Staff members? Your choice of words is telling, Carol. They are farm laborers. If they don't like low wages, there are plenty of other opportunities. And don't make excuses for them. That's a cop out. It's called personal responsibility - a character trait missing from the Leftists. I don't care how crunchy they are.
Staff members? Your choice of words is telling, Carol. They are farm laborers. If they don't like low wages, there are plenty of other opportunities. And don't make excuses for them. That's a cop out. It's called personal responsibility - a character trait missing from the Leftists. I don't care how crunchy they are.
But you don't work in the business. Your own terminology and defending cheap goods tell me that. At the farm, we discuss pricing and staffing every week.
Of course you do, because markets are competitive. When you can't compete, you're out. Truth is, most don't want a true free market, because they know they can't compete. Winners love competition - thrive on it - they compete and win, losers whine and go home.
You sound a poultry farmer. Want to sell eggs @ $5, guaranteed? Go into the commodities markets and do it. That's what they are there for, a hedge to mitigate risk, lock in operating profits and stabilize markets - not a casino, as many think.
again, if you were really in ag, you wouldn't make simplistic assumption about the farm operation I work with. And you would have a glimmer of the finer points of the farm markets. Go buy some cheap eggs and Peruvian grapes.
It's better to be educated in Ag, and not be in the business, than be in the business and not be educated about it. The vagaries and inherent risk in the farming business are tough enough.
Have eggs right in the back yard. Peruvian grapes? Or the 3K milers from Cali? No thanks, I eat local and in season. Finer points of the farm markets? Supply and demand, sweetie, not that complicated - same as any market.
Ron, I made a related point on The OIl Drum over 10 years go (I might try to fetch it later) where industrial meat producers were ostensibly feeding cow parts back to the cows and creating mad cow disease. My point then was that people who have or claim experience/knowledge/professional expertise in some field don't necessarily have or apply the right kinds of experience/knowledge/professional expertise.
Like that guy who permanently went down with his Titan submarine, taking others with him.
It's not just supply and demand, it is market education and embodied value. My point is that consumers don't see that if they are going to create jobs for local farm workers (and grow responsibly, etc.), they are going to have to pay for products that created those jobs. That's why I try not to complain about $6butternut squash, $9 eggs, etc. Similiarly, I do not buy from Amazon nor Dollar stores.
Carol, if I was a rich CEO, say, and you lived in a small town, I could roll in and buy up all kinds of land and resources out from under your and everyone else's feet. But what do you think that would do to the cost of everything?
Part of the point is that if we're going to have a civilization that's worth anything, we're going to have to take the necessary steps to avoid that kind of thing.
Money doesn't equal land, nor labour, and can never.
That's why I'm pro-gift-economy and it is suspected that it's the only economy that will work.
If Earth was a pie, you cannot have the so-called rich or richer take more from it than anyone else, because we are all from the Earth. It's all ours. It's the commons. It doesn't belong to any one person more than any other.
But our culture says otherwise. And it's a recipe for ultimate collapse of that kind of ass-backward civilization.
Exactly! How do you suggest we avoid that? The farm I work at sold the farm land's development rights to a land-preservation nonprofit, so it will always be farmed. However, other New England farms are being turned into developments, which is why there is an effort underway to counter that by promoting alternatives as well as ways to develop part of the land and keep the rest in farming. What helps is if folks buy the farms' products! (Much gift economy at our farm. The owner is famous for it.)
Oligarchy or crony-capitalist plutarchy, call it what you will, will eventually collapse civilization if humans cannot or will not wrap their heads around/figure out forms of anarchy and gift economies, and why their 'plutarchy ways' keep collapsing civilizations time and time again.
It may be that 'our lot in life' until we go extinct may simply be, build-up, collapse, build-up, collapse, build-up, collapse, and so on.
As this is happening, however, there may be offshoots of our species that manage to buck that trend. I discussed it a little with elysianfield and Jarek (Lugh) et al on JHK's old homesite.
The problem is that the globe is currently covered in a State monoculture patchwork, therefore it is generally resistant to alternative forms of human social organization. But collapse can open up opportunities in that regard as it levels the playing-field yet again and creates a vacuum for alternative social structures to enter.
Staff members? Your choice of words is telling, Carol. They are farm laborers. If they don't like low wages, there are plenty of other opportunities. And don't make excuses for them. That's a cop out. It's called personal responsibility - a character trait missing from the Leftists. I don't care how crunchy they are.
Only someone who has no connection to farming would say to a farm worker that she doesn't know what she is talking about. But enjoy your rage today.
Educated in Ag Economics. Sorry sweetie. Try harder.
But you don't work in the business. Your own terminology and defending cheap goods tell me that. At the farm, we discuss pricing and staffing every week.
Of course you do, because markets are competitive. When you can't compete, you're out. Truth is, most don't want a true free market, because they know they can't compete. Winners love competition - thrive on it - they compete and win, losers whine and go home.
You sound a poultry farmer. Want to sell eggs @ $5, guaranteed? Go into the commodities markets and do it. That's what they are there for, a hedge to mitigate risk, lock in operating profits and stabilize markets - not a casino, as many think.
again, if you were really in ag, you wouldn't make simplistic assumption about the farm operation I work with. And you would have a glimmer of the finer points of the farm markets. Go buy some cheap eggs and Peruvian grapes.
It's better to be educated in Ag, and not be in the business, than be in the business and not be educated about it. The vagaries and inherent risk in the farming business are tough enough.
Have eggs right in the back yard. Peruvian grapes? Or the 3K milers from Cali? No thanks, I eat local and in season. Finer points of the farm markets? Supply and demand, sweetie, not that complicated - same as any market.
Good luck.
Ron, I made a related point on The OIl Drum over 10 years go (I might try to fetch it later) where industrial meat producers were ostensibly feeding cow parts back to the cows and creating mad cow disease. My point then was that people who have or claim experience/knowledge/professional expertise in some field don't necessarily have or apply the right kinds of experience/knowledge/professional expertise.
Like that guy who permanently went down with his Titan submarine, taking others with him.
It's not just supply and demand, it is market education and embodied value. My point is that consumers don't see that if they are going to create jobs for local farm workers (and grow responsibly, etc.), they are going to have to pay for products that created those jobs. That's why I try not to complain about $6butternut squash, $9 eggs, etc. Similiarly, I do not buy from Amazon nor Dollar stores.
Carol, if I was a rich CEO, say, and you lived in a small town, I could roll in and buy up all kinds of land and resources out from under your and everyone else's feet. But what do you think that would do to the cost of everything?
Part of the point is that if we're going to have a civilization that's worth anything, we're going to have to take the necessary steps to avoid that kind of thing.
Money doesn't equal land, nor labour, and can never.
That's why I'm pro-gift-economy and it is suspected that it's the only economy that will work.
If Earth was a pie, you cannot have the so-called rich or richer take more from it than anyone else, because we are all from the Earth. It's all ours. It's the commons. It doesn't belong to any one person more than any other.
But our culture says otherwise. And it's a recipe for ultimate collapse of that kind of ass-backward civilization.
Exactly! How do you suggest we avoid that? The farm I work at sold the farm land's development rights to a land-preservation nonprofit, so it will always be farmed. However, other New England farms are being turned into developments, which is why there is an effort underway to counter that by promoting alternatives as well as ways to develop part of the land and keep the rest in farming. What helps is if folks buy the farms' products! (Much gift economy at our farm. The owner is famous for it.)
Oligarchy or crony-capitalist plutarchy, call it what you will, will eventually collapse civilization if humans cannot or will not wrap their heads around/figure out forms of anarchy and gift economies, and why their 'plutarchy ways' keep collapsing civilizations time and time again.
It may be that 'our lot in life' until we go extinct may simply be, build-up, collapse, build-up, collapse, build-up, collapse, and so on.
As this is happening, however, there may be offshoots of our species that manage to buck that trend. I discussed it a little with elysianfield and Jarek (Lugh) et al on JHK's old homesite.
The problem is that the globe is currently covered in a State monoculture patchwork, therefore it is generally resistant to alternative forms of human social organization. But collapse can open up opportunities in that regard as it levels the playing-field yet again and creates a vacuum for alternative social structures to enter.