sheets.

I particularly loved your claim that externalities just cannot be calculated!

[BigBallinStalin]

A problem which I mentioned and which you don't believe is that gathering the information required to truly assess certain externalities is costly, time-consuming, not worth the price, and/or incapable of actually being gathered.

"You don't believe" is not the same as truth, sorry. And, "cannot be bothers" does not equal "unimportant. That is MY point.. one you cutely avoid.

What you continue to do is say, NO NO NO, but you don't actually present any empirical evidence on the economical impact of whatever externality you care to draw from the air.

Since you presist in ignoring any empirical data that you don't think fits your model...

Again, not the same as "no empirical data".

To begin, you cannot simply discount externalities because you don't like them. Its like saying that we cannot put a value on human life, so let's just not worry about cancer drugs. Let's just concentrate on cold remedies because they keep more people from calling off sick and are far cheaper to produce.

I'm not discounting anything. I'm saying they're unknown, yet you say, NUH UH THEY'RE KNOWN, but you never show any empirical evidence.

LOL

Again, since you ignore anything outside your field, true.. not really true, but true in your narrow world.

I don't have 6 hours a day to dedicate in proving that you're an incompetent idiot.

No, but you did spend a few minutes showing how little you know about anything other than straight balance sheets.

I particularly loved your claim that externalities just cannot be calculated!

[/quote]
1) I didn't state that; you just a have a reading comprehension problem.


2) Straw man fallacy

[BigBallinStalin]

@PLAYER

One of your main qualms is that I don't address what you say.

The main reason why I usually don't is because whenever I show you that you are wrong in your thinking, you have already switched subjects and ignore that your reasoning was shown as false.

It's a great tactic that you employ, and apparently it has turned you into this crazy, old disingenuous lady from Pennsylvania. You are disingenuous because you don't want to attain any mutual understanding. All you want is to confirm your own bias, which is done through ignoring any argument or any instance where you are wrong, and then continuing on to something off-topic or irrelevant, or to engage in some emotionally charged attack, whether it's through ad hominem attacks, straw man fallacies, or appeals to emotion.

Unfortunately, you have turned your brain into oatmeal by repeatedly denying any reasonable suggestions that people offer to you.


This thread and others are a great example of what I'm typing about.

[BigBallinStalin]

Essentially, PLAYER's responses can be described with the following picture:








inb4

My son is NOT 6 years old. He's 28!!!!!!! THEREFORE, YOU'RE WORNG!!!

[Phatscotty]

Inflation sucks

[Juan_Bottom]

By saying "best," you've just implied that it's best for all cases, and even for most cases.

That just isn't true because there are unseen costs with what you advocate.

See: viewtopic.php?f=8&t=131709&start=135#p3147752

Can you find a better rule?
The "unseen costs" are all negative. The only pro is saving money. Which is great on paper, but your body and community pay the full price down the line anyway.

Thus, buying locally still doesn't guarantee that the money will be spent within the local market.

No it doesn't. But it does guarantee that my money is spent in my community. Which is why I do it.

(like agricultural machinery, equipment, and even smaller goods like shovels, pitchforks, fenceboards, etc.), which are purchased at "local" retailers, who order these goods from wholesalers or manufacturers, who are usually out-of-town, out-of-state, or outside of this nation.

I prefer to buy products that say "made in the U.S.A." on them. I'm in a farming community and most of us feel this way. In the past I worked for Farm & Fleet, and this was one of their strengths as a retailer. They sold American made goods when the big lot stores were selling cheaper foreign stuff.

And you may keep your neighbors in business, but you can't keep all your neighbors in business. There's still intra-competition within your own local economy, so how do you justify hurting one neighbor by supporting another?

I don't have any that compete. Besides this, I would buy from who I was better friends with or who was closer. I said that I prefer to buy locally and expand that circle outward.

You say, that poor American should spend $500 in order to please your Localist Feelings. That is morally wrong and economically inefficient.

No it isn't. Not if it's better for their health. Eventually, it would be better on their wallet as well.

Besides, you're assuming that all local goods are 100% local.

Sure they are. I know most of the people at the farmer's market in Chena. lol
You might be talking about fertilizers or something. But obviously I can't control every dollar that's spent in this country, and that's hardly the point. I can control my dollar.

Upton Sinclair's novel is flawed because it only looks at one guy. LOOK AT THIS ONE GUY AND FEEL SORRY FOR HIM!, he boldly proclaims, and then he goes beyond logic and reason by appealing to your emotions. That's called Appeal to Emotion. It is a logical fallacy.

Your whole stupid sentence is a logical fallacy. I never used the book as a part of my argument. All I said was that the book changed things for the better. It helped Teddy to battle the big meat packers and slaughterhouses. It helped the Unions to secure a safe work environment for a good wage. I don't know why you had to go on this tangent.

Unions. Unions (like corporations) lobby their government to place a minimum wage, which creates a barrier for inexperienced, non-unionized workers from becoming employable. It effectively prices them out of a job.

You know who else they used to price out of a job? Illegal Immigrants.

Also, unions don't increase the upper bounds of one's income.

Still better than what we had before. Which was no upper or lower bound.

The upper bound is increased through one's labor productivity, which is from one's own labor, and from technological advances in increased productivity per laborer.

That's a myth for a perfect system. The reality is that there was a time when the head of the household would make enough income to support their whole family. Today, that doesn't happen nearly as much. Productivity has been on the rise for quite a while while wages have been on the decline.
Corporations spend their money on finding ways to make their workforce less costly, and yet be more efficient.
This is common knowledge.

“With labor productivity in industry outpacing wage growth, wage costs have declined as a ratio of total value added, leaving a larger share for companies’ profits. These productivity increases have kept margins intact and profit growth high in recent years even though producer (“factory gate”) and consumer price increases have been significantly lower than raw material price increases.6 “

http://www.permanentrevolution.net/entry/938

Explain how your plan can be implemented. If you can't explain, then we're back to problem one.

Ok. My plan to cut the distance that my dinner travels from 1500 miles to 7 will work like this:
Step one, get my meal from Merle Bronkema, the chicken/bird farmer.
Step two, eat it with my face.
Step three, wonder why I'm being asked such stupid questions.

Have you read "How to Lie with Statistics"?

Show me how those statistics were calculated, and we can have some fun.

Researchers have done little work to calculate food miles for areas outside the Midwest. A 1997 study showed that produce travels an average of 1,129 miles to Austin, 34 percent fewer than to Chicago. In 2001, an analysis of the Jessup, Md., terminal market concluded that U.S.-grown produce traveled an average of more than 1,685 miles. And though there's no formal research to support it, Pirog says it's safe to assume that, on average, food travels fewer miles to get to diners in California than to those in New York.

http://www.slate.com/id/2200202/pagenum/2
I live two hours outside of Chicago.

You spend that extra money, and reduce your real income. Just don't dictate what others should do with their own money, JB.

Funny argument. Seriously who do you work for?
Most American's have no choice of who to buy from. All American meat comes from like... what the same 10 companies? And all seed comes from Monsanto.
You call it "reducing your real income" and I call it fighting the monopolies and eating healthier. I'll continue to buy locally until there's no where left to buy from.

Estimate that environmental impact. Go ahead, try it.

You haven't once calculated or shown a thing. You just continue to say it's all negligible even when anyone else gives you a stat or fact. But I'll get to this because it's funny to me.

And then factor in the flipside: what percentage of local farmers are capable of committing the same errors?

With contamination from the new strain of E.Coli and/or Salmonella?
0 % positive rate for E.Coli risk. So long as they are grass fed cattle (instead of corn fed). But big business doesn't care about that so much. They are all for maximizing profits.
The Salmonella is a little more complicated because it's now in the environment. The E.Coli only lives in cattle's stomachs.

Is this risk in beef real? Was it corrected? Should consumers really be concerned since the problem is over? How can local businesses somehow be immune from such errors and similar ones if larger businesses aren't immune to such errors?

As far as I know; It was never "corrected." So long as corn-fed cattle shit, there is going to be the chance of another E.Coli outbreak.
Small farmers can feed their cattle on grass.

Have fun assessing that environmental impact!

Have you once proven anything? All you've done is attempt to dismiss everyone's argument for no apparent reason.

Fact: Animal waste is a serious biological hazard full of bacteria, chemicals, and viral compounds, and some farms have a lot of it - "A dairy farm with 2,500 cows may produce as much waste as a city of 411,000 people, and unlike a city in which human waste ends up at a sewage treatment plant, livestock waste is not treated. As a result, feedlot animals have the potential of exposure to various viruses and bacteria via the manure and urine in their environment. Furthermore, the animals often have residual manure on their bodies when they go to slaughter."

Fact: Farm-used antibiotics has lead to antibiotic resistant pathogens

Fact: Farm-Used growth hormones have been entering people through well water and meat for some time now. With no way to determine how safe they are.

Fact: Food travels far as hell to get to your grocery. Which releases all sorts of greenhouse gasses. Also, food tends to spread out more, increasing the area of damage when a disease does appear.

Fact: Big Cattle business gave rise to new forms of E.Coli, Salmonella, Mad Cow, Avian & Swine Flu

Fact: Large slaughterhouses repeatedly clean meat with chlorine, rinsing it down the drain. All of their equipment is cleaned with chlorines, caustics, and acids

Fact: "Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) has been identified in pigs and humans raising concerns about the role of pigs as reservoirs of MRSA for human infection. One study found that 20% of pig farmers in the United States and Canada in 2007 harbored MRSA.[47] A second study revealed that 81% of Dutch pig farms had pigs with MRSA and 39% of animals at slaughter carried the bug were all of the infections were resistant to tetracycline and many were resistant to other antibiotices[48] Cases of MRSA have increased in livestock animals. CC398 is a new clone of MRSA that has emerged in animals and is found in intensively reared production animals (primarily pigs, but also cattle and poultry), where it can be transmitted to humans. Although being dangerous to humans CC398 is often asymptomatic in food-producing animals"

Fact: "A 2011 study reported that according to a nationwide study nearly half of the meat and poultry sold in U.S. grocery stores -- 47 percent -- was contaminated with S. aureus, and more than half of those bacteria -- 52 percent -- were resistant to at least three classes of antibiotics. Although Staph should be killed with proper cooking, it may still pose a risk to consumers through improper food handling and cross-contamination in the kitchen. The senior author of the study said, "The fact that drug-resistant S. aureus was so prevalent, and likely came from the food animals themselves, is troubling, and demands attention to how antibiotics are used in food-animal production today." '

Fact: "Industrial production of pigs and poultry is an important source of GHG emissions and is predicted to become more so. On intensive pig farms, the animals are generally kept on concrete with slats or grates for the manure to drain through. The manure is usually stored in slurry form (slurry is a liquid mixture of urine and faeces). During storage on farm, slurry emits methane and when manure is spread on fields it emits nitrous oxide and causes nitrogen pollution of land and water. Poultry manure from factory farms emits high levels of nitrous oxide and ammonia."

Fact: Bio-accumulation of farm-used pesticides inside your body and wild animals

Fact: "Livestock production is also particularly water-intensive in indoor, intensive systems. Eight percent of global human water use goes towards animal production, including water used to irrigate feed crops."

Fact: Deforestation for animal feed production

Fact: Land degradation (reduced fertility, soil compaction, increased salinity, desertification)

Fact: Loss of biodiversity due to eutrophication, acidification, pesticides and herbicides

Fact: Species extinctions due to livestock-related habitat destruction (especially feed-cropping)


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Factory_farming

So, your sample size is one (you); therefore, what you personally observe is true in all cases? I don't think so, Tim.jpg

Do you have something better? Or just outright dismissal?

Water utilities are subsidized by the government, so the real price of water doesn't reflect in the costs of wasting it.

Well first off, I pay taxes, so yeah whatever the cost is I pay for it.
Second off, we all use wells here in the country, thank you. I'm talking about contamination of ground water from CAFOs and large-scale farming operations. We don't have any water utilities here.

By buying more expensive goods, you still reduce your real income, thus diminishing your purchasing power.

And your buying healthy food. And each purchase is a vote.

Don't you feel any care in the world for those people who live in poorer countries? Why not buy their products for the cheaper price so that you can help even poorer people in this world? Why harbor such a nationalist, narrow-minded view?

This is a terribly bad argument. I already brought up how in many places you can buy American-imported Corn or Soybeans cheaper than you can buy locally grown crops. You're beloved globalization is actually putting some of the poorest farmers and sharecroppers in the whole world out of business.
Companies like Coca-Cola lobby congress and get them to subsidize corn and soybean farming. That way we produce more crops than we could hope to use. Then they can buy the crops very cheaply themselves and keep their costs for artificial sweeteners or whatever, cheap.
So who you calling narrow-minded? You haven't once - not once - talked about these "secret costs" that you are talking about. You mentioned tariffs though? You mean like the ones that allowed US Corn and Soybeans to put Mexican farmers out of business?
Anyway I have talked about the "secret costs." Personal health and environmental impact are two of them.

so your local consumption goods that rely on foreign imported sugar, have become much cheaper; therefore, your real income has increased.

Most everything uses cheap, American taxpayer-subsidized corn. Also, your "real income" doesn't increase if you send your jobs overseas does it? Rather, some other companies "real income" does instead. What happens when an entire industry goes bankrupt because it cannot compete with cheap foreign goods? Tariffs exist for a reason.

It is more economically efficient for me to just tell you to educate yourself about economics by reading a book on it. If you don't, you're forever doomed to make uncredentialed statements about a topic of which you possess little, if any, knowledge.

Start with Free to Choose, Economics in One Lesson, or How to Create Your Own Economy by Tyler Cowen, or Peter Beotke's textbook on microeconomics. I'm knowledeagle in these areas, so feel free to ask questions only after you've yelled at every two or three lines of those books AND have generally understood what they are actually saying, instead of what you think they are saying (or instead of getting caught up on minor or negligible points).

Well good news, I'm knowledgeable about farming. So let's see who knows more about food. You might enjoy lording you economics knowledge, but you don't seem to know point one about what goes on in the world of American agri-business.

[Phatscotty]

Okay, now I have to read this. I will let you know who the winner is.

[BigBallinStalin]

By saying "best," you've just implied that it's best for all cases, and even for most cases.

That just isn't true because there are unseen costs with what you advocate.

See: viewtopic.php?f=8&t=131709&start=135#p3147752

Can you find a better rule?

The "unseen costs" are all negative. The only pro is saving money. Which is great on paper, but your body and community pay the full price down the line anyway.

Can I find a better rule? Give people the freedom to choose for themselves, instead of dictating harsh nationalist and protectionist policies which prohibits everyone's freedom.

The only benefit is not "saving money." The benefits vary widely. One such benefit is the increase in one's real income by buying cheaper goods--whether they be foreign or domestic is not my concern. My concern is that you support that everyone should eat the higher price in order to appease your nationalist sentiments. In turn, this reduces everyone's real income. The adverse effect is that they have less purchasing power to buy other goods, and now you have a huge potential problem.

As you mentioned, the flipside is that by buying local, you support your local economy, but does that always mean one supports their national economy by doing so? Not necessarily. You also hurt other sectors of the economy by not purchasing foreign goods in which the certain sectors of the national economy are involved.

I don't claim to know what is the best solution because for many issues there are many variables which are unknown and can't be known--at the national level. By advocating that you have the solution, i.e. buy local, you assume that you know what is best for everyone; however, what you see are only the immediate, short-term benefits and costs. You ignore other factors and boldly proclaim that everyone should buy local.

For me, the best policy is to enable people to choose for themselves in their best perceived interests. You are free to make people aware of the dangers of purchasing foreign goods within their respective communities (or in the areas in which you are knowledgeable, which is not the national realm, and since you're not knowledgeable of the national realm, dictating policies like "buy local" across the entire nation is a decision which reflects very little knowledge on your part).

And data vary from locality to locality. To dictate a national policy is a top-down approach which ignores many marginal costs and unintended consequences, that are particular to smaller localities. What may be best for one locality may not be best for another locality across the entire nation.

The main problem is that it is difficult to gauge which sectors of the economy (and the actors within each sector) are affected. I don't presuppose I know that answer, yet somehow a young guy who knows a good bit about agriculture (yet nothing of economics) presupposes that he know the one and only answer: buy local, never mind the costs! Doesn't that strike you as odd?

[BigBallinStalin]

By saying "best," you've just implied that it's best for all cases, and even for most cases.

That just isn't true because there are unseen costs with what you advocate.

See: viewtopic.php?f=8&t=131709&start=135#p3147752

Can you find a better rule?
The "unseen costs" are all negative. The only pro is saving money. Which is great on paper, but your body and community pay the full price down the line anyway.

http://www.conquerclub.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=8&t=131709&p=3149207#p3149207
Please read that first before continuing. It will prove to be very helpful in understanding what we were arguing about earlier.

Thus, buying locally still doesn't guarantee that the money will be spent within the local market.

No it doesn't. But it does guarantee that my money is spent in my community. Which is why I do it.

I just showed you that that guarantee isn't necessarily true, and you simply say, "no it doesn't."

Sorry, JB, that isn't an argument.

You'll have to move back to page 8 or 9 and deal with that again.

(like agricultural machinery, equipment, and even smaller goods like shovels, pitchforks, fenceboards, etc.), which are purchased at "local" retailers, who order these goods from wholesalers or manufacturers, who are usually out-of-town, out-of-state, or outside of this nation.

I prefer to buy products that say "made in the U.S.A." on them. I'm in a farming community and most of us feel this way. In the past I worked for Farm & Fleet, and this was one of their strengths as a retailer. They sold American made goods when the big lot stores were selling cheaper foreign stuff.

I'm glad that you have freely chosen to buy American products, JB. Your original stance however dictates that others are not free to choose foreign products because you are adamant about having all Americans to buy only American-produced goods. You have restricted other people's options in order to appease your nationalist sentiments.

"Made in the USA"

According to the FTC:

Are raw materials included in the evaluation of whether a
product is “all or virtually all” made in the U.S.?

It depends on how much of the product’s cost the raw materials
make up and how far removed from the finished product
they are.
Example: If the gold in a gold ring is imported, an
unqualified Made in USA claim for the ring is
deceptive. That’s because of the significant value
the gold is likely to represent relative to the finished
product, and because the gold — an integral
component — is only one step back from the
finished article. By contrast, consider the plastic in
the plastic case of a clock radio otherwise made in
the U.S. of U.S.-made components. If the plastic
case was made from imported petroleum, a Made
in USA claim is likely to be appropriate because
the petroleum is far enough removed from the
finished product, and is an insignificant part of it
as well.

OH NO! Hopefully, you're not buying foreign oil, Juan!!

And hopefully, those products, which make "Made in the USA" products, are of US origin, but they don't need to be. Only the product and the materials that go within it must comply with the FTC's rules. So if you purchases "Made in the USA" products, you could be supporting businesses which use foreign machines...


hey, JB, is a Toyota Camry "made in the USA"?

And you may keep your neighbors in business, but you can't keep all your neighbors in business. There's still intra-competition within your own local economy, so how do you justify hurting one neighbor by supporting another?

I don't have any that compete. Besides this, I would buy from who I was better friends with or who was closer. I said that I prefer to buy locally and expand that circle outward.

You have no neighbors that compete? Either they're a cartel or a monopoly if there's no competition.

You say, that poor American should spend $500 in order to please your Localist Feelings. That is morally wrong and economically inefficient.

No it isn't. Not if it's better for their health. Eventually, it would be better on their wallet as well.

What are the environmental and economical costs associated with purchasing foreign agricultural goods?

What are the environmental and economical costs associated with purchasing "big business" agricultural goods?

What are the environmental and economical costs associated with purchasing small business goods?

What are the environmental and economical costs associated with purchasing "mom and pop" shop's agricultural goods?


In order to dictate a nationalist policy that prohibits or restricts foreign competition, it would be wise to be able to answer the above questions. Then you can presume that you know what is best for everyone, but the truth is that you don't. Buying local, or primarily local, may not be what's best for everyone else--no matter how much you extrapolate your personal experiences onto everyone else's.

Besides, you're assuming that all local goods are 100% local.

Sure they are. I know most of the people at the farmer's market in Chena. lol
You might be talking about fertilizers or something. But obviously I can't control every dollar that's spent in this country, and that's hardly the point. I can control my dollar.

That's great, Juan, but that's not how it works for everyone else.

Sure, you can control your dollar, which is spent on a local business's product, and then that local business buys whatever it needs from wherever that may be. You advocate that everyone should buy local, but don't you see: businesses are faced with decisions on which products to buy.

If they were forced to buy "local" or buy only "American" and if those goods are more expensive then foreign goods, guess who makes up for the additional costs? You do, JB! Be proud to support the unintended consequences of higher prices in the name of your nationalist sentiments!

And with higher prices comes what, JB? Lower real incomes!

It still isn't wise for you to dictate which products people should buy based on your very limited knowledge and experience.

Upton Sinclair's novel is flawed because it only looks at one guy. LOOK AT THIS ONE GUY AND FEEL SORRY FOR HIM!, he boldly proclaims, and then he goes beyond logic and reason by appealing to your emotions. That's called Appeal to Emotion. It is a logical fallacy.

Your whole stupid sentence is a logical fallacy. I never used the book as a part of my argument. All I said was that the book changed things for the better. It helped Teddy to battle the big meat packers and slaughterhouses. It helped the Unions to secure a safe work environment for a good wage. I don't know why you had to go on this tangent.

Unions. Unions (like corporations) lobby their government to place a minimum wage, which creates a barrier for inexperienced, non-unionized workers from becoming employable. It effectively prices them out of a job.

You know who else they used to price out of a job? Illegal Immigrants.

You know who else gets priced out of a job from minimum wage? Americans with not enough work experience to compete against those with work experience.

Darn those unintended consequences at the expense of nationalist sentiments!

Also, unions don't increase the upper bounds of one's income.

Still better than what we had before. Which was no upper or lower bound.

lolwut?

The upper bound is increased through one's labor productivity, which is from one's own labor, and from technological advances in increased productivity per laborer.

That's a myth for a perfect system. The reality is that there was a time when the head of the household would make enough income to support their whole family. Today, that doesn't happen nearly as much. Productivity has been on the rise for quite a while while wages have been on the decline.
Corporations spend their money on finding ways to make their workforce less costly, and yet be more efficient.
This is common knowledge.

Explain how that is a myth.

Explain to me how a worker who produces $5 per hour of total revenue for a business can demand a $6 per hour wage without having the business go bankrupt.

Labor productivity increases one's capability to produce more revenue for a business (or for one's self). That is the primary reason why the upper bounds of one's wages can increase.

Corporations spend their money on finding ways to make their workforce less costly, and yet be more efficient.

Corporations can be formed through local hardware stores in order to command lower prices by realizing the benefits of economies of scale. That's what "Harry's" Ace did, and it actually ensured local businesses' survival.

And if corporations can lower their costs, then they can charge lower prices for their goods--assuming of course they're operating within a competitive market, most of which are--and inb4 price collusion, because it's a myth. And guess who benefits from lower costs from businesses? Everyone who can purchase the now cheaper good.

“With labor productivity in industry outpacing wage growth, wage costs have declined as a ratio of total value added, leaving a larger share for companies’ profits. These productivity increases have kept margins intact and profit growth high in recent years even though producer (“factory gate”) and consumer price increases have been significantly lower than raw material price increases.6 “

http://www.permanentrevolution.net/entry/938

That quote is about China, and it doesn't say that labor productivity did not increase the upper bounds of one's wages.

Explain how your plan can be implemented. If you can't explain, then we're back to problem one.

Ok. My plan to cut the distance that my dinner travels from 1500 miles to 7 will work like this:
Step one, get my meal from Merle Bronkema, the chicken/bird farmer.
Step two, eat it with my face.
Step three, wonder why I'm being asked such stupid questions.

And you've just missed my point. What may work for you doesn't always work for others. Resources are limited, Juan. Not everyone can have their own chicken farm, not everyone has the opportunities and alternatives that you do. Yet you dictate that everyone should behave like you when it isn't even theoretically possible for everyone do so.

And what if you want what Merle Bronkema doesn't have? you have to go other places. This is a search cost, and if your time isn't valuable, then I'm sure you won't mind traveling many miles to find everything you need. People value their time differently, so they're willing to pay different prices at places which offer more than just Merle's chicken farm.

It depends, which is why you can't dictate that everything is so simple according to your own personal experiences. You have to enable everyone's personal experiences to work. Your nationalist policy assume that since your experiences are good, so everyone's will be if they do what you do. It's a huge assumption.

Have you read "How to Lie with Statistics"?

Show me how those statistics were calculated, and we can have some fun.

Researchers have done little work to calculate food miles for areas outside the Midwest. A 1997 study showed that produce travels an average of 1,129 miles to Austin, 34 percent fewer than to Chicago. In 2001, an analysis of the Jessup, Md., terminal market concluded that U.S.-grown produce traveled an average of more than 1,685 miles. And though there's no formal research to support it, Pirog says it's safe to assume that, on average, food travels fewer miles to get to diners in California than to those in New York.

http://www.slate.com/id/2200202/pagenum/2
I live two hours outside of Chicago.

Juan, they're talking about produce. Not about you riding your bike to Merle's farm. They're talking about how goods travel from many places to get where they may ultimately be sold. Not everything essential can be produced within 7 miles of your vicinity. It's just not as simple as you think it is.

And did they research the travel of all goods or final goods? Did they double-count to beef up those numbers? Besides, it only discusses produce, and nothing about all the products related to produce. It's a limited study, and it doesn't support that your seemingly easy solution can be replicated by more than just you, Juan.

You spend that extra money, and reduce your real income. Just don't dictate what others should do with their own money, JB.

Funny argument. Seriously who do you work for?
Most American's have no choice of who to buy from. All American meat comes from like... what the same 10 companies? And all seed comes from Monsanto.
You call it "reducing your real income" and I call it fighting the monopolies and eating healthier. I'll continue to buy locally until there's no where left to buy from.

You're still dictating what's best for others. You presume to have the knowledge and experience and wisdom required to make decisions for everyone. That in itself is a disastrous assumption to live by.

You can buy locally, and good for you, Juan. You can inadvertently support the corporations which produce the products necessary for local farmers by buying local produce.

Estimate that environmental impact. Go ahead, try it.

You haven't once calculated or shown a thing. You just continue to say it's all negligible even when anyone else gives you a stat or fact. But I'll get to this because it's funny to me.

I've never said that it's all negligible, and no one has produced the environmental (or even the economic) impact of buying only local goods.

And then factor in the flipside: what percentage of local farmers are capable of committing the same errors?

With contamination from the new strain of E.Coli and/or Salmonella?
0 % positive rate for E.Coli risk. So long as they are grass fed cattle (instead of corn fed). But big business doesn't care about that so much. They are all for maximizing profits.
The Salmonella is a little more complicated because it's now in the environment. The E.Coli only lives in cattle's stomachs.

Is it affordable for everyone to feed grass to cattle? There's not enough resources for that, which explains why different businesses (local, small, medium, large) have used different means to produce beef.

Is this risk in beef real? Was it corrected? Should consumers really be concerned since the problem is over? How can local businesses somehow be immune from such errors and similar ones if larger businesses aren't immune to such errors?

As far as I know; It was never "corrected." So long as corn-fed cattle shit, there is going to be the chance of another E.Coli outbreak.
Small farmers can feed their cattle on grass.

See above about limited resources.

Perhaps, there's a way of someone innovative to overcome this problem. Have you thought about that? People are very innovative at adapting to changes and creating better solutions. When you demand that everyone should buy local, then you deny many options towards other, better solutions.

Have fun assessing that environmental impact!

Have you once proven anything? All you've done is attempt to dismiss everyone's argument for no apparent reason.

Your own example of an E.Coli breakout that affected X amount of people doesn't factor in the money saved from people consuming cheaper beef.

Besides, you can't just use one isolated example and then boldly declare that now you know what is best for everyone.

Fact: Animal waste is a serious biological hazard full of bacteria, chemicals, and viral compounds, and some farms have a lot of it - "A dairy farm with 2,500 cows may produce as much waste as a city of 411,000 people, and unlike a city in which human waste ends up at a sewage treatment plant, livestock waste is not treated. As a result, feedlot animals have the potential of exposure to various viruses and bacteria via the manure and urine in their environment. Furthermore, the animals often have residual manure on their bodies when they go to slaughter."

Fact: Farm-used antibiotics has lead to antibiotic resistant pathogens

Fact: Farm-Used growth hormones have been entering people through well water and meat for some time now. With no way to determine how safe they are.

Fact: Food travels far as hell to get to your grocery. Which releases all sorts of greenhouse gasses. Also, food tends to spread out more, increasing the area of damage when a disease does appear.

Fact: Big Cattle business gave rise to new forms of E.Coli, Salmonella, Mad Cow, Avian & Swine Flu

Fact: Large slaughterhouses repeatedly clean meat with chlorine, rinsing it down the drain. All of their equipment is cleaned with chlorines, caustics, and acids

Fact: "Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) has been identified in pigs and humans raising concerns about the role of pigs as reservoirs of MRSA for human infection. One study found that 20% of pig farmers in the United States and Canada in 2007 harbored MRSA.[47] A second study revealed that 81% of Dutch pig farms had pigs with MRSA and 39% of animals at slaughter carried the bug were all of the infections were resistant to tetracycline and many were resistant to other antibiotices[48] Cases of MRSA have increased in livestock animals. CC398 is a new clone of MRSA that has emerged in animals and is found in intensively reared production animals (primarily pigs, but also cattle and poultry), where it can be transmitted to humans. Although being dangerous to humans CC398 is often asymptomatic in food-producing animals"

Fact: "A 2011 study reported that according to a nationwide study nearly half of the meat and poultry sold in U.S. grocery stores -- 47 percent -- was contaminated with S. aureus, and more than half of those bacteria -- 52 percent -- were resistant to at least three classes of antibiotics. Although Staph should be killed with proper cooking, it may still pose a risk to consumers through improper food handling and cross-contamination in the kitchen. The senior author of the study said, "The fact that drug-resistant S. aureus was so prevalent, and likely came from the food animals themselves, is troubling, and demands attention to how antibiotics are used in food-animal production today." '

Fact: "Industrial production of pigs and poultry is an important source of GHG emissions and is predicted to become more so. On intensive pig farms, the animals are generally kept on concrete with slats or grates for the manure to drain through. The manure is usually stored in slurry form (slurry is a liquid mixture of urine and faeces). During storage on farm, slurry emits methane and when manure is spread on fields it emits nitrous oxide and causes nitrogen pollution of land and water. Poultry manure from factory farms emits high levels of nitrous oxide and ammonia."

Fact: Bio-accumulation of farm-used pesticides inside your body and wild animals

Fact: "Livestock production is also particularly water-intensive in indoor, intensive systems. Eight percent of global human water use goes towards animal production, including water used to irrigate feed crops."

Fact: Deforestation for animal feed production

Fact: Land degradation (reduced fertility, soil compaction, increased salinity, desertification)

Fact: Loss of biodiversity due to eutrophication, acidification, pesticides and herbicides

Fact: Species extinctions due to livestock-related habitat destruction (especially feed-cropping)


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Factory_farming

Wikipedia, Juan? Try presenting your research to a professor and having your citation be wikipedia.org. I'm sure people within your own field of research with similar sentiments that you have expressed will be troubled as to why you feel that wikipedia is a credible source of information.

Nonetheless, it is good that there are researchers finding out the problems associated with factory farming. This enables the process of finding healthier and better solutions to be found.

So, your sample size is one (you); therefore, what you personally observe is true in all cases? I don't think so, Tim.jpg

Do you have something better? Or just outright dismissal?

I question your ability to presume that you know what's best for everyone based on only your personal observations. In statistics, a sample size of one is laughable.

Water utilities are subsidized by the government, so the real price of water doesn't reflect in the costs of wasting it.

Well first off, I pay taxes, so yeah whatever the cost is I pay for it.
Second off, we all use wells here in the country, thank you. I'm talking about contamination of ground water from CAFOs and large-scale farming operations. We don't have any water utilities here.

And businesses pay corporate taxes and sales taxes. This doesn't change the fact that the real price of water is unknown.

Thanks for narrowing down your observation. Now that you have narrowed it down, how can reasonably you advocate that what is best for you is best for everyone?

By buying more expensive goods, you still reduce your real income, thus diminishing your purchasing power.

And your buying healthy food. And each purchase is a vote.

And how do you factor the benefits of buying "healthy" food against the extra costs? You can't because no one knows the long-term costs of eating "healthy." Since this is largely unknown, you can't reasonably assume that everyone should make your own purchasing decisions.

People buy things according to their best perceived interests. And those interests aren't the same as yours. Simply because you believe that one way is the best does not mean that it's best for everyone.

Don't you feel any care in the world for those people who live in poorer countries? Why not buy their products for the cheaper price so that you can help even poorer people in this world? Why harbor such a nationalist, narrow-minded view?

This is a terribly bad argument. I already brought up how in many places you can buy American-imported Corn or Soybeans cheaper than you can buy locally grown crops. You're beloved globalization is actually putting some of the poorest farmers and sharecroppers in the whole world out of business.

What exactly is "globalization"?

Juan, American-imported corn and soybeans aren't cheap for the 1 billion making about a $1 a day. American agricultural products are primarily consumed by countries that can afford them (namely developed and developed countries like India and China).

What does put people out of business in poor countries are import tariffs in American markets. It increases their price, so those poorer countries can't compete as well as the American prices can. Besides, your import tariffs benefit corporations like Mansato and the American sugar industry (which is dominated by a few large corporations).

Companies like Coca-Cola lobby congress and get them to subsidize corn and soybean farming. That way we produce more crops than we could hope to use. Then they can buy the crops very cheaply themselves and keep their costs for artificial sweeteners or whatever, cheap.
So who you calling narrow-minded? You haven't once - not once - talked about these "secret costs" that you are talking about. You mentioned tariffs though? You mean like the ones that allowed US Corn and Soybeans to put Mexican farmers out of business?
Anyway I have talked about the "secret costs." Personal health and environmental impact are two of them.

Coca-cola would be thrilled to purchase cheaper sugar if the import tariffs were lifted. The losers on that deal are Mansato and the few corporations who dominate the sugar industry. If you oppose such the abolition of such import tariffs, then you're supporting Mansato and the sugar industry.

Your talks about the non-statistical costs were summarized through wikipedia.org. Perhaps you could recommend a good book for me?

so your local consumption goods that rely on foreign imported sugar, have become much cheaper; therefore, your real income has increased.

Most everything uses cheap, American taxpayer-subsidized corn. Also, your "real income" doesn't increase if you send your jobs overseas does it? Rather, some other companies "real income" does instead. What happens when an entire industry goes bankrupt because it cannot compete with cheap foreign goods? Tariffs exist for a reason.

Tariffs are a tax on cheaper goods, which would enable consumers to buy products for a lower price, thus increasing their real income.

Tariffs discourage competition which discourages companies from cutting costs. In effect, the lack of cutting costs show in the price, which consumers have to pay.

And once again, supporting those tariffs in effect means that you support the very corporations which lobby to keep them there--namely, Mansato and the big players in the sugar industry.

You're still diminishing the citizens' real income, JB, in order to appease your nationalist sentiments.

It is more economically efficient for me to just tell you to educate yourself about economics by reading a book on it. If you don't, you're forever doomed to make uncredentialed statements about a topic of which you possess little, if any, knowledge.

Start with Free to Choose, Economics in One Lesson, or How to Create Your Own Economy by Tyler Cowen, or Peter Beotke's textbook on microeconomics. I'm knowledeagle in these areas, so feel free to ask questions only after you've yelled at every two or three lines of those books AND have generally understood what they are actually saying, instead of what you think they are saying (or instead of getting caught up on minor or negligible points).

Well good news, I'm knowledgeable about farming. So let's see who knows more about food. You might enjoy lording you economics knowledge, but you don't seem to know point one about what goes on in the world of American agri-business.

I'm not sure about you, Juan, but I'm open to new ideas.


Would you care to recommend a book or two about this? I've already got The Ecology of Commerce: A Declaration of Sustainability, so is there anything else you could offer?

What economics has taught me is that there are unintended consuences with presumably good intentions. What you fail to see is that harboring nationalist sentiments and protectionist policies is good for everyone.


This looks like a good read on tariffs. I highly recommend you read it:
http://economics.about.com/cs/taxpolicy/a/tariffs.htm

[BigBallinStalin]

Hey, JB, you missed this:


If the costs of buying American agricultural products is higher than buying foreign agricultural products (which they typically are), then you would still advocate that they must purchase those products made within the US--because according to you, "The best thing to do, is to buy American, and to buy in season. The plant will taste better, it will be more likely to be natural, and it'll help out Americans."
http://www.conquerclub.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=8&t=131709&start=135#p3147861


For the sake of argument, let's say that it costs the average American household within the bottom 20% bracket $400 per month to buy American-only food-related groceries. However, it costs $200 per month to buy some American goods and some foreign goods.


What would you rather have?

1) A poor American household spending $400 on those groceries?

2) Or spending $200 on those groceries?


Now, going with your logic, you will have to pick the $400.


Economic point 1:
By doing so, you have decreased the real income of that poor American family by $200 because that $200 (which would have been spent elsewhere) must be spent on American-only groceries.


But, how do you justify that additional $200 cost incurred by poor American households?


My primary point:
You could cite all kinds of personally observed and wikipedia-based "facts" that still fail to show the long-term economic impact of the $200 decision (which is unknowable; otherwise, any organization with the funds (like the government, or large corporations) would be able to make near perfect decisions and would be incapable of many mistakes). Therefore, organizations and decision-makers like you and me must act on estimates, guesses, and even unknown information.

When you dictate that everyone must do as you say, you still lack the wisdom (experience, knowledge, and judgment) necessary to know that your decision is best for everyone. And since you lack a sufficient level of these attributes (we all do), you are prone to making mistakes (i.e. unintended consequences) like costing poor American households an extra $200 per month.*

ThereforeYou do not possess the knowledge, judgment, and experience necessary to dictate that all Americans must purchase all-American goods because you simply do not know what is best for everyone (in fact, no one does until we develop a supercomputer like HAL^1000). And, you can not presume that your protectionist policy would overall be the best choice.



*The unintended consequences, unseen benefits and costs are numerous, but they are largely unknown or partly known. In addition to that, that information is known to various groups of people at various levels, so not one possesses enough and not one group posses enough. (If anyone that's reading this can determine how to figure that out, they'll win a Nobel Prize).)


So, the case lies with you to prove that you have the sufficient knowledge, judgment, and experience to support your belief that all Americans must purchase American goods because "it'll help out Americans."


My secondary point:
For the above reasons, this is why I advocate that people should have the freedom to choose what is in their best perceived interests. This taps into the "knowledge problem" that I presented above and in my opinion would enable better decisions to be made in the long-run. Call it a "bottom-up" approach compared to your "top-down" approach. What that level of freedom should be is difficult to answer and is subject to debate in another thread.

You are free to convince people to buy Americans goods if you perceive that to be best for everyone, but do not presume that you have the one answer for everyone else.



BBS' Advertisement:
That's part of the issue in the Keynes v Hayek youtube videos:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d0nERTFo-Sk
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GTQnarzmTOc


[Sources]:
F. A. Hayek
and those who contribute to my education in economics.

(The faults in my logic and in misrepresenting those from my sources are only attributable to me and me alone.)

[PLAYER57832]

Great post Juan!

And all seed comes from Monsanto.

For large, commercial see supplies, you are largely correct (there are some niche exceptions). However, for home gardeners and smaller scale farms, this is no longer true. There are several companies out there that do specialize in unique seeds ("heritage seeds" has gotten a bit overused, but you can find a lot of retailers by googling that term).

You call it "reducing your real income" and I call it fighting the monopolies and eating healthier. I'll continue to buy locally until there's no where left to buy from.

And, history/evidence shows that in the long term.. as opposed to the 1-5 year projections economists use as their "max", buying locally does save money from real income.

Water utilities are subsidized by the government, so the real price of water doesn't reflect in the costs of wasting it.

Well first off, I pay taxes, so yeah whatever the cost is I pay for it.
Second off, we all use wells here in the country, thank you. I'm talking about contamination of ground water from CAFOs and large-scale farming operations. We don't have any water utilities here.

Sorry Juan, but in this you are wrong. The true cost of water is not really being paid by much of anyone right now. It is being passed onto the future.

However, BBS is more incorrect, because, particularly in your situation, the REAL users, the ones who truly pay only a tiny fraction of the real costs are many of the bigger industrial units.. both factories and large scale farms.

You and I both know that not all farms are equal. I love California, but the idea that the Central Valley is a great place to grow cotton and wheat is just insane. It is only "economical" becuase the true cost of everything from water withdrawels (particularly the HUGE loss of salmon habitat) to pollution are just not being paid.

It is more economically efficient for me to just tell you to educate yourself about economics by reading a book on it. If you don't, you're forever doomed to make uncredentialed statements about a topic of which you possess little, if any, knowledge.

Start with Free to Choose, Economics in One Lesson, or How to Create Your Own Economy by Tyler Cowen, or Peter Beotke's textbook on microeconomics. I'm knowledeagle in these areas, so feel free to ask questions only after you've yelled at every two or three lines of those books AND have generally understood what they are actually saying, instead of what you think they are saying (or instead of getting caught up on minor or negligible points).

Well good news, I'm knowledgeable about farming. So let's see who knows more about food. You might enjoy lording you economics knowledge, but you don't seem to know point one about what goes on in the world of American agri-business.

Problem is, in his world... nothing else exists.

We in agriculture, natural resources, etc HAVE to understand at least basic economics, but for some reason too many economics and business majors seem to think they can go without that knowledge. This leads to their extremely narrow focus. However, since their entire focuse is on immediate profits (not long term impacts, costs, or even long term profits), they get a kind of "self-feeding loop". Each small success in their terms serves to "prove" to them that they are right and we are all wrong. When the sh*t does finally hit the fan, as it is right now, they are too far removed from the system to even understand the basics of what has gone wrong.

In a sense, theya re like the computer tech who knows all the ins and outs of how to use a program, but nothing about how to maintain a computer, and lacks even the knowledge to know where the electricity to run their machine.

[BigBallinStalin]

Great post Juan!

And all seed comes from Monsanto.

For large, commercial see supplies, you are largely correct (there are some niche exceptions). However, for home gardeners and smaller scale farms, this is no longer true. There are several companies out there that do specialize in unique seeds ("heritage seeds" has gotten a bit overused, but you can find a lot of retailers by googling that term).

I agree, but this is an irrelevant point.

You call it "reducing your real income" and I call it fighting the monopolies and eating healthier. I'll continue to buy locally until there's no where left to buy from.

And, history/evidence shows that in the long term.. as opposed to the 1-5 year projections economists use as their "max", buying locally does save money from real income.

Straw man fallacy

Invalid conclusion

Do economists really do this? All of them? Of course not. Many economists even of the environmental type are prone to confirming their own bias. Your points are just conjecture leading to a conclusion, which isn't based on anything valid, thus it's invalid.

Here's what I'm talking about concerning the reduction in one's real income concerning implementing/advocating for protectionist policies like "buying local" (whichever that means since you guys like to shift it to suit whatever minute point which it's most convenient for you):

http://www.conquerclub.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=8&t=131709&view=unread#p3149410

Water utilities are subsidized by the government, so the real price of water doesn't reflect in the costs of wasting it.

Well first off, I pay taxes, so yeah whatever the cost is I pay for it.
Second off, we all use wells here in the country, thank you. I'm talking about contamination of ground water from CAFOs and large-scale farming operations. We don't have any water utilities here.

Sorry Juan, but in this you are wrong. The true cost of water is not really being paid by much of anyone right now. It is being passed onto the future.

However, BBS is more incorrect, because, particularly in your situation, the REAL users, the ones who truly pay only a tiny fraction of the real costs are many of the bigger industrial units.. both factories and large scale farms.

You and I both know that not all farms are equal. I love California, but the idea that the Central Valley is a great place to grow cotton and wheat is just insane. It is only "economical" becuase the true cost of everything from water withdrawels (particularly the HUGE loss of salmon habitat) to pollution are just not being paid.

If I am incorrect than that means that the water utilities are NOT subsidized by the government, so the REAL price of water is not reflected in the costs of wasting it. The problem with your argument is that it isn't an argument at all because it doesn't show how my argument is invalid or illogical.

Besides, you're quoting out of context, so you missed the original meaning. And, this minor point isn't even the major issue.

Also, you even confirm my earlier argument about the difficulties in assess the environmental costs of water usage. The problem is one of knowledge. It's extremely difficult to determine the far-reaching consequences of current levels of water usage. The data out there for now heavily suggests that water will become extremely valuable (and what price? unknown) in the next 50-100 years...

You haven't provided any data assessing the environmental impact which reflects the real long-term price and costs of water, thus confirming my argument that it is difficult to assess.

And this is way off-topic, but thanks for quibbling over minor points that still don't support protectionist policies like "buying only local" as being the best strategy for every American.

It is more economically efficient for me to just tell you to educate yourself about economics by reading a book on it. If you don't, you're forever doomed to make uncredentialed statements about a topic of which you possess little, if any, knowledge.

Start with Free to Choose, Economics in One Lesson, or How to Create Your Own Economy by Tyler Cowen, or Peter Beotke's textbook on microeconomics. I'm knowledeagle in these areas, so feel free to ask questions only after you've yelled at every two or three lines of those books AND have generally understood what they are actually saying, instead of what you think they are saying (or instead of getting caught up on minor or negligible points).

Well good news, I'm knowledgeable about farming. So let's see who knows more about food. You might enjoy lording you economics knowledge, but you don't seem to know point one about what goes on in the world of American agri-business.

Problem is, in his world... nothing else exists.

We in agriculture, natural resources, etc HAVE to understand at least basic economics, but for some reason too many economics and business majors seem to think they can go without that knowledge. This leads to their extremely narrow focus. However, since their entire focuse is on immediate profits (not long term impacts, costs, or even long term profits), they get a kind of "self-feeding loop". Each small success in their terms serves to "prove" to them that they are right and we are all wrong. When the sh*t does finally hit the fan, as it is right now, they are too far removed from the system to even understand the basics of what has gone wrong.

In a sense, theya re like the computer tech who knows all the ins and outs of how to use a program, but nothing about how to maintain a computer, and lacks even the knowledge to know where the electricity to run their machine.

I have mentioned the knowledge problems associated with his advocating for a "only buy made in the USA" and the unintended consequences of "buying local," and how "buying local" doesn't necessarily mean that the money only stays in your immediate area. You guys just scream, NO, without providing any real argument, as I've already explained above.

And your understanding of economics is defunct. There are plenty of economists studying the issues related to environmentalism, agriculture, etc. Once again, you've presented another straw man fallacy without even addressing my underlying argument:

http://www.conquerclub.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=8&t=131709&view=unread#p3149410

Your tactics are weak and are becoming stale. They lead to conclusions that based on logical fallacies, thus becoming false themselves.

[PLAYER57832]

Essentially, PLAYER's responses can be described with the following picture:








inb4

My son is NOT 6 years old. He's 28!!!!!!! THEREFORE, YOU'RE WORNG!!!

Yes, we know... when you cannot win with honesty, you resort to pure insults.

When you decide to actually address some real points... I will again pay attention.

[BigBallinStalin]

Essentially, PLAYER's responses can be described with the following picture:








inb4

My son is NOT 6 years old. He's 28!!!!!!! THEREFORE, YOU'RE WORNG!!!

Yes, we know... when you cannot win with honesty, you resort to pure insults.

When you decide to actually address some real points... I will again pay attention.

Right. I should address your unsubstantiated claims like that one which you posited that "all local businesses will turn into Wal-Mart and other discount-chains," when they follow my "model" (my "model"?, lol, you don't even know what I was talking about, yet you presume that you do).

It's hilarious because your exception isn't real. It ignores how businesses behave with cheaper products. Because there are cheaper products available to buy and sell as either intermediate or final goods does not support your claim that all local businesses will turn into Wal-Mart and discount-chains. The market for those products simply doesn't behave as you naively believe. It's just insane for someone like you who is supposedly educated in economics to actually believe this.

You have to show how "all businesses will turn into Wal-Mart and other discount-chains," which you didn't even do. Dare I say this is another straw man fallacy?

If there was no tariff, more people would be willing to purchase significantly foreign yet cheaper agricultural products, which in turn leads to a higher real income (since one has "saved" a portion of their income which can be spent elsewhere).

Except... when all the local companies have bought into this "wonderful model", suddenly you have nothing but Walmart and other discount chains. The jobs available do NOT pay anywhere near as well, and the quality of both those jobs and the impact to the area is significantly poorer. Farming is a lifestyle, not just a source of income. Done well, it preserves countryside, providing tangential benefits that are huge overall such as cleaner air and water. NOTE, I am not talking factory farms, but even those can be managed well.. they just often are not becuase there is little or no incentive for them to care about the area, unlike local farmers who have to face their neighbors and therefore tend to be at least halfway decent stewards of their lands.

Notice how many shortages our country has experienced for various goods? That is what happens when you have "efficiency" One small (nevermind big) problem in the producers mean most of the supply is gone.

I have said it before, but you ignore it. Agriculture is not like making "widgets". There is a basic reason to keep a certain supply of local food at all times. It is basic safety. Safety from weather vagaries, safety in the event of more serious stuff. We don't want an entirely centralized or remote food supply, it is neither healthy nor beneficial. That is even if the agriculture is not self-sustaining and has to be partially supported. In our country, unfortunately, those supports have gone WAY out of wack and there is no emphasis on supporting small local farmers, so the supports wind up supporting the most destructive and least beneficial types of agriculture as much or more than the types we need to keep.

This is without even getting into the most basic difference between local food and food transported thousands of miles under refridgeration or other storage.. namely quality. Frankly, I can do without carboard tomatoes and peaches that taste like rubber. Folks give a lot of talk about this obesity epidemic in kids. Ever taste the fruit and vegetables they offer? Because cafeterias are forced to keep stuff under heavy refrigeration (and because they wind up buying from the cheapest mass suppliers-- are actually prevented from buying local even when the cost is cheaper), the stuff winds up having no taste. My son LOVES fruit, but at school? He eats the starches and other garbage they pass off.

inb4 PLAYER: "My son doesn't love apples! My son LOVES fruit!!!111"

[PLAYER57832]

Great post Juan!

And all seed comes from Monsanto.

For large, commercial see supplies, you are largely correct (there are some niche exceptions). However, for home gardeners and smaller scale farms, this is no longer true. There are several companies out there that do specialize in unique seeds ("heritage seeds" has gotten a bit overused, but you can find a lot of retailers by googling that term).

I agree, but this is an irrelevant point.

Addressed to Juan, not irrelevant in context.

You call it "reducing your real income" and I call it fighting the monopolies and eating healthier. I'll continue to buy locally until there's no where left to buy from.

And, history/evidence shows that in the long term.. as opposed to the 1-5 year projections economists use as their "max",buying locally does save money from real income.

Straw man fallacy

Nope. Ever bother to discover how accurate your vaunted economic projections are?

HINT... they go down to just 10% accuracy after 2 years... and I mean the projections put out by the BEST people.

Invalid conclusion

Do economists really do this? All of them? Of course not.

Do go on... because it shows that for all your "expertise", you don't seem to get what those figures you put out actually say.

Many economists even of the environmental type are prone to confirming their own bias. Your points are just conjecture leading to a conclusion, which isn't based on anything valid, thus it's invalid.

As opposed to your saying absolutely nothing at all?
My statement is actually correct, by-the-way, had you bothered to verify before assuming I was just wrong.

Here's what I'm talking about concerning the reduction in one's real income concerning implementing/advocating for protectionist policies like "buying local" (whichever that means since you guys like to shift it to suit whatever minute point which it's most convenient for you):

Repeating the same "points" over and over does not make them more valid. I already addressed your ideas. You just cannot be bothered to even consider I might be correct.

None of us is advocating 100% buy local. There are times when exporting makes sense. In agriculture, that applies mostly to higher end specialty items, but also some commodities, If they are fairly exchanged. The trouble with buying from third world countries and other examples you tout is that they are not equitable buying programs. They are set up to make outside (mostly US) businesses (including some agriculture firms) money. I cited the "Green Revolution" because even though some things it says are wrong or over-stated, it does get into that whole big problem reasonably well.

Water utilities are subsidized by the government, so the real price of water doesn't reflect in the costs of wasting it.

Well first off, I pay taxes, so yeah whatever the cost is I pay for it.
Second off, we all use wells here in the country, thank you. I'm talking about contamination of ground water from CAFOs and large-scale farming operations. We don't have any water utilities here.

Sorry Juan, but in this you are wrong. The true cost of water is not really being paid by much of anyone right now. It is being passed onto the future.

However, BBS is more incorrect, because, particularly in your situation, the REAL users, the ones who truly pay only a tiny fraction of the real costs are many of the bigger industrial units.. both factories and large scale farms.

You and I both know that not all farms are equal. I love California, but the idea that the Central Valley is a great place to grow cotton and wheat is just insane. It is only "economical" becuase the true cost of everything from water withdrawels (particularly the HUGE loss of salmon habitat) to pollution are just not being paid.

If I am incorrect than that means that the water utilities are NOT subsidized by the government, so the REAL price of water is not reflected in the costs of wasting it. The problem with your argument is that it isn't an argument at all because it doesn't show how my argument is invalid or illogical.

Well... that comment was addressed to Juan, who actually does have a clue about the situation.

However, for your benefit, I will explain ONE situation.
To begin, I am not refuting that water is subsidized, it is. I am refuting that it is actually paid for in full at all.

California agriculture is highly profitable, mostly because water is very cheap. Many of the direct subsidies (the ones I believe you acknowledge) are obvious. Dams, levies, pumping stations, etc. -- all of that is paid mostly through taxes (some other sources, but keeping this simple). The harder costs to assess, the ones you like to simply dismiss include the impact of losing millions of stream miles of prime salmon habitat. This directly hurts the income of salmon fishermen, but also indirectly has HUGE impacts on the entire ecosystems. Just the nutrient loss alone is huge. Complex, yes, but not incaculable, at least in good part. Note that FULL calculations are not necessary, because we know our estimates are low, are barest minimums (or not even quite that). So, showing any kind of cost that exceeds the gain is all that is necessary to show that the action is irresponsible.

A second factor, also huge, but one you likely have not heard, is the impact of genetics through heavy hatchery utilization.

Almost NONE of those last impacts, and note I have only mentioned 2 for the sake of brevity,
are paid for. They are being charged to future generations.

and note, I am not talking about some isolated snail darter of interest mostly to genetecists and such. I am talking about a resource that helped build the west.. a resource we have all but destroyed, that we have destroyed in many, many areas.

That doesn't make good business sense, it doesn't make good sociological sense and it certainly does not make good ecological sense.

Besides, you're quoting out of context, so you missed the original meaning. And, this minor point isn't even the major issue.

Nope on both points.
You cannot simply define the debate how you wish and claim you have "won". Ignoring externalities doesn't make them go away.

Also, you even confirm my earlier argument about the difficulties in assess the environmental costs of water usage. The problem is one of knowledge. It's extremely difficult to determine the far-reaching consequences of current levels of water usage.

You said impossible, not simply difficult.. BIG difference. And, absolutely not a reason to say "well, I will just ignore this".

The data out there for now heavily suggests that water will become extremely valuable (and what price? unknown) in the next 50-100 years...

You haven't provided any data assessing the environmental impact which reflects the real long-term price and costs of water, thus confirming my argument that it is difficult to assess.

the numbers are very, very huge, so yes, I have stuck with the general concepts. Also, note you refuted that any of this was possible.

The bottom line is that nothing you give shows that these things are irrelevant and simply not something worth considering. In fact, just the opposite. The days when we could just go get a new colony to meet our resource needs are gone.

And this is way off-topic, but thanks for quibbling over minor points that still don't support protectionist policies like "buying only local" as being the best strategy for every American.

Nver said ONLY buying local.. I disputed your claim that there was no or very little benefit to buy local. You made an absolutely idiotic claim and now are trying to back track.

And, yes, I have shown it, several times. However, when you start by deciding its OK to just discount all these "inconvenient" pieces of information that don't cooincide with your theories... you create the ultimate straw man argument. A false one, at that!

I have mentioned the knowledge problems associated with his advocating for a "only buy made in the USA" and the unintended consequences of "buying local," and how "buying local" doesn't necessarily mean that the money only stays in your immediate area.

Your claim is first of all just wrong and second of all irrelevant. If I support my local stores, I support the income of local people, the local tax base, etc. I also support someone who CARES about my community instead of just seeing us as one other number on their balance sheets. That that money might eventually be deposited in a bank that might (and only might) have investments around the world is utterly irrelevant, but does show how little you understand of the relationship between those nice numbers you read and what actually happens in the world.

You guys just scream, NO, without providing any real argument, as I've already explained above.

LOL
Yeah, your insults are truly great "explanations".

And your understanding of economics is defunct. There are plenty of economists studying the issues related to environmentalism, agriculture, etc.

I said as much earlier (but again, you seem to only catch the parts you want to read), but the point is you are not one of them.[/quote]

Your tactics are weak and are becoming stale. They lead to conclusions that based on logical fallacies, thus becoming false themselves.

Nice try, but just wrong. Try looking into what Juan and I have said before claiming we "don't know anything".

That you don't understand, never learned these things is bad enough. That you keep refusing to admit you don't know and even keep bragging about it, to boot.. is beyond stupidity.

[BigBallinStalin]

Player, your "logic" heavily depends on misinterpreting what you read and remembering things that I never said; therefore, this enables you to conjure up positions that don't exist and then bash them down (i.e. constructing (un)intentional straw man fallacies).

Do I have 6 hours a day to dedicate to showing an old, crazy lady from Pennsylvania the flaws resulting from her faulty cognitive process?

No.

I can only pray that her neurons are mended via a miracle.

From now on, I will never take your arguments seriously because you have made it evident that you are not worth the costs. These costs are mainly in the form of time wasted due to your irrational and illogical way of thinking. (I suggest you heat up your agricultural oatmeal brain by reading a book about logic and perhaps even philosophy.)

Instead, I'll only use you for comedic purposes because there is much more value to be captured for everyone through this method.

[PLAYER57832]

Hey, JB, you missed this:


If the costs of buying American agricultural products is higher than buying foreign agricultural products (which they typically are), then you would still advocate that they must purchase those products made within the US--because according to you, "The best thing to do, is to buy American, and to buy in season. The plant will taste better, it will be more likely to be natural, and it'll help out Americans."
http://www.conquerclub.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=8&t=131709&start=135#p3147861


For the sake of argument, let's say that it costs the average American household within the bottom 20% bracket $400 per month to buy American-only food-related groceries. However, it costs $200 per month to buy some American goods and some foreign goods.


What would you rather have?

1) A poor American household spending $400 on those groceries?

2) Or spending $200 on those groceries?


Now, going with your logic, you will have to pick the $400.

The trouble is it ISN'T truly a choice between just $200 and $400, for many reasons :

economically, you were talking about poor people. This generally means people who have to be subsidized to get by. So, from the outset part of the $400 is "cycled" back into at least one of the taxpayers who is paying for the subsidy. It is not a net loss. The $200, by contrast basically is lost.

In fact, you cannot even call the other players in the chain equal. The markup for food, like everything else is typically a percentage. So, the merchants make a greater profit on the $400 in food than on the $200 food, meaning they pay more in taxes (a small part of which goes back to that original buyer). Some of the transporters are local. However, that is offset by many other factors, such as the pure fact that having a local farmer means we know more about the food, are more assured it is fresh, healthier, etc. (I won't repeat the parts I gave earlier regarding benefits to tourism and wildlife, or many of the points juan made).

SOoooo.... even your initial assumptions are just wrong, economically. Go beyond surface economics and you ignore plenty of benefits that mean it probably IS better to spend $400 than $200.. and that is without even getting into the fact that your comparison cost is just wrong.

Economic point 1:
By doing so, you have decreased the real income of that poor American family by $200 because that $200 (which would have been spent elsewhere) must be spent on American-only groceries.

The income is not reduced by a straight $200, by any means. Among other issues, people buy differently when they buy largely local. Buying local means taking advantage of things that are available more cheaply locally. As I already noted, I used to almost live on plums, peaches and apricots in the summer in CA. Now, they are luxuries I buy occasionally as a treat. I buy far more canned fruits and veggies, because the processed items are so much cheaper than fresh. And, I buy local fresh goods. I can gaurantee you I am NOT spending more by doing this!

(but that just goes to show that you spoke without bothering to verify!).

Also, neither I nor anyone else said you had to buy ONLY US goods. I definitely drink coffee. And I prefer rice that is NOT produced in CA (because I am aware of the environmental impacts). Other regions are far better suited to producing rice!

But, how do you justify that additional $200 cost incurred by poor American households?


My primary point:
You could cite all kinds of personally observed and wikipedia-based "facts" that still fail to show the long-term economic impact of the $200 decision (which is unknowable; otherwise, any organization with the funds (like the government, or large corporations) would be able to make near perfect decisions and would be incapable of many mistakes). Therefore, organizations and decision-makers like you and me must act on estimates, guesses, and even unknown information.

When you dictate that everyone must do as you say, you still lack the wisdom (experience, knowledge, and judgment) necessary to know that your decision is best for everyone. And since you lack a sufficient level of these attributes (we all do), you are prone to making mistakes (i.e. unintended consequences) like costing poor American households an extra $200 per month.

This part is classic, more "worthy" of Phattscotty than you, BBS, I must say (though the vocabulary is more advanced than that Phattscotty usually employs).

See, ALL of your base assumptions were just wrong.. but you insist on claiming that we are the ignorant ones. NICE!

My secondary point:
For the above reasons, this is why I advocate that people should have the freedom to choose what is in their best perceived interests. This taps into the "knowledge problem" that I presented above and in my opinion would enable better decisions to be made in the long-run. Call it a "bottom-up" approach compared to your "top-down" approach. What that level of freedom should be is difficult to answer and is subject to debate in another thread.

LOL.. talk about reversing your terms!!!

The funny part is you are reciting what you have been brainwashed into believing by big business.. that it doesn't matter where you buy things. Sure, to them it is true. After all, it all goes into their pockets the same anyway. H owever, for the rest of us the journey matters as much as the destination. See, I don't care if money eventually winds up in the hands of the big guys.. as long as my neighbors get to have what they need first.

And this is not about dictating. It is about not allowing Walmart, Monsanto, etc limit our choices. AND it is very much about ensuring that people know the honest truth about what happens to their money, instead of just believing the latest advertised baloney.
BBS' Advertisement:
[Sources]:
F. A. Hayek
and those who contribute to my education in economics.

(The faults in my logic and in misrepresenting those from my sources are only attributable to me and me alone.)[/quote]
Good you added that last qualifier, because while it is possible that each and every one of your professors would agree with your "examples", I doubt they all would.

[BigBallinStalin]

http://www.conquerclub.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=8&t=131709&start=165#p3150279

[PLAYER57832]

Player, your "logic" heavily depends on misinterpreting what you read and remembering things that I never said; therefore, this enables you to conjure up positions that don't exist and then bash them down (i.e. constructing (un)intentional straw man fallacies).

Do I have 6 hours a day to dedicate to showing an old, crazy lady from Pennsylvania the flaws resulting from her faulty cognitive process?

No.

I can only pray that her neurons are mended via a miracle.

From now on, I will never take your arguments seriously because you have made it evident that you are not worth the costs. These costs are mainly in the form of time wasted due to your irrational and illogical way of thinking. (I suggest you heat up your agricultural oatmeal brain by reading a book about logic and perhaps even philosophy.)

Instead, I'll only use you for comedic purposes because there is much more value to be captured for everyone through this method.

Translation... anybody who refuses to buy into BBS arguments' and worship him is just an idiot.

[BigBallinStalin]

Player, your "logic" heavily depends on misinterpreting what you read and remembering things that I never said; therefore, this enables you to conjure up positions that don't exist and then bash them down (i.e. constructing (un)intentional straw man fallacies).

Do I have 6 hours a day to dedicate to showing an old, crazy lady from Pennsylvania the flaws resulting from her faulty cognitive process?

No.

I can only pray that her neurons are mended via a miracle.

From now on, I will never take your arguments seriously because you have made it evident that you are not worth the costs. These costs are mainly in the form of time wasted due to your irrational and illogical way of thinking. (I suggest you heat up your agricultural oatmeal brain by reading a book about logic and perhaps even philosophy.)

Instead, I'll only use you for comedic purposes because there is much more value to be captured for everyone through this method.

Translation... anybody who refuses to buy into BBS arguments' and worship him is just an idiot.

1) Straw man fallacy

I invite everyone who is rationally and logically capable to join me on our mutual quest to reach this plateau of mutual understanding. Nearly everyone in this small CC community and the larger world is capable of attaining a mutual understanding if they approach matters with an open-mind and a reasonable attitude (towards those who deserve to be treated with respect).

I give people many chances to correct their errors and to exchange their standpoints, and I will definitely concede on points where I am mistaken (assuming that they are even relevant to the discussion). Unfortunately, PLAYER, you have exhibited the attitude and behavior of an irrational child far too many times for me to take you seriously.


_______________________________________________________________________________


Without further ado, here is Dr. Freud psychoanalyzing PLAYER:




"It seems to me that you exhibit this cognitive impairment, which disables you from attaining a level of mutual understanding with others. This impairment is primarily caused by your inability to properly interpret other people's words and arguments, and instead you distort anything disagreeable into these easy-to-bash arguments (primarily via the straw man fallacy). Other times, if the cognitive pressure is too high, you will sidestep what others posit, and irrationally declare yourself as the winner without even logically and sensibly addressing the arguments presented to you.

In short, your cognitive capabilities fail to bring you to a level of mutual understanding of other people's standpoints because you employ this self-defense mechanism which protects your severely limited and irrational worldview from being shattered.

This poses a severe challenge for you to overcome your own mental disease. I recommend you stop having thoughts of killing your father in order to have sex with your mother."


Oh, Freud! YOu are soO silly!

[Juan_Bottom]

Okay, now I have to read this. I will let you know who the winner is.

We've never had anyone do that before. I'm nervous.
The reason that you and I never butt-heads in the forums is because I only debate when I know that I will win. Most of the time you get into topics that I only have very limited knowledge of, so it's better to listen than to open my mouth. Sure I'll argue with you when it comes to objective personal opinion stuff, but not when it comes down to strict facts.

Can I find a better rule? Give people the freedom to choose for themselves, instead of dictating harsh nationalist and protectionist policies which prohibits everyone's freedom.

I don't think that anyone ever once said that they wanted harsh nationalistic policies. What is that....straw man... or argument from..... fallacy from.... which is that again?

In turn, this reduces everyone's real income.

No. NAFTA and international trade has lead to a steady decline in wages, and has lead to a shifting of American Production and service jobs to overseas workers. It has completely destroyed some industries. It's common knowledge. So you can call this a nationalistic dictatorship policy and we would call it a protectionist policy. If everyone bought American first they would not be diminishing their income. It would protect American jobs, and in turn, protect their job. And if everyone bought locally, instead of from these same 10 corporations, then they would likely see a wage increase as well, from the competition for workers.

Furthermore, you're not counting the health benefits of eating natural food. This country is seriously suffering from financial trouble with our health care system.

As you mentioned, the flipside is that by buying local, you support your local economy, but does that always mean one supports their national economy by doing so? Not necessarily. You also hurt other sectors of the economy by not purchasing foreign goods in which the certain sectors of the national economy are involved.

You're saying that the Bronkema's down the road will probably spend my money on Chinese tractors and Sony DVD players. But if I buy Chiquita banana's from Venezuela, the profits actually go to an American company.
As I said I buy locally and expand that outward. And I also said that I always try to buy American first.

(or in the areas in which you are knowledgeable, which is not the national realm, and since you're not knowledgeable of the national realm, dictating policies like "buy local" across the entire nation is a decision which reflects very little knowledge on your part)

That's an odd thing to say sir, because I'm kicking your ass in this debate. I don't think that you know anything about farming in this country. And when I make a point, you dismiss it and start talking about how I'm a nationalist who doesn't understand the repercussions of my actions. F*ck it, here we go again.

yet somehow a young guy who knows a good bit about agriculture (yet nothing of economics) presupposes that he know the one and only answer: buy local, never mind the costs! Doesn't that strike you as odd?

No?

I just showed you that that guarantee isn't necessarily true, and you simply say, "no it doesn't."

Sorry, JB, that isn't an argument.

You'll have to move back to page 8 or 9 and deal with that again.

I don't think that you follow me. If I spend my dollars in my community; well then I just spent them in my community. I'm guaranteeing that they are spent there. Yes, Where they go from there is out of my control.... So that was my argument.

I'm glad that you have freely chosen to buy American products, JB. Your original stance however dictates that others are not free to choose foreign products because you are adamant about having all Americans to buy only American-produced goods. You have restricted other people's options in order to appease your nationalist sentiments.

This is simply a lie. I can't remember....straw man... or argument from..... fallacy from.... which is that again???
My original stance was: Because if you don't buy from your neighbors, they wont have any money to buy from you. I myself generally buy local first, then expand that outward.

So what do you think, restricting options is something for the government, Tyson, and Monsanto to do?

People are of course, free to choose what they do with their money. Because this is the USA. But spending it on foreign goods & labor, and the large American Agri-business corporations has all had negative effects for our country. It only has positive effects for an individual if no one else does it. When everyone does it - that becomes a transfer of wealth, industry, and jobs. If you follow me.

And hopefully, those products, which make "Made in the USA" products, are of US origin, but they don't need to be. Only the product and the materials that go within it must comply with the FTC's rules. So if you purchases "Made in the USA" products, you could be supporting businesses which use foreign machines...

I don't see how you think that you're outsmarting me. You just helped my argument for reasons to buy products that are labeled "MADE IN THE USA." I'm going to buy that before a similar product without that label because it ensures that I'm voting for at least one an American job. If I buy the other product I could be voting for Chinese workers.
It doesn't matter where all the raw materials come from. I would prefer everything was American, and some labels will tell you as much, but no matter what at least I know that I'm helping support American workers.

hey, JB, is a Toyota Camry "made in the USA"?

Fair question. I would buy an American car made in America long before I would even look at a Camry. But if I were to buy a Camry it would have to at least made in an American factory. Why would a guy like me ever buy foreign products when there are as good and better American products?

You have no neighbors that compete? Either they're a cartel or a monopoly if there's no competition.

You could say that. But the real truth is darker. There's no room for competitors because of the large corporations like Tyson and Purdue. They suffocate the market.
Also, the large meat packagers are the monopolies.

What are the environmental and economical costs associated with purchasing foreign agricultural goods?

What are the environmental and economical costs associated with purchasing "big business" agricultural goods?

What are the environmental and economical costs associated with purchasing small business goods?

What are the environmental and economical costs associated with purchasing "mom and pop" shop's agricultural goods?

Don't you have to answer these questions before you can claim that it's best to let the free market decide what to purchase? I've already answered all of these in at least part, but you dismissed my answers because they didn't involve economics or came from Wiki*. Because you're better then me I guess.

*I think that we all suspect that you dismiss the answers because you couldn't respond to them

In order to dictate a nationalist policy that prohibits or restricts foreign competition, it would be wise to be able to answer the above questions. Then you can presume that you know what is best for everyone, but the truth is that you don't.

In order to dictate a completely free worldwide market policy that doesn't prohibit or restrict competion (or corporations), it would be wise to answer your own questions. Then you can presume to know what's best for everyone, but you already said that you don't. So whatever.

Buying local, or primarily local, may not be what's best for everyone else--no matter how much you extrapolate your personal experiences onto everyone else's.

It would be best for everyone else, if everyone did it. That seems obvious. All your argument so far involves is cost to the individual consumer, while I'm genuinely talking about the cost to the nation, which will effect the cost to the individual. You're only talking about the illusion of the cost to the nation.

I can control my dollar.

That's great, Juan, but that's not how it works for everyone else.

Sure, you can control your dollar, which is spent on a local business's product, and then that local business buys whatever it needs from wherever that may be. You advocate that everyone should buy local, but don't you see: businesses are faced with decisions on which products to buy.

Ok BBS, so that is how it works for everyone else.

You know who else gets priced out of a job from minimum wage? Americans with not enough work experience to compete against those with work experience.

Darn those unintended consequences at the expense of nationalist sentiments!

Nationalism has nothing to do with being pro-union. At least, I don't think that it does. And companies reward people for not being a part of their labor unions. There is always a choice. You're argument does equate to people in agri-business working for lower wages in less safe environments. Thanks to Unions, and a book about a jungle, meat packagers of the 1950s made a good living wage. Their injury rate had fallen by 50% from the 1930s, to somewhere around 15%. Today, there are few slaughterhouses left. All of them are non-union, and it's one of the most dangerous jobs in the country again.
All of this seems really unfair considering how much more meat is on the bone than in 1950. It's all just more profits for the company.

Explain how that is a myth.

Explain to me how a worker who produces $5 per hour of total revenue for a business can demand a $6 per hour wage without having the business go bankrupt.

Labor productivity increases one's capability to produce more revenue for a business (or for one's self). That is the primary reason why the upper bounds of one's wages can increase.

I did explain it. You dismissed my link. But luckily, I can google all night. If it wasn't a myth, then why:

But what caught me here is that our inflation adjusted power peaked in 1968? America is full of failure.

This is what happens when you are allowed to discount so many real and true costs.

http://blogs.cfed.org/cfed_news_clips/2 ... 10-un.html

http://www.kyklosproductions.com/articles/wages.html

Stagnating Workers' Wages

In 1979 the American worker's average hourly wage was equal to $15.91 (adjusted for inflation in 2001 dollars). By 1989 it had reached only $16.63/hour. That's a gain of only 7 cents a year for the entire Reagan decade.

But wait. Things get worse! By 1995 it had risen to only $16.71, or virtually no gain whatsoever over the 6 years between 1989 and 1995. During the great 'boom years' between 1995 and 2000 it rose briefly to $18.33 per hour. In other words, from 1979 to 2000, even before the most recent Bush recession, after more than two decades the American worker's average wages increased on average only 11.5 cents per hour per year! With nearly all of that coming in the five so-called 'boom' years of 1995-2000, and most of that lost once again in the last three years. And that includes for all workers, even those with college degrees.

The picture is worse for workers who had no college degree. That's more than 100 million workers, or 72.1% of the workforce. For them there was no 'boom of 1995-2000' whatsoever. Their average real hourly wages were less at the end of 2000 than they were in 1979! And since 2000 their wages have continued to slide further.
The Great Productivity Swindle

Management is always quick to say in contract negotiations, 'give us more productivity and we can afford to give you a bigger raise'. But this has been a false promise from 1979 to 2000, and an even bigger lie under George Bush II.

With 1992 as base year, productivity was at 82.2 in 1979. It grew to 94.2 by 1989 and 116.6 by the year 2000. In the past year, moreover, it has exploded, putting it over 120. That's a nearly 40% increase since Ronald Reagan took office nearly 25 years ago!

The 100 million American workers without college degrees, whose real take home pay today is less than it was 25 years ago, certainly can't be said to have shared in that 40% productivity gain. And the other 20 million or so with college degrees whose pay rose modestly at best certainly shared in very little of that nearly 40% productivity gain.

So who got all the money?

Also;
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/03/1 ... 37814.html

Ever feel your work isn’t being adequately represented by the final amount on your paycheck?

Turns out that nagging sense of injustice isn’t just a hunch. A recent report by the Economic Policy Institute reveals that benefits and wages haven’t kept up with the increasing productivity of American workers, both in private and public sectors.

SO I GUESS THAT ECONOMISTS DON'T KNOW MUCH ABOUT A DAY OF HONEST WORK, DO THEY MOTHERF*CKER? Seriously though, haven't you ever had a job before? I've never had a job that compensated me fairly. I don't think that many people have.

And if corporations can lower their costs, then they can charge lower prices for their goods--assuming of course they're operating within a competitive market, most of which are--and inb4 price collusion, because it's a myth. And guess who benefits from lower costs from businesses? Everyone who can purchase the now cheaper good.

WRONG!!! Shows what you know about Agri-Business.

The lysine price-fixing conspiracy was an organized effort during the mid-1990s to raise the price of the animal feed additive lysine. It involved five companies that had commercialized high-tech fermentation technologies, including American company Archer Daniels Midland (ADM), Japanese companies Ajinomoto and Kyowa Hakko Kogyo, and Korean companies Sewon America Inc. and Cheil Jedang Ltd. A criminal investigation resulted in fines and three-year prison sentences for three executives of ADM who colluded with the other companies to fix prices. The foreign companies settled with the United States Department of Justice Antitrust Division in September through December 1996. Each firm and four executives from the Asian firms pled guilty as part of a plea bargain to aid in further investigation against ADM. The cartel had been able to raise lysine prices 70% within their first nine months of cooperation

The Japanese also stole a proprietary bacteria from ADM. But of course, with all of your economics understanding, you already knew that.

Also, just google that phrase and you can find other actual cases documenting the fact that it is not a myth. LCD was also busted for international price collusion. So duh!

That quote is about China, and it doesn't say that labor productivity did not increase the upper bounds of one's wages.

It did say that productivity was up while wages were down. Anyway, then match it up to when you said:

This is seen through the increase in China's worker wages, and it was happening to the entire world since the Industrial Revolution.

Yet you dictate that everyone should behave like you when it isn't even theoretically possible for everyone do so.

Again, that's a lie. I never said to dictate what everyone does. I have only spoken in generalities.

It depends, which is why you can't dictate that everything is so simple according to your own personal experiences. You have to enable everyone's personal experiences to work. Your nationalist policy assume that since your experiences are good, so everyone's will be if they do what you do. It's a huge assumption.

I should hope, that because my argument is mostly health benefits and environmental benefits that everyone's experience would be good if they bought locally. Or baring a local farmer, one of those organic ones that don't feed beef corn. And don't pump their animals full of hormones and what-not.

Juan, they're talking about produce. Not about you riding your bike to Merle's farm. They're talking about how goods travel from many places to get where they may ultimately be sold. Not everything essential can be produced within 7 miles of your vicinity. It's just not as simple as you think it is.

But I was right, and that's what's important.

And did they research the travel of all goods or final goods? Did they double-count to beef up those numbers? Besides, it only discusses produce, and nothing about all the products related to produce. It's a limited study, and it doesn't support that your seemingly easy solution can be replicated by more than just you, Juan.

So what you're saying is, that most foods travel even further than my 1500 miles? So you're saying that I was like, twice as right as I was before?

And again, though I'm sure you've gotten the point, I didn't say that everyone had to replicate me. But obviously they should if they can. At least then those environmental concerns that you forgot to admit being very wrong about would be taken care of. (because of produce traveling more than 1500 miles)

I'll continue to buy locally until there's no where left to buy from.

You're still dictating what's best for others.

What are you, slow or something? I said "I'll do this" not "I'll make everyone do this."

Your own example of an E.Coli breakout that affected X amount of people doesn't factor in the money saved from people consuming cheaper beef.

Besides, you can't just use one isolated example and then boldly declare that now you know what is best for everyone.

Who said it was isolated? I said that because of the distribution pattern of the large Cattle Baron's meat products, all outbreaks have a larger impact. Furthermore, this has been a string of outbreaks. And I'm not sure that I want to get into a debate about the value of someone's life verses the profits of a cattle baron. If you grass feed a cow for 5 days before slaughter you will remove 80% of E. coli 0157:H7. But they can't do that, because it would eat away at their profits.

Is it affordable for everyone to feed grass to cattle? There's not enough resources for that, which explains why different businesses (local, small, medium, large) have used different means to produce beef.

Ah, yes there is. The only reason that corn is cheap is because of taxpayer subsidizing because of lobbying from major corporations like Coca-Cola and the CAFO owners. As I already said. Because of that, we produce far more corn than we can consume. So Coca Cola gets their sweetener cheap, and the cows get their corn cheap too. Corn is loved by the cattle industry for it's fattening quality and because it's so cheap.
But this country has plenty of land to produce grass. In the end it's only about squeezing out all the profit they can.

Perhaps, there's a way of someone innovative to overcome this problem. Have you thought about that? People are very innovative at adapting to changes and creating better solutions. When you demand that everyone should buy local, then you deny many options towards other, better solutions.

It's been about 15 years now. No changes have taken place.

Wikipedia, Juan? Try presenting your research to a professor and having your citation be wikipedia.org. I'm sure people within your own field of research with similar sentiments that you have expressed will be troubled as to why you feel that wikipedia is a credible source of information.

I didn't know that I needed encyclopedia Britannica for you to believe that deforestation and groundwater contamination can be a problem with agriculture. You're just trying to play off the fact that you made the number #1 mistake in debating. You asked questions indignantly that you didn't already know the answer to.

Nonetheless, it is good that there are researchers finding out the problems associated with factory farming. This enables the process of finding healthier and better solutions to be found.

First, there is a healthier and better solution. BUYING LOCALLY. Preferably from an organic farmer.
The major agri-corporations bought off the government long ago. Several former CEOs and company lawyers work in various branches of the government. That's how they have their monopolies, and that's how Monsanto can exist as a terrorist company.

What exactly is "globalization"?

growth to a global or worldwide scale; "the globalization of the communication industry"

If you oppose such the abolition of such import tariffs, then you're supporting Mansato and the sugar industry.

No, there I was talking about how free trade (NAFTA) abolished the protection tariffs that Mexico had and killed all their farms. It must have hurt Canadian farms too, I'm certain.

Perhaps you could recommend a good book for me?

You don't need one. Just listen to the derry brownfield show and move to a farm. What's wrong with summarizing through Wiki?

Would you care to recommend a book or two about this? I've already got The Ecology of Commerce: A Declaration of Sustainability, so is there anything else you could offer?

No. And obviously I wont read yours either.
I live in the Midwest. I know how Monsanto is with it's predatory pre-lawsuit business model. I know how Purdue intentionally keeps farmers profits down to control the farm. I know how the beef industry works. And how companies keep employees wages down while simultaneously increasing profits. I don't think that I need a degree in farming because I've lived the life. I've worked/lived on various farms since I could carry a 5-gallon pail.

[PLAYER57832]

Is it affordable for everyone to feed grass to cattle? There's not enough resources for that, which explains why different businesses (local, small, medium, large) have used different means to produce beef.

Ah, yes there is. The only reason that corn is cheap is because of taxpayer subsidizing because of lobbying from major corporations like Coca-Cola and the CAFO owners. As I already said. Because of that, we produce far more corn than we can consume. So Coca Cola gets their sweetener cheap, and the cows get their corn cheap too. Corn is loved by the cattle industry for it's fattening quality and because it's so cheap.
But this country has plenty of land to produce grass. In the end it's only about squeezing out all the profit they can.

I bet BBS doesn't even realize that cattle have to be fed antibiotics so they can eat that corn.

Perhaps, there's a way of someone innovative to overcome this problem. Have you thought about that? People are very innovative at adapting to changes and creating better solutions. When you demand that everyone should buy local, then you deny many options towards other, better solutions.

It's been about 15 years now. No changes have taken place.

Been a lot longer than 15 years... but carry on

See, BBS, the innovation gets stifled. It gets stifled directly when patents are bought up, but more importantly it gets stifled indirectly, from grade school on up when kids are shown films, given free material put out by the agribusiness corporations. Even if you escape all that (and even the best teachers are tempted to take the nice-looking ready made material when faced with budget cuts and tight curricula requirements), then research that doesn't benefit the companies is "strangely" not funded as well as research that goes in directions the big guys want.

Oh, yeah.. and juan, you missed the outright collusion in everything from zoning rules to disposal rules, etc. I mean, it makes sense that suburbs cannot have cows and horses perhaps, but sheep, chickens? If maintained properly, they are not a risk. But, those things get ruled "nuisances" while big companies can come in with smelly smokestacks, etc without any problem. (as long as the wind doesn't blow it over the wealthy areas, anyway).

[spurgistan]

Is this thread way more condescending than most, or is it just me?

[BigBallinStalin]

Read first please:

http://www.conquerclub.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=8&t=131709&p=3151198#p3151198

Okay, now I have to read this. I will let you know who the winner is.

We've never had anyone do that before. I'm nervous.
The reason that you and I never butt-heads in the forums is because I only debate when I know that I will win. Most of the time you get into topics that I only have very limited knowledge of, so it's better to listen than to open my mouth. Sure I'll argue with you when it comes to objective personal opinion stuff, but not when it comes down to strict facts.

Can I find a better rule? Give people the freedom to choose for themselves, instead of dictating harsh nationalist and protectionist policies which prohibits everyone's freedom.

I don't think that anyone ever once said that they wanted harsh nationalistic policies. What is that....straw man... or argument from..... fallacy from.... which is that again?

The best thing to do, is to buy American, and to buy in season. The plant will taste better, it will be more likely to be natural, and it'll help out Americans.

http://www.conquerclub.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=8&t=131709&start=135#p3147861

Sounds harsh to me if you think about the potential unintended consequences.

In turn, this reduces everyone's real income.

No. NAFTA and international trade has lead to a steady decline in wages, and has lead to a shifting of American Production and service jobs to overseas workers. It has completely destroyed some industries. It's common knowledge. So you can call this a nationalistic dictatorship policy and we would call it a protectionist policy. If everyone bought American first they would not be diminishing their income. It would protect American jobs, and in turn, protect their job. And if everyone bought locally, instead of from these same 10 corporations, then they would likely see a wage increase as well, from the competition for workers.

Furthermore, you're not counting the health benefits of eating natural food. This country is seriously suffering from financial trouble with our health care system.

JB, there are many factors that reduced people's income over the past 10 years, over the past 20 years, but not over the past 100 years. So it depends on which context you decide to pick.

I have yet to encounter data which states that international trade has lead to a steady decline in wages. Perhaps you could provide a source? You only mention the negatives of the expansion of international trade, so why not I mention the positives:

1) benefits of seeking comparative advantage in the production of resources, which leads to multiple benefits like higher efficiency (i.e. less waste, and a higher possibility of more long-term sustainability).

2) external competition. If you want to limit the power of monopolies, you have to enable competition; otherwise, your dreaded Mansato corporation--which you inadvertently support through supporting tariffs and discouraging international trade--retains a huge market share and control over the production of certain goods. Foreign competitors can reduce Mansato's grip on the market, thus enabling more options for consumers to purchase certain goods. However, there's also regulations involved by the government, which further complicates the issue (in other words, it's not as simple as you think).



3) the reduction in prices of various foreign goods, thus increasing one's real income (since that extra money can be spent on different goods)

Another example is Japan's car industry, which funny enough produces "Japanese" cars in American manufacturing plants. However, you dislike international trade, so there becomes no more "Japanese" cars. Imagine a country where there's only "American" cars. Recall in the 1970s what that was like: beautiful yet fuel inefficient + limited options and variety for consumers. Now introduce foreign cars like Japan, and the options expand. And if Japanese car manufacturers perform better than American ones, then they have the higher incentive to reduce costs in order to compete. This reduction of costs tends to lead to a reduction in the price, and with a lower price on cars, more people have the capability to purchase a car, more people save more money on a car purchase.

Guess who enabled the Japanese to clobber American manufacturers? W. Edwards Deming, an American. And guess how the American car manufacturers ignored his more efficient strategy of production? All of them. He went to Japan, they listened, they produced more reliable cars, and forced the American companies to mimic their business methods (W. Edwards Deming's business methods). All of this has resulted in forcing American car manufacturers to adopt more efficient and less costly means of production, which reduces the overall costs associated with producing cars.

4) Another good point about competition is that it exposes domestic businesses to better ideas (which aids in forming the previously mentioned benefits).

The point is that it is difficult to assess what causes exactly what; however, for you to assert that real wages have decreased from international trade is an unsubstantiated explanation that fails to account for the benefits of international trade and even fails to account for other reasonable explanations (which are describe above as well as in the next segment).


A decrease in real wages (over whichever time you want to specify) are not only due to international trade, which you just stated.


" [international trade] has lead to a shifting of American Production and service jobs to overseas workers"


It has, but other factors have also led to this like minimum wage, unions lobbying for higher wages, high corporate taxes (US is #1 in the world, maybe #2 currently), an unstable political and/or economic environment, et cetera. The problem that you're not understanding is that this is a very complex issue. It's not as simple as you declare it to be.


Besides, one long-term benefit of shifting American production and service jobs to overseas is that it frees up labor for more valued uses. In the long-term, Juan. The problem with your focus on the short-term is that you overlook future benefits and ignore unintended consequences. Nevertheless, with freed up labor for higher valued uses, this enables people in college to see which fields are profitable and which are on the decline. It enables people to understand which sector will become more profitable, which areas businesses will grow, and which ones will decline.


Once again, these issues are complex, and broad stokes with your typed statements don't cover the full story, JB. You forget one of the original arguments. Let me return it:

http://www.conquerclub.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=8&t=131709&start=135#p3148520

I mentioned that advocating to buy locally isn't necessarily buying locally, that it hurts other sectors of one's immediate and also the State and national economy, and that the logic behind dictating that other people should buy local has to be questioned because of unseen costs and unintended consequences associated with such an action.

Judging from your above response, you only mentioned negatives about international trade (well, actually, only one, which was overly simplistic by ignoring other factors). From your limited view on international trade (since you view intl. trade as a zero-sum game), you erroneously conclude that it's bad. It's not always bad, and it varies. There are many benefits and many costs, but you only focus on one or two particular negatives, while completely ignoring the benefits.

When one completely ignore the benefits and only focus on the negatives, then one becomes prone to making mistakes within one's line of reasoning. I'm aware of the costs of international trade, JB. There are many more real and potential costs then you have listed, but from what I've read, the benefits outweigh the costs because I have exposed myself towards understanding not only the costs but also the benefits of international trade.

As you mentioned, the flipside is that by buying local, you support your local economy, but does that always mean one supports their national economy by doing so? Not necessarily. You also hurt other sectors of the economy by not purchasing foreign goods in which the certain sectors of the national economy are involved.

You're saying that the Bronkema's down the road will probably spend my money on Chinese tractors and Sony DVD players. But if I buy Chiquita banana's from Venezuela, the profits actually go to an American company.
As I said I buy locally and expand that outward. And I also said that I always try to buy American first.

I said no such things, JB. Only you said that. Your examples depend on which products are produced with what machines and yada yada. The point is that buying immediately local doesn't necessarily support even your national economy. By purchasing from an immediate/local business "A", you don't purchase from some other American company that is considered to be as "local" as business A. For example, your hardware store (can't recall the name something & something's) is a "local" business in that it has operations over several regions of the US (predominantly the Midwest). When you purchase from there, you don't purchase from other "local" business, which means that by buying locally, you aren't necessarily supporting the national economy. That's all I'm pointing out (and it's in relation to your "buy American, it helps Americans" stance).

If you understand that business A example, then you can understand that there are unintended consequences with your actions. By purchasing from American local business A, another local American business doesn't make the sale, thus hurting their performance (to a minor degree). (This is a point I've been stressing but you seem to ignore because you never concede on anything; you just forget, which is unfortunate.)
http://www.conquerclub.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=8&t=131709&start=135#p3148520 (in reference to the underlined)

As I said I buy locally and expand that outward. And I also said that I always try to buy American first.

Good for you, sir. It's hard to tell when you shift your stance from this one:

The best thing to do, is to buy American, and to buy in season. The plant will taste better, it will be more likely to be natural, and it'll help out Americans.

(or in the areas in which you are knowledgeable, which is not the national realm, and since you're not knowledgeable of the national realm, dictating policies like "buy local" across the entire nation is a decision which reflects very little knowledge on your part)

That's an odd thing to say sir, because I'm kicking your ass in this debate. I don't think that you know anything about farming in this country. And when I make a point, you dismiss it and start talking about how I'm a nationalist who doesn't understand the repercussions of my actions. F*ck it, here we go again.

Here was your nationalist stance:

The best thing to do, is to buy American, and to buy in season. The plant will taste better, it will be more likely to be natural, and it'll help out Americans.

http://www.conquerclub.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=8&t=131709&start=135#p3147861

yet somehow a young guy who knows a good bit about agriculture (yet nothing of economics) presupposes that he know the one and only answer: buy local, never mind the costs! Doesn't that strike you as odd?

No?

Of course not, because you presume that you have the answers. I posit that it's not as simple as you think it is, yet you seem to disagree regardless.

I just showed you that that guarantee isn't necessarily true, and you simply say, "no it doesn't."

Sorry, JB, that isn't an argument.

You'll have to move back to page 8 or 9 and deal with that again.

I don't think that you follow me. If I spend my dollars in my community; well then I just spent them in my community. I'm guaranteeing that they are spent there. Yes, Where they go from there is out of my control.... So that was my argument.

Thank you, JB, for limiting your earlier argument that "buying locally DOES guarantee that the money will be spent within the local market" to your current one, which admits that "where they go from there is out of my control."

http://www.conquerclub.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=8&t=131709&start=150#p3149053

I'm glad that you have freely chosen to buy American products, JB. Your original stance however dictates that others are not free to choose foreign products because you are adamant about having all Americans to buy only American-produced goods. You have restricted other people's options in order to appease your nationalist sentiments.

This is simply a lie. I can't remember....straw man... or argument from..... fallacy from.... which is that again???
My original stance was: Because if you don't buy from your neighbors, they wont have any money to buy from you. I myself generally buy local first, then expand that outward.

So what do you think, restricting options is something for the government, Tyson, and Monsanto to do?

Here was one of your original stances:

By saying "best," you've just implied that it's best for all cases, and even for most cases.

That just isn't true because there are unseen costs with what you advocate.

See: viewtopic.php?f=8&t=131709&start=135#p3147752

Can you find a better rule?

http://www.conquerclub.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=8&t=131709&start=150#p3149053

"Can you find a better rule?" implies that what you stated was your rule to live by. You forgot that you held two contradictory stances at the same time, which is why it is important to concede on certain issues, JB, instead of digging in your heels.

The best thing to do, is to buy American, and to buy in season. The plant will taste better, it will be more likely to be natural, and it'll help out Americans.

By saying "best," you've just implied that it's best for all cases, and even for most cases.

That just isn't true because there are unseen costs with what you advocate.

See: http://www.conquerclub.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=8&t=131709&start=135#p3147752
http://www.conquerclub.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=8&t=131709&start=135#p3147861

People are of course, free to choose what they do with their money. Because this is the USA. But spending it on foreign goods & labor, and the large American Agri-business corporations has all had negative effects for our country. It only has positive effects for an individual if no one else does it. When everyone does it - that becomes a transfer of wealth, industry, and jobs. If you follow me.

Of course, it's a game of trade-offs.

My contention in this response is this: Exchange (i.e. trade) is not a zero-sum game. People mutually benefit ex ante with each exchange; otherwise, they would not trade. You posit that international trade is bad for the US economy, and you focus on the negatives, but your conclusion overlooks the benefits (as I've mentioned above). Can you reasonably presume that your standpoint is correct if you are unaware of the most of the benefits of international trade?

Are you open to expanding your mind with a book (or some good internet articles) that explain my position in more detail?

And hopefully, those products, which make "Made in the USA" products, are of US origin, but they don't need to be. Only the product and the materials that go within it must comply with the FTC's rules. So if you purchases "Made in the USA" products, you could be supporting businesses which use foreign machines...

I don't see how you think that you're outsmarting me. You just helped my argument for reasons to buy products that are labeled "MADE IN THE USA." I'm going to buy that before a similar product without that label because it ensures that I'm voting for at least one an American job. If I buy the other product I could be voting for Chinese workers.
It doesn't matter where all the raw materials come from. I would prefer everything was American, and some labels will tell you as much, but no matter what at least I know that I'm helping support American workers.

No matter how hard you don't care, there's still that possibility, JB, that the final goods you purchase may have been produced by foreign machines and foreign raw materials. Those "American" companies are buying foreign stuff. (booga booga booga)

[In reference to the underline]: You aren't necessarily helping support American workers by buying only "American" final goods. The reason why American companies are more reasonable than your view is that they are open to buying foreign goods in order to conduct their business more efficiently at a lower cost. If they can decrease their costs by increasing their productivity and/or efficiency (thus increasing their profits), then they can remain in the US and pay their workers a decent wage.

Considering my above example, do you understand that buying foreign products is not necessarily a bad thing?


(Guess what, without being open towards international trade, you remove the possibility that the Japanese and the Germans can build manufacturing plants within the US to sell "Japanese" and "German" cars. Even with the earlier loss of market share with US car companies that close down from foreign competition, there's still a market share, so other foreign companies can buy domestic car manufacturing plants, which can bring jobs back. It happens, and you can't deny that possibility.

Like I was saying earlier, it's complex. And since it's complex and considering my above response, your policy of buying local and then expanding outward doesn't necessarily mean that everyone should do the same.

hey, JB, is a Toyota Camry "made in the USA"?

Fair question. I would buy an American car made in America long before I would even look at a Camry. But if I were to buy a Camry it would have to at least made in an American factory. Why would a guy like me ever buy foreign products when there are as good and better American products?

And what is an "American" product?

If "Japanese" cars are manufactured in the USA and support American workers, then what harm have you caused by purchasing a "foreign" car?

You have no neighbors that compete? Either they're a cartel or a monopoly if there's no competition.

You could say that. But the real truth is darker. There's no room for competitors because of the large corporations like Tyson and Purdue. They suffocate the market.
Also, the large meat packagers are the monopolies.

One thing: there's room for competitors if they're savvy enough to capture a market share which dislikes Tyson and Purdue products enough to buy locally produced products.

They may "suffocate the market," but their standardized strategies leave gaps in the market. Differentiated strategies which customize their products to suit certain customers' needs can close these gaps. My point is that there still can be room for competition.

"The large meat packagers are monopolies."

In economics, a monopoly (from Greek monos / μονος (alone or single) + polein / πωλειν (to sell)) exists when a specific individual or an enterprise has sufficient control over a particular product or service to determine significantly the terms on which other individuals shall have access to it.

Perhaps, you meant "cartel."

A cartel is a formal (explicit) agreement among competing firms. It is a formal organization of producers and manufacturers that agree to fix prices, marketing, and production.[1]

How do you know that they collude to fix their prices, their production, and/or their marketing?

What are the environmental and economical costs associated with purchasing foreign agricultural goods?

What are the environmental and economical costs associated with purchasing "big business" agricultural goods?

What are the environmental and economical costs associated with purchasing small business goods?

What are the environmental and economical costs associated with purchasing "mom and pop" shop's agricultural goods?

Don't you have to answer these questions before you can claim that it's best to let the free market decide what to purchase? I've already answered all of these in at least part, but you dismissed my answers because they didn't involve economics or came from Wiki*. Because you're better then me I guess.

*I think that we all suspect that you dismiss the answers because you couldn't respond to them

My point, JB, is that if you do not possess the economic information (which can include environmental impact) of the standpoint which you advocated:

"The best thing to do, is to buy American, and to buy in season. The plant will taste better, it will be more likely to be natural, and it'll help out Americans."

Then you can not reasonably infer that you know what is best for everyone. Because without economic information, you can't assess which sectors of the economy are affected (which in turn means which people are affected). Your data said that "antibiotics are bad" and "E.Coli causes harm" but most of them didn't leave any quantifiable data, which is why a professor of the agricultural field would give you a funny. Some of the data indicated that it's bad to purchase from certain corporations, but that doesn't rule out that other large corporations are bad. The data didn't support your point that "we should buy American because buying American helps" either. I'm interesting in reading more factual articles and books that pertain to these issues, instead of reading cherry-picked wikipedia facts that don't offer much evidence.

I'll admit that Mansato causes a lot of harm; I've concluded that years ago.

In order to dictate a nationalist policy that prohibits or restricts foreign competition, it would be wise to be able to answer the above questions. Then you can presume that you know what is best for everyone, but the truth is that you don't.

In order to dictate a completely free worldwide market policy that doesn't prohibit or restrict competion (or corporations), it would be wise to answer your own questions. Then you can presume to know what's best for everyone, but you already said that you don't. So whatever.

At least, you shouldn't proclaim what's best for everyone. That's been my point, and it seems you finally agree.

Buying local, or primarily local, may not be what's best for everyone else--no matter how much you extrapolate your personal experiences onto everyone else's.

It would be best for everyone else, if everyone did it. That seems obvious. All your argument so far involves is cost to the individual consumer, while I'm genuinely talking about the cost to the nation, which will effect the cost to the individual. You're only talking about the illusion of the cost to the nation.

If everyone did it, then you harm other sectors of the economy that rely on foreign trade. You make people lose jobs, Juan. How can you call yourself a caring American by advocating such a stance?

The truth is that it's not as simple as saying, "everyone should do it!" There's unintended consequences in doing so. You remove competition and you remove the need for domestic industries to lower their prices relative to foreign industries. There's a reason why tariffs were so high in the 1920s and up to the 1950s. It's to raise the LOWER prices of foreign goods. Generally, when everyone buys domestic, they eat the higher prices. And when they eat the higher price, they have less real income. And when they have less real income, they have less money to spend on other domestic goods. What happens then, Juan? The economy suffers, every American suffers.

So like I said, there are unintended consequences in demanding that "It would be best for everyone else, if everyone did it."

And when you say something like "It would be best for everyone else, if everyone did it," you presume that based on your limited knowledge, judgment, and wisdom, that you still know what is best for everyone else. And I already explained how that isn't a good idea, yet you still advocate that it should be done... [facepalm.jpg]

I can control my dollar.

That's great, Juan, but that's not how it works for everyone else.

Sure, you can control your dollar, which is spent on a local business's product, and then that local business buys whatever it needs from wherever that may be. You advocate that everyone should buy local, but don't you see: businesses are faced with decisions on which products to buy.

Ok BBS, so that is how it works for everyone else.

You're a dishonest debater. You intentionally removed the remainder to my point. That's why it's important to not interrupt so frequently because you miss the point:

Sure, you can control your dollar, which is spent on a local business's product, and then that local business buys whatever it needs from wherever that may be. You advocate that everyone should buy local, but don't you see: businesses are faced with decisions on which products to buy.

If they were forced to buy "local" or buy only "American" and if those goods are more expensive then foreign goods, guess who makes up for the additional costs? You do, JB!Be proud to support the unintended consequences of higher prices in the name of your nationalist sentiments!

And with higher prices comes what, JB? Lower real incomes!

It still isn't wise for you to dictate which products people should buy based on your very limited knowledge and experience.[Because of the unintended consequences (i.e. lower real incomes as one example). Another example is that since businesses have to buy domestic only, that may prove unprofitable, so they'll go out of business. lnadvertently, your standpoint stated earlier (""It would be best for everyone else, if everyone did it.") isn't necessarily true because businesses will have to eat a higher costs, which may make some unprofitable, and they'll go bankrupt. Or they'll have to cut jobs.

Why won't you concede on even some basic points I raise? Instead, you just ignore them, no matter how reasonable they are. To me that's called being intellectually dishonest. If you continue to pull these tactics, then I won't have much to gain from this discussion, because you are not genuinely interested in being open-minded to differing views.

You know who else gets priced out of a job from minimum wage? Americans with not enough work experience to compete against those with work experience.

Darn those unintended consequences at the expense of nationalist sentiments!

Nationalism has nothing to do with being pro-union. At least, I don't think that it does. And companies reward people for not being a part of their labor unions. There is always a choice. You're argument does equate to people in agri-business working for lower wages in less safe environments. Thanks to Unions, and a book about a jungle, meat packagers of the 1950s made a good living wage. Their injury rate had fallen by 50% from the 1930s, to somewhere around 15%. Today, there are few slaughterhouses left. All of them are non-union, and it's one of the most dangerous jobs in the country again.
All of this seems really unfair considering how much more meat is on the bone than in 1950. It's all just more profits for the company.

Ok, and that had nothing to do with: "You know who else gets priced out of a job from minimum wage? Americans with not enough work experience to compete against those with work experience."

Also:

Unions. Unions (like corporations) lobby their government to place a minimum wage, which creates a barrier for inexperienced, non-unionized workers from becoming employable. It effectively prices them out of a job.

You didn't counter that. You sidestepped with "You know who else they used to price out of a job? Illegal Immigrants." And minimum wage, according to you, prices illegal immigrants out of a job, then I say, "Darn those unintended consequences at the expense of nationalist sentiments!" (Your nationalist sentiments describe your implied joy in having illegal immigrants priced out of job).

Explain how that is a myth.

Explain to me how a worker who produces $5 per hour of total revenue for a business can demand a $6 per hour wage without having the business go bankrupt.

Labor productivity increases one's capability to produce more revenue for a business (or for one's self). That is the primary reason why the upper bounds of one's wages can increase.

I did explain it. You dismissed my link. But luckily, I can google all night. If it wasn't a myth, then why:

Quoting out of context is stupid.

http://www.conquerclub.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=8&t=131709&start=150#p3149342

The upper bound is increased through one's labor productivity, which is from one's own labor, and from technological advances in increased productivity per laborer.

That's a myth for a perfect system. The reality is that there was a time when the head of the household would make enough income to support their whole family. Today, that doesn't happen nearly as much. Productivity has been on the rise for quite a while while wages have been on the decline.
Corporations spend their money on finding ways to make their workforce less costly, and yet be more efficient.
This is common knowledge.

Explain how that is a myth.

"Productivity has been on the rise for quite a while while wages have been on the decline."

That doesn't show that "The upper bound is increased through one's labor productivity, which is from one's own labor, and from technological advances in increased productivity per laborer." is a myth.


So here comes

But what caught me here is that our inflation adjusted power peaked in 1968? America is full of failure.

This is what happens when you are allowed to discount so many real and true costs.

http://blogs.cfed.org/cfed_news_clips/2 ... 10-un.html

http://www.kyklosproductions.com/articles/wages.html

Stagnating Workers' Wages

In 1979 the American worker's average hourly wage was equal to $15.91 (adjusted for inflation in 2001 dollars). By 1989 it had reached only $16.63/hour. That's a gain of only 7 cents a year for the entire Reagan decade.

But wait. Things get worse! By 1995 it had risen to only $16.71, or virtually no gain whatsoever over the 6 years between 1989 and 1995. During the great 'boom years' between 1995 and 2000 it rose briefly to $18.33 per hour. In other words, from 1979 to 2000, even before the most recent Bush recession, after more than two decades the American worker's average wages increased on average only 11.5 cents per hour per year! With nearly all of that coming in the five so-called 'boom' years of 1995-2000, and most of that lost once again in the last three years. And that includes for all workers, even those with college degrees.

The picture is worse for workers who had no college degree. That's more than 100 million workers, or 72.1% of the workforce. For them there was no 'boom of 1995-2000' whatsoever. Their average real hourly wages were less at the end of 2000 than they were in 1979! And since 2000 their wages have continued to slide further.
The Great Productivity Swindle

Management is always quick to say in contract negotiations, 'give us more productivity and we can afford to give you a bigger raise'. But this has been a false promise from 1979 to 2000, and an even bigger lie under George Bush II.

With 1992 as base year, productivity was at 82.2 in 1979. It grew to 94.2 by 1989 and 116.6 by the year 2000. In the past year, moreover, it has exploded, putting it over 120. That's a nearly 40% increase since Ronald Reagan took office nearly 25 years ago!

The 100 million American workers without college degrees, whose real take home pay today is less than it was 25 years ago, certainly can't be said to have shared in that 40% productivity gain. And the other 20 million or so with college degrees whose pay rose modestly at best certainly shared in very little of that nearly 40% productivity gain.

So who got all the money?

Also;
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/03/1 ... 37814.html

Ever feel your work isn’t being adequately represented by the final amount on your paycheck?

Turns out that nagging sense of injustice isn’t just a hunch. A recent report by the Economic Policy Institute reveals that benefits and wages haven’t kept up with the increasing productivity of American workers, both in private and public sectors.

SO I GUESS THAT ECONOMISTS DON'T KNOW MUCH ABOUT A DAY OF HONEST WORK, DO THEY MOTHERF*CKER? Seriously though, haven't you ever had a job before? I've never had a job that compensated me fairly. I don't think that many people have.

Lol, your statement in capitals makes you look like a blathering idiot.


"Productivity has been on the rise for quite a while while wages have been on the decline."

Your empirically support statement doesn't show how "The upper bound is increased through one's labor productivity, which is from one's own labor, and from technological advances in increased productivity per laborer." is a myth.

You wasted all that time, and then act all macho about failing to explain what I was saying earlier was a myth.


Here's a great link that explains how Unions take erroneously take credit for


I'm not arguing that wages haven't increased for certain people (from a certain time 1979-2001) while productivity increases, and it doesn't explain that "The upper bound is increased through one's labor productivity, which is from one's own labor, and from technological advances in increased productivity per laborer." is a myth.

(sorry for repeating myself, but you seem to have problems remembering the larger context of each discussion).



Here's a fun read about Unions:

Volume 24, Number 10
October 2004

The Union Myth
Thomas J. DiLorenzo

In Human Action, Ludwig von Mises wrote that labor unions have always been the primary source of anticapitalistic propaganda. I was reminded of this recently when I saw a bumper sticker proclaiming one of the bedrock tenets of unionism: "The Union Movement: The People Who Brought You the Weekend."

Well, not exactly. In the US, the average work week was 61 hours in 1870, compared to 34 hours today, and this near doubling of leisure time for American workers was caused by capitalism, not unionism.

As Mises explained, "In the capitalist society there prevails a tendency toward a steady increase in the per capita quota of capital invested. . . . Consequently, the marginal productivity of labor, wage rates, and the wager earners’ standard of living tend to rise continually."

Of course, this is only true of a capitalist economy where private property, free markets, and entrepreneurship prevail. The steady rise in living standards in (predominantly) capitalist countries is due to the benefits of private capital investment, entrepreneurship,technological advance, and a better educated workforce (no thanks to the government school monopoly, which has only served to dumb down the population). Labor unions routinely take credit for all of this while pursuing policies which impede the very institutions of capitalism that are the cause of their own prosperity.

The shorter work week is entirely a capitalist invention. As capital investment caused the marginal productivity of labor to increase over time, less labor was required to produce the same levels of output. As competition became more intense, many employers competed for the best employees by offering both better pay and shorter hours. Those who did not offer shorter work weeks were compelled by the forces of competition to offer higher compensating wages or become uncompetitive in the labor market.

Capitalistic competition is also why "child labor" has all but disappeared, despite unionist claims to the contrary. Young people originally left the farms to work in harsh factory conditions because it was a matter of survival for them and their families. But as workers became better paid—thanks to capital investment and subsequent productivity improvements—more and more people could afford to keep their children at home and in school.

Union-backed legislation prohibiting child labor came after the decline in child labor had already begun. Moreover, child labor laws have always been protectionist and aimed at depriving young people of the opportunity to work. Since child labor sometimes competes with unionized labor, unions have long sought to use the power of the state to deprive young people of the right to work.

In the Third World today, the alternative to "child labor" is all too often begging, prostitution, crime, or starvation. Unions absurdly proclaim to be taking the moral high road by advocating protectionist policies that inevitably lead to these consequences.

Unions also boast of having championed safety regulation by the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) over the past three decades. The American workplace has indeed become safer over the past century, but this was also due to the forces of competitive capitalism, not union-backed regulation.

An unsafe or dangerous workplace is costly to employers because they must pay a compensating difference (higher wage) to attract workers. Employers therefore have a powerful financial interest in improving workplace safety, especially in manufacturing industries where wages often comprise the majority of total costs. In addition, employers must bear the costs of lost work, retraining new employees, and government-imposed workman’s compensation whenever there is an accident on the job. Not to mention the threat of lawsuits.

Investments in technology, from air-conditioned farm tractors to the robots used in automobile factories, have also made the American workplace safer. But unions have often opposed such technology with the Luddite argument that it "destroys jobs."

Mises was right that unions have always been a primary source of anti-capitalistic propaganda. But since he wrote Human Action, American unions have also been at the forefront of lobbying efforts on behalf of the regulation and taxation of business—of capital—that has severely hampered the market economy, making everyone, including unionists, worse off economically. The regulation of business by the EPA, OSHA, FTC, DOE, and hundreds of other federal, state, and local government bureaucracies constitutes an effective tax on capital investment that makes such investment less profitable. Less capital investment causes a decline in the growth of labor productivity, which in turn slows down the growth of wages and living standards.

In addition, slower productivity leads to a slower growth of output in the economy, which causes prices to be higher than they otherwise would be; and fewer new products are invented and marketed. All of these things are harmful to the economic well-being of the very people labor unions claim to "represent." (Incredibly, there are some economists who argue that unions are good for productivity. But if that were true, corporations would be recruiting them instead of spending millions trying to avoid unionization.)

Mises also pointed out that as business becomes more heavily regulated, business decisions are based more and more on compliance with governmental edicts than on profit-making. American labor unions continue to call for more regulation of business because, in order for them to survive, they must convince workers—and society—that "the company is the enemy." That’s why, as Mises noted, union propaganda has always been anticapitalistic. Workers supposedly need to be protected from "the enemy" by labor unions.

However, the substitution of bureaucratic compliance for profit-making decisions reduces profitability, usually with little or no benefit to anyone from the regulations being complied with. The end result is once again a reduction in the profitability of investment, and subsequently less investment takes place. Wages are stunted, thanks to self-defeating unionist propaganda. The well-paid union officials may keep their jobs and their perks by perpetuating such propaganda, but they are harming the very people who pay the dues which are used to pay their own salaries.

http://mises.org/freemarket_detail.aspx?control=511

And if corporations can lower their costs, then they can charge lower prices for their goods--assuming of course they're operating within a competitive market, most of which are--and inb4 price collusion, because it's a myth. And guess who benefits from lower costs from businesses? Everyone who can purchase the now cheaper good.

WRONG!!! Shows what you know about Agri-Business.

The lysine price-fixing conspiracy was an organized effort during the mid-1990s to raise the price of the animal feed additive lysine. It involved five companies that had commercialized high-tech fermentation technologies, including American company Archer Daniels Midland (ADM), Japanese companies Ajinomoto and Kyowa Hakko Kogyo, and Korean companies Sewon America Inc. and Cheil Jedang Ltd. A criminal investigation resulted in fines and three-year prison sentences for three executives of ADM who colluded with the other companies to fix prices. The foreign companies settled with the United States Department of Justice Antitrust Division in September through December 1996. Each firm and four executives from the Asian firms pled guilty as part of a plea bargain to aid in further investigation against ADM. The cartel had been able to raise lysine prices 70% within their first nine months of cooperation

The Japanese also stole a proprietary bacteria from ADM. But of course, with all of your economics understanding, you already knew that.

Also, just google that phrase and you can find other actual cases documenting the fact that it is not a myth. LCD was also busted for international price collusion. So duh!

Good point, and I'll concede that price collusions aren't a myth.

But you quoted out of context while completely ignoring:

Corporations spend their money on finding ways to make their workforce less costly, and yet be more efficient.

Corporations can be formed through local hardware stores in order to command lower prices by realizing the benefits of economies of scale. That's what "Harry's" Ace did, and it actually ensured local businesses' survival.

And if corporations can lower their costs, then they can charge lower prices for their goods--assuming of course they're operating within a competitive market, most of which are. And guess who benefits from lower costs from businesses? Everyone who can purchase the now cheaper good.[/quote]

You ignored this, and focused on a trivial point to prove that collusions aren't a myth. Good job. You're still being intellectually dishonest.

That quote is about China, and it doesn't say that labor productivity did not increase the upper bounds of one's wages.

It did say that productivity was up while wages were down. Anyway, then match it up to when you said:

This is seen through the increase in China's worker wages, and it was happening to the entire world since the Industrial Revolution.

“With labor productivity in industry outpacing wage growth, wage costs have declined as a ratio of total value added, leaving a larger share for companies’ profits. These productivity increases have kept margins intact and profit growth high in recent years even though producer (“factory gate”) and consumer price increases have been significantly lower than raw material price increases.6 “

It says that labor productivity in industry outpaced wage growth. It's not saying that wage growth is down, or negative. (wow... good job, JB)

And it fails to explain the following:
"The upper bound is increased through one's labor productivity, which is from one's own labor, and from technological advances in increased productivity per laborer." is a myth.

As one's labor productivity increases, a worker can produce more revenue, thus with this higher revenue, he can command a higher price for his labor. He has effectively risen the upper bound.

This has been empirically proven as a country shifts its policies to more capitalistic ones. What I'm talking about has been increasing over the course of 100 to 150 years--which is why your 1979-2001 study is besides the point.


Have fun debunking that "myth." Here's why you shouldn't make claims about what you don't understand:

(labor productivity refers to productivity per labor---essentially).

Yet you dictate that everyone should behave like you when it isn't even theoretically possible for everyone do so.

Again, that's a lie. I never said to dictate what everyone does. I have only spoken in generalities.

You dictated what people should do Juan:

Again:

The best thing to do, is to buy American, and to buy in season. The plant will taste better, it will be more likely to be natural, and it'll help out Americans.

Here's you advocating that if everyone did it, it would be best for everyone else:

Buying local, or primarily local, may not be what's best for everyone else--no matter how much you extrapolate your personal experiences onto everyone else's.

It would be best for everyone else, if everyone did it. That seems obvious. All your argument so far involves is cost to the individual consumer, while I'm genuinely talking about the cost to the nation, which will effect the cost to the individual. You're only talking about the illusion of the cost to the nation.

It bears repeating that even with your conditional phrase "if everyone did it," you still presume that you have the knowledge, judgment, and experience to know what is best for everyone. You simply don't no matter how you twist and turn things.

It depends, which is why you can't dictate that everything is so simple according to your own personal experiences. You have to enable everyone's personal experiences to work. Your nationalist policy assume that since your experiences are good, so everyone's will be if they do what you do. It's a huge assumption.

I should hope, that because my argument is mostly health benefits and environmental benefits that everyone's experience would be good if they bought locally. Or baring a local farmer, one of those organic ones that don't feed beef corn. And don't pump their animals full of hormones and what-not.

Juan, they're talking about produce. Not about you riding your bike to Merle's farm. They're talking about how goods travel from many places to get where they may ultimately be sold. Not everything essential can be produced within 7 miles of your vicinity. It's just not as simple as you think it is.

But I was right, and that's what's important.

How much childish can you get, Juan? Your own reasoning doesn't support the information you presented, and you claim that you are right? It's not as simple as you think it is; therefore, (as I was originally stating) you can't use your one case to justify that you know what is best for everyone when you say things like:

The best thing to do, is to buy American, and to buy in season. The plant will taste better, it will be more likely to be natural, and it'll help out Americans.

And did they research the travel of all goods or final goods? Did they double-count to beef up those numbers? Besides, it only discusses produce, and nothing about all the products related to produce. It's a limited study, and it doesn't support that your seemingly easy solution can be replicated by more than just you, Juan.

So what you're saying is, that most foods travel even further than my 1500 miles? So you're saying that I was like, twice as right as I was before?

And again, though I'm sure you've gotten the point, I didn't say that everyone had to replicate me. But obviously they should if they can. At least then those environmental concerns that you forgot to admit being very wrong about would be taken care of. (because of produce traveling more than 1500 miles)

JB, I'm asking about how that study was conducted because it's important to understand how statistics are calculated. Apparently, you can't answer my questions because you don't understand how they obtained those numbers; therefore, it is pointless for me to ask you about something you don't fully understand.

How can I be wrong about something I didn't state contradictory evidence to? I have been maintaining that the economic impact (which includes environmental impact) is hard to calculate. There are many reasons why, which I've stated earlier. Your numbers don't support your faith that "The best thing to do, is to buy American, and to buy in season. The plant will taste better, it will be more likely to be natural, and it'll help out Americans" or even that "It would be best for everyone else, if everyone did it." Why? Because it provides no information related to economics, you know, to the actual economy (lol). You'll have to make the case that your limited facts support the above two quotes--that they OUTWEIGH the benefits in not buying only American products, or "if everyone bought American products."

I'll continue to buy locally until there's no where left to buy from.

You're still dictating what's best for others.

What are you, slow or something? I said "I'll do this" not "I'll make everyone do this."

Oh but you did. You just forget or you're a liar.

Your own example of an E.Coli breakout that affected X amount of people doesn't factor in the money saved from people consuming cheaper beef.

Besides, you can't just use one isolated example and then boldly declare that now you know what is best for everyone.

Who said it was isolated? I said that because of the distribution pattern of the large Cattle Baron's meat products, all outbreaks have a larger impact. Furthermore, this has been a string of outbreaks. And I'm not sure that I want to get into a debate about the value of someone's life verses the profits of a cattle baron. If you grass feed a cow for 5 days before slaughter you will remove 80% of E. coli 0157:H7. But they can't do that, because it would eat away at their profits.

I'm not saying the effects of E.Coli are isolated. It is foolish to suggest one case (or even a few), which don't mention any economics (hardly any have any numbers at all), support your opinions, and then say, "this is best for the economy. DERP."

And once again, you're being intellectually dishonest:

Your own example of an E.Coli breakout that affected X amount of people doesn't factor in the money saved from people consuming cheaper beef.

No response from you. If your data was good enough to make sweeping claims like you have done and do within this reply, then it should include at least the above point.

Is it affordable for everyone to feed grass to cattle? There's not enough resources for that, which explains why different businesses (local, small, medium, large) have used different means to produce beef.

Ah, yes there is. The only reason that corn is cheap is because of taxpayer subsidizing because of lobbying from major corporations like Coca-Cola and the CAFO owners. As I already said. Because of that, we produce far more corn than we can consume. So Coca Cola gets their sweetener cheap, and the cows get their corn cheap too. Corn is loved by the cattle industry for it's fattening quality and because it's so cheap.
But this country has plenty of land to produce grass. In the end it's only about squeezing out all the profit they can.

Gee. I guess you have all the quantifiable data, JB. You could make gazillions of dollars that no one else realized![/sarcasm]

Reminds me of you ignoring this segment:

Companies like Coca-Cola lobby congress and get them to subsidize corn and soybean farming. That way we produce more crops than we could hope to use. Then they can buy the crops very cheaply themselves and keep their costs for artificial sweeteners or whatever, cheap.
So who you calling narrow-minded? You haven't once - not once - talked about these "secret costs" that you are talking about. You mentioned tariffs though? You mean like the ones that allowed US Corn and Soybeans to put Mexican farmers out of business?
Anyway I have talked about the "secret costs." Personal health and environmental impact are two of them.

Coca-cola would be thrilled to purchase cheaper sugar if the import tariffs were lifted. The losers on that deal are Mansato and the few corporations who dominate the sugar industry.

Wikipedia, Juan? Try presenting your research to a professor and having your citation be wikipedia.org. I'm sure people within your own field of research with similar sentiments that you have expressed will be troubled as to why you feel that wikipedia is a credible source of information.

I didn't know that I needed encyclopedia Britannica for you to believe that deforestation and groundwater contamination can be a problem with agriculture. You're just trying to play off the fact that you made the number #1 mistake in debating. You asked questions indignantly that you didn't already know the answer to.

As I said earlier, you have no empirical data listed. It's just broad statements. And in spirit of this discussion, if you don't have empirical data (you know, quantifiable fact), then you can't presume that you have the knowledge and experience and judgment to make sweeping decisions which would be best for everyone--like your "if everyone did [buy american], then it would be good. (paraphrased)"

[Thanks for answering my question on globalization, but you forgot something]

Don't you feel any care in the world for those people who live in poorer countries? Why not buy their products for the cheaper price so that you can help even poorer people in this world? Why harbor such a nationalist, narrow-minded view?

This is a terribly bad argument. I already brought up how in many places you can buy American-imported Corn or Soybeans cheaper than you can buy locally grown crops. You're beloved globalization is actually putting some of the poorest farmers and sharecroppers in the whole world out of business.

Juan, American-imported corn and soybeans aren't cheap for the 1 billion making about a $1 a day. American agricultural products are primarily consumed by countries that can afford them (namely developed and developed countries like India and China).

What does put people out of business in poor countries are import tariffs in American markets. It increases their price, so those poorer countries can't compete as well as the American prices can. Besides, your import tariffs benefit corporations like Mansato and the American sugar industry (which is dominated by a few large corporations).[/quote]

If you oppose such the abolition of such import tariffs, then you're supporting Mansato and the sugar industry.

No, there I was talking about how free trade (NAFTA) abolished the protection tariffs that Mexico had and killed all their farms. It must have hurt Canadian farms too, I'm certain.

All of their farms? All of them? Oh jeez, I would love to read about how all of Mexico's farms were killed by removing import tariffs. (Only import tariffs, right, Juan? Because that's what you're positing). I'll patiently await this information.

Most everything uses cheap, American taxpayer-subsidized corn. Also, your "real income" doesn't increase if you send your jobs overseas does it? Rather, some other companies "real income" does instead. What happens when an entire industry goes bankrupt because it cannot compete with cheap foreign goods? Tariffs exist for a reason.

http://www.conquerclub.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=8&t=131709&start=150#p3149053

They certainly do exist for a reason, which is primarily to support American businesses (the sugar and corn industry--Mansato included).

Don't you see the unintended consequences of import tariffs?

Perhaps you could recommend a good book for me?

You don't need one. Just listen to the derry brownfield show and move to a farm. What's wrong with summarizing through Wiki?

He died. Got anything else? Just kidding.

Radio talk shows are great, but they have limited depth compared to books (which may explain how you construct your arguments, how you defend your points, and how you feel no need to present data on economics (which can include environmental information) in order to support your stance that:

The best thing to do, is to buy American, and to buy in season. The plant will taste better, it will be more likely to be natural, and it'll help out Americans.

Buying local, or primarily local, may not be what's best for everyone else--no matter how much you extrapolate your personal experiences onto everyone else's.

It would be best for everyone else, if everyone did it. That seems obvious. All your argument so far involves is cost to the individual consumer, while I'm genuinely talking about the cost to the nation, which will effect the cost to the individual. You're only talking about the illusion of the cost to the nation.

Or even if buying locally first, and then outward is good enough for everyone to do.

________________


I looked at the bits you summarized and they don't mention enough information for me to jump on your "buy American" or "if everyone bought American, then it would best" because there's hardly information that relates to the economic impact (you know, the economy, and how everyone is affected by it?). Your environmental impact assessment largely lacks quantifiable data and has hardly any (if at all) data related to the economics of decided to follow your advice (namely expressed in your two standpoints:

The best thing to do, is to buy American, and to buy in season. The plant will taste better, it will be more likely to be natural, and it'll help out Americans.

Buying local, or primarily local, may not be what's best for everyone else--no matter how much you extrapolate your personal experiences onto everyone else's.

It would be best for everyone else, if everyone did it. That seems obvious. All your argument so far involves is cost to the individual consumer, while I'm genuinely talking about the cost to the nation, which will effect the cost to the individual. You're only talking about the illusion of the cost to the nation.

Would you care to recommend a book or two about this? I've already got The Ecology of Commerce: A Declaration of Sustainability, so is there anything else you could offer?

No. And obviously I wont read yours either.

Really? Because that book talks a lot about environmental costs--a point you're trying to make!

You see, Juan, I'm open to exposing myself to new ideas, but you will flat out say, "No" to anything that might counter your own. That's called being close-minded.

I live in the Midwest. I know how Monsanto is with it's predatory pre-lawsuit business model. I know how Purdue intentionally keeps farmers profits down to control the farm. I know how the beef industry works. And how companies keep employees wages down while simultaneously increasing profits. I don't think that I need a degree in farming because I've lived the life. I've worked/lived on various farms since I could carry a 5-gallon pail.

That's good, Juan. You have the experience related to those corporations and how they operate within your immediate area. However, in order for me to find your claims that "if everyone bought local, it would be best" is really a good idea, then you have to support it with knowledge and experience that goes beyond the personal.

[BigBallinStalin]

Is it affordable for everyone to feed grass to cattle? There's not enough resources for that, which explains why different businesses (local, small, medium, large) have used different means to produce beef.

Ah, yes there is. The only reason that corn is cheap is because of taxpayer subsidizing because of lobbying from major corporations like Coca-Cola and the CAFO owners. As I already said. Because of that, we produce far more corn than we can consume. So Coca Cola gets their sweetener cheap, and the cows get their corn cheap too. Corn is loved by the cattle industry for it's fattening quality and because it's so cheap.
But this country has plenty of land to produce grass. In the end it's only about squeezing out all the profit they can.

I bet BBS doesn't even realize that cattle have to be fed antibiotics so they can eat that corn.

I did because I educate myself beyond this field which you seem to think I have limited myself to. You should do the same, but you have this self-defense mechanism which prevents you from opening your mind to different, reasonable views.

Perhaps, there's a way of someone innovative to overcome this problem. Have you thought about that? People are very innovative at adapting to changes and creating better solutions. When you demand that everyone should buy local, then you deny many options towards other, better solutions.

It's been about 15 years now. No changes have taken place.

Been a lot longer than 15 years... but carry on

See, BBS, the innovation gets stifled. It gets stifled directly when patents are bought up, but more importantly it gets stifled indirectly, from grade school on up when kids are shown films, given free material put out by the agribusiness corporations. Even if you escape all that (and even the best teachers are tempted to take the nice-looking ready made material when faced with budget cuts and tight curricula requirements), then research that doesn't benefit the companies is "strangely" not funded as well as research that goes in directions the big guys want.

Oh, yeah.. and juan, you missed the outright collusion in everything from zoning rules to disposal rules, etc. I mean, it makes sense that suburbs cannot have cows and horses perhaps, but sheep, chickens? If maintained properly, they are not a risk. But, those things get ruled "nuisances" while big companies can come in with smelly smokestacks, etc without any problem. (as long as the wind doesn't blow it over the wealthy areas, anyway).

Juan states unsubstantiated claim.

PLAYER runs with it.