It’s a Wonderful Loaf
wonderfulloaf.org
It’s a Wonderful Loaf
1–10 of 39 posts
Re: It’s a Wonderful Loaf
#2It's a badly-rhymed, gushing praise of the "invisible hand".
I assume it's meant for indoctrinating children into free market ideology.
Re: It’s a Wonderful Loaf
#3It's a badly-rhymed, gushing praise of the "invisible hand". I assume it's meant for indoctrinating children into free market ideology.
A very succinct summary. I think the slick video frame intro animation has helped it trend.
Re: It’s a Wonderful Loaf
#4Taking a bread loaf. What a horrible choice. If anything is as far away from a free market - its the food and power supply markets.
There are incentives by near all states for constant overproduction. The remainder is shipped off as animal-food or gift to poor countries (basically produce bound charity). And that's just the farmers. The millers have vanished in Germany over the last 20 years until there where just a few left. Those few do stuff with the flour to get it up to decent "quality" >> https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mehl#Zusatzstoffe_.28Mehlbehan...
Now its reached the baker, one of those jobs i did before i learned to code. Let me assure you, that the market will not cover you, if you are to exotic and small. We had one customer asking for gluten free bread- and my boss said no, cause it would have become ridiculous expensive and the customer was unwilling to pay more. By now super-markets have the stuff, but its produced by factory bakery's. Which are quite "something" if you listened in on the chat among those who learned baker there. Production has to roll no matter what. Mice squished dead in the bun machine? Kärcher to the rescue, steam and water - and go. Adding cheap substances, instead of expensive ones - surely the market would behave against that.
The invisible hand also doesn't regulate for invisible effects. Alot of shortsighted agents result in shortsighted behavior. My current boss, a really nice guy, has wrestled for years with chronic skin inflammation- and wonder of wonders, it vanishes if he did not buy factory products- try it- buy the raw ingredients and produce your own food.
So yeah, the health of the customer is a secondary concern, if the state is not watching - as in the US. Food Diseases taking out every 1000 Person- the invisible hand gives you the invisible thumbs up for that. https://wwwn.cdc.gov/foodborneoutbreaks/
Poor flour, with lots of ergot, that's okay as long as you dont get caught, if you dislike that - talk to the hand. You can market it as bio- and in that case your customers are lucky, if your field is next to a conventional farm, getting windswept by fungicides.
So, after carefully thinking- and comparing it with reality, this video must be a parody.
Re: It’s a Wonderful Loaf
#5This video isn't my cup of tea, but Roberts' EconTalk podcast has been educational and illuminating for over 10 years now - highly recommended.
Re: It’s a Wonderful Loaf
#6> [Boris] Yeltsin, then 58, “roamed the aisles of Randall’s nodding his head in amazement,” wrote Asin. He told his fellow Russians in his entourage that if their people, who often must wait in line for most goods, saw the conditions of U.S. supermarkets, “there would be a revolution."
Supermarkets and food production are an excellent example of how markets work effectively in Western countries. One of the great practical liberties gained from those who escape state run economies is one of consumer choice.
[0] http://blog.chron.com/thetexican/2014/04/when-boris-yeltsin-...
Re: It’s a Wonderful Loaf
#7Taking a bread loaf. What a horrible choice. If anything is as far away from a free market - its the food and power supply markets. There are incentives by near all states for constant overproduction. The remainder is shipped off as animal-food or gift to poor countries (basically produce bound charity). And that's just the farmers. The millers have vanished in Germany over the last 20 years until there where just a…
Your arguments against markets can be boiled down to:
1. It's not actually a TRUE free market, which is tough to argue but seemingly would invalidate all your next points. I think "free" is a relative term compared to the state-run model of food production.
2. Gluten free bread was not available in your bakery because it was too expensive and customer was unwilling to pay more (markets working). But gluten free bread is available at other retailers (markets working again)
3. Cheap ingredients are bad and more expensive ingredients are worth the extra cost, which is really a value judgement that you are free to make by buying bread from your baker (markets working)
4. Market doesn't regulate "invisible effects" but you don't state any support that the alternative (presumably food czar) would be able to capture "invisible effects"
5. Food safety is more of a concern and better managed by some "food czar" than the individuals effected. When in practice, food safety is better managed by a "last time I ate this I got sick" approach to choice. Food safety is much better in market economies.
Overall, the main problem with your argument is that it compares market conditions to a perfect ideal without any account for cost and practicality
Re: It’s a Wonderful Loaf
#8Software plays a big role in making this more efficient at a huge scale. Point-of-sale / inventory / logistics systems enable the supply chain to make better use of all this free choice.
Re: It’s a Wonderful Loaf
#9Taking a bread loaf. What a horrible choice. If anything is as far away from a free market - its the food and power supply markets. There are incentives by near all states for constant overproduction. The remainder is shipped off as animal-food or gift to poor countries (basically produce bound charity). And that's just the farmers. The millers have vanished in Germany over the last 20 years until there where just a…
Your arguments against markets can be boiled down to: 1. It's not actually a TRUE free market, which is tough to argue but seemingly would invalidate all your next points. I think "free" is a relative term compared to the state-run model of food production. 2. Gluten free bread was not available in your bakery because it was too expensive and customer was unwilling to pay more (markets working). But gluten free bread…
1. The argument for constant overproduction, and non-availability of a real free market is called: starvation. If to many farmers give up, and speculants on futures can hold grain back, people starve. Has happened several times.
One could argue, that this has positive outcomes as well- ideologues are less energetic on a purely capitalistic diet.
PS: Because there is always a counter example that markets could work- here is one:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emperor_Norton
2. That example is one of a working market yes. But as you can see in medicine for rare diseases, no, not everybody gets a chance to buy what they need. In a pure free market, you have to pray for a rich person to get the same exotic sickness as you, to get help.
3. Yes, but the result of those wrong micro-judgments, piles via insurance upon society. Or its getting paid by having horrendous security payments, to keep those struck with the avalanche of their bad decisions, becoming poor from taking whats yours (The US approach).
4. Invisible effects, which i stated a nice example and you in intellectual dishonesty submitted, include very small accumulating negative effects or negative effects on the allmende, which come back later.
5. No, the food czar can be gambled too. I heard from some colleagues how in factory bakery's, when the health inspector arrives, clothing is adjusted and other violating points are "fixed" for the time of the inspection. But there is room for improvement there. In a free market, if all bakers just agree on the lowest common level of product, they churn out health bomb after health bomb and nothing happens to them. At which point i presume you would point to the jurisdiction of the nightwatch state- which by virtue of the free market could be bribed out of existence.
My perfect ideal is not very perfect, its just a acknowledge that there must be machinery that reigns in corroding elements, while leaving the positive aspects of the market largely intact.
I will leave you with the nice results a free market has created, and which you will hail as a great opportunity to sell health apps and bypass surgery. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Obesity_in_the_United_States
I may take the right with others so inclined to opt-out this ideology.
Re: It’s a Wonderful Loaf
#10It's a badly-rhymed, gushing praise of the "invisible hand". I assume it's meant for indoctrinating children into free market ideology.
It's complete nonsense. Wizards? More like straw men.
Actually my four-year-old just walked in.
Me: How does bread get on the shelves?
Tremé: By people carrying them. I don't know how they get up. People lift them and put them on the shelf.
Me: If they don't have the bread we like, what happens?
Tremé: Uh... they let... we would just eat them.
Me: What if a lot of people said they didn't have the bread we liked?
Tremé: They would give bread to someone else that didn't have food, and they would get their money to have a different kind of bread.
Me: Are there wizards?
Tremé: No.