Earlier quoted context omitted.
Lamb in the US is just damn expensive
Interesting. Recently I've been eating a lot of lamb because it is some of the cheapest meat I can buy.
Do you live in the US
Eating horsemeat in France
211–220 of 229 posts
Re: Eating horsemeat in France
#212Earlier quoted context omitted.
The psychology of eating animals is definitely a great example of how people compartmentalize and simply avoid thinking about the details too much in order to evade cognitive dissonance. Which is also why so many respond with hostility when prompted to do so. (Disclaimer: I'm an omnivore.)
having grown up around farm animals I never really felt either dissonance or the need to compartmentalize. You can have a relationship with animals and raise them but they are also food. You can ride horses and eat them, to me that isn't contradictory because killing for sustenance isn't an evil act, and if the animals are raised well and kept in good conditions and live happy lives there's no issue. I think the psyc…
Yes, I realize that historically in agrarian societies, common folk in particular have had a very different relationship with animals than most modern Westerners, and some people still do. I did not mean to imply that compartmentalization is something inherent or unavoidable, just that clearly in the modern Western society this sort of mental model is more or less prevalent. You’re probably right that it’s connected with our relationship with death.
Re: Eating horsemeat in France
#213Re: Eating horsemeat in France
#214Earlier quoted context omitted.
> If demand is highly inelastic - as would be expected for something like culinary preferences Demand curves, regardless of elasticity, are always downward sloping: Higher prices lead to fewer units demanded. Your statement implies control over prices: Firms with market power do not operate along the inelastic portion of a demand curve. This is a logical implication of profit maximization. Before one can understand t…
Demand for things like horse meat is limited. Even if a butcher gave it out for free, they wouldn't be able to "sell" as much horse meat as chicken meat, at least not for human consumption. So, when you realize you're already selling the maximum possible amount of your good, you're only option to increase profit is to increase your prices. If your market reduces even further (say, 10% of the people buying your horse…
> So, demand for lamb spikes around Easter every year. But, lamb prices actually drop around Easter (at least for consumers)
So, you don't think everyone involved in the chain of getting that lamb to you, anticipating the shift in the demand curve that occurs very predictably, don't ensure that they have the highest possible supply during that time?
You forgot the "keeping everything else constant" and changes in quantity demanded in response to just the price of the good versus changes in the shape and location of the market demand and supply curves.
Re: Eating horsemeat in France
#215Earlier quoted context omitted.
> If demand is highly inelastic - as would be expected for something like culinary preferences Demand curves, regardless of elasticity, are always downward sloping: Higher prices lead to fewer units demanded. Your statement implies control over prices: Firms with market power do not operate along the inelastic portion of a demand curve. This is a logical implication of profit maximization. Before one can understand t…
Those sweet economists. (I’ve got my MSc in Economics ;) First off: Giffen and Veblen goods? Second off: while I’m all for the theoretical models and would even defend that institutional evolution would lead to markets representing theoretical IO markets … a local horse butcher in a Dutch town is not a profit maximizing entity. He’s got sticky and human relations on his supply side, sticky and human relations on his…
> Those sweet economists. (I’ve got my MSc in Economics ;)
> Giffen and Veblen goods?
Let me know when you find one. Grazing grounds for the perpetually counter-example starved.
> I’m all for the theoretical models
Nothing theoretical about what I said: Simple logic.
Your claim is that Dutch butchers would prefer to leave free money on the table?
Re: Eating horsemeat in France
#216Maybe I'm unusual, but when I hear about horse-meat eating, I don't think "Gross, I'm eating a pet" as much as I think "Gross, I'm eating a car".
Re: Eating horsemeat in France
#217Re: Eating horsemeat in France
#218Earlier quoted context omitted.
Demand for things like horse meat is limited. Even if a butcher gave it out for free, they wouldn't be able to "sell" as much horse meat as chicken meat, at least not for human consumption. So, when you realize you're already selling the maximum possible amount of your good, you're only option to increase profit is to increase your prices. If your market reduces even further (say, 10% of the people buying your horse…
> So, demand for lamb spikes around Easter every year. But, lamb prices actually drop around Easter (at least for consumers) So, you don't think everyone involved in the chain of getting that lamb to you, anticipating the shift in the demand curve that occurs very predictably, don't ensure that they have the highest possible supply during that time? You forgot the "keeping everything else constant" and changes in qua…
Of course supply is adapted to anticipate this well known change in demand. But the driver for all of these is a culinary tradition causing a spike in demand*, it's not the other way around.
Either way, my only point is that since markets have special characteristics that make them unintuitive from a basic supply-demand analysis. Too many people assume the most basic models of basic economics are enough, and ignore things like supply and demand elasticity, and the fact that supply or demand may be constrained by non-economic factors.
I also tend to think the laws of supply and demand are useful as a descriptive model, but lack predictive power for many goods, since the factors above can't be estimated in blind - you have to actually see what people happen to do, and then come up with a model for elasticity to make the supply-demand curves fit the actual observations, you can't do it the other way around.
*To be fair, it may well be that the original tradition was caused by a natural change in supply, with sheep giving birth at the beginning of spring, so having edible lamb by mid spring when Easter (and the pre-Christian celebrations it replaced) haken; but even then, that was not an economic change, it was a biological reality.
Re: Eating horsemeat in France
#219Earlier quoted context omitted.
In Sweden horsemeat used to be sold commonly in supermarkets everywhere as thinly sliced sandwich charcuterie. Interestingly it’s called “hamburger-meat”. The last 10 or so years I’ve noticed it’s gradually disappeared from Stockholm stores.
If you have a craving: Many of the various kinds of salamis from Kotivara (Finnish) have horse meat in them, including the very nice pepperoni one: https://www.kotivara.se/vara-salamis/salamis/pepperonisalami...
That looks yummie. It would be perfect if they would combine this with some of this https://organicestonia.ee/en/member/must-kuuslauk-black-garl...
It would even be more perfect if they had the option to switch to English, and send to Germany, like that site.
Re: Eating horsemeat in France
#220Earlier quoted context omitted.
Those sweet economists. (I’ve got my MSc in Economics ;) First off: Giffen and Veblen goods? Second off: while I’m all for the theoretical models and would even defend that institutional evolution would lead to markets representing theoretical IO markets … a local horse butcher in a Dutch town is not a profit maximizing entity. He’s got sticky and human relations on his supply side, sticky and human relations on his…
> Those sweet economists. (I’ve got my MSc in Economics ;) > Giffen and Veblen goods? Let me know when you find one. Grazing grounds for the perpetually counter-example starved. > I’m all for the theoretical models Nothing theoretical about what I said: Simple logic. Your claim is that Dutch butchers would prefer to leave free money on the table?
Yes, I believe that every (small) shop or store leaves money on the table all the time. The best I can give you is somewhat optimizing some of the time with long perturbations.
A function of social relationships on all sides, Excel [1], one-shot pricing, bounded rationality and myopia, endowment effects etc.
If you look at the economic performance of firms within sectors you’ll see massive diversity in value added. That’s pretty much proof that business leave money on the table. Other example is the way inflation winds it’s way through pricing. It’s rocky and uneven.
Anyone whose ever seen a business in operation will agree it’s satisficing not optimizing.
[1] Excel explains why large companies retain lots of efficiencies. Nature of the firm debate points to all kinds of relative efficiencies, which I happily applaud.