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It’s a Wonderful Loaf

wonderfulloaf.org

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Re: It’s a Wonderful Loaf

#31

Post by Pica_soO »

woah wrote: post #28
Pica_soO wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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- h…

You make a good point. Communist countries tend not to have a lot of obesity.

Eh, i m not arguing pro communism, im arguing for some bureaucratic oversight as it happens in the EU and Germany.

Its fascinating that fanatics always see just the other extreme. There are shades of grey, and i m arguing for a quite sophisticated machinery printed in black and white - in such a fashion that it looks grey if zoomed out enough.

Re: It’s a Wonderful Loaf

#32

Post by blurbleblurble »

mhaymo wrote: post #26
blurbleblurble wrote: post #20

The bread example is funny, considering how heavily subsidized wheat is around the world. So where's the creator of this video at in repealing the farm bill? There's too much "market demand" for a farm bill that works for some farms and not others. They have "bought" politicians who deliver what they "demand".

If you're genuinely interested, the writer of this poem, Russ Roberts, has in fact interviewed Daniel Sumner on that very subject, and they discuss in detail what subsidies exist in American agriculture, and the political economies that make them difficult to repeal. http://www.econtalk.org/archives/2015/02/daniel_sumner_o.htm...

Can't argue with that :)

Re: It’s a Wonderful Loaf

#33

Post by oli5679 »

gavinpc wrote: post #10
scribu wrote: post #2

It'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? Trem…

Your son seems smart!

Re: It’s a Wonderful Loaf

#35

Post by nickik »

dpwm wrote: post #11
bko wrote: post #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 prac…

Oh yes. Food production is now dependent on a handful of companies supplying to the major supermarkets. This became apparent recently in the UK when hummus was contaminated with a yet unnamed contaminant that gave it a metallic taste. Most supermarkets were affected and had empty shelves. [0] Milk is another example: supermarkets have used milk as a loss leader to entice people to shop with them for their weekly shop…

You mention lots of what ifs, but the reality is this, in the most capitalist countries it almost never happenes that there is not bread.

Even if these large companies control much, if they had problems the huge demand would mean lots of other people would have a huge insentive to get into the market. There are lots of other companies who have the fundamental tools to get into that market (logistics, financial, connections to sellers) and so on.

Cenral planning is not a straw man, it has been one of the most powerful ideas in the 20 Century that had a huge amount of peole behind it, from top ecnomist to top politicans not to mention a huge intelligentsia. Yes the modern left does not buy these ideas holesale but the principle problem is the same, their criticism derives from the same underlaying assumtions.

> Crucially, it does not mention that during times of war, when resources are scarce, that all that the video celebrates gets abandoned and something that looks suspiciously like central planning gets adopted.

Its only partly correct that during war everything is central planned, the most effective war time economy were served by a efficent market in the background.

However you are somewhat correct, the problem is just that they are different problems. In a free society usually the goal is that everybody can live their lives according to their own wishes. Markets are great for that. In a free society that goes into a total war all people demand survival above all and focusing on that demand can constrain consumtion and focus almsot everything on one goal.

So yes, if your only goal in society is to produce bread, then having a war style economy to focus everything on that one goal, markets will lose. However if you want to be a free society where people determen their own goals, markets are what you need and want.

Re: It’s a Wonderful Loaf

#36

Post by nickik »

grndn wrote: post #13

For a counterpoint, see the "Victorian Bakers" doc from the BBC: http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x4h8mty . See 11 min mark for bakery conditions and 23:30 for flour adulteration. The free market at its finest with no regulation.

How is that a counterpoint? The video did not claim that during this nobody would ever have bad working condition.

Also, what possible society could you imagen where during that time you could support citis of a massivly growing population with a constant stream of bread without people actually doing that sort of work.

Only because bread could actually be supplied to so many people was it ever possible for Britain to grow so large in population and basically invent the modern world.

Re: It’s a Wonderful Loaf

#37

Post by nickik »

blurbleblurble wrote: post #20

The bread example is funny, considering how heavily subsidized wheat is around the world. So where's the creator of this video at in repealing the farm bill? There's too much "market demand" for a farm bill that works for some farms and not others. They have "bought" politicians who deliver what they "demand".

Are you really trying to argue that witout subsidize supermarkets would not be able to have bread for everybody?

Re: It’s a Wonderful Loaf

#38

Post by nickik »

psyc wrote: post #8

Software 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.

Well lots of technology is both invented and used to meet all these challanges. Maschinery for mass production was also invented because you can now sell to huge markets.

Re: It’s a Wonderful Loaf

#39

Post by nickik »

Pica_soO wrote: post #9
bko wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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- h…

1. Over-production happens because farmer in modern politics are efficent at lobbying politicans. In actualy market economies we basically don't have starvation. Speculation might cause starvation in countries that are not well integrated into the market, but then again without a world wide market for grain (that enables speculators to exist in the first place) many of those countries would just not have access to that supply in the first place.

2. Almost all technology is first limited and expensive and the gets cheap and mass produced. There is no magic way around this problem, its simply impossible. Medicine is a difficule topic and economically very different because of intellectual property being such a complicated subject. That said, if you look at the long term, the massiv expantion of live in countries is defently connected to the efficent distribution of lots of medicine to all levels of the population. You seem to focus on the problem we have now but ignore the trend.

Even a bad and cheap AIDS treatment now is better then almost anything available not that long ago.

3. It's hard to determain what the best solution here is. The problem is just to complicated. Their is some level of balance that society needs to find. Whatever process of law generation your society have needs to come up with this balance. I want argue that the one the US or anybody else has is perfect, but they seem pretty functional overall. More so then alternatives.

4. "if all bakers just agree". Your argument totally fails into the water if you say 'if all just agree', the hole point is that they can easly just all agree. The larger the market, the harder it is to agree. Even if they agree, every single one of them has a insentive to break the agreement. If you actually study the history of this sort of agreements you will see that they almost always break down even if the emerge (witch they almost never do).

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