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Nestlé Takes Majority Stake in Blue Bottle

nytimes.com

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Re: Nestlé Takes Majority Stake in Blue Bottle

#101

Post by manachar »

jamestimmins wrote: post #46
Armisael16 wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Positive rights are very much a thing - we have a positive right to at least some education in the first world.

I personally distinguish between 1)Human Rights, 2) rights as a member of a specific society, and 3) simply things that are "right" to do for peoples in the moral sense. 1. Something that can't be taken away by someone else. 2. A contract between an individual and the country/state with which they are a citizen. In return for paying taxes and following laws, they can expect services, utilities, military, education, e…

Using your definition, there's no such thing as human rights.

Life, liberty, and property are all things that are only guaranteed by societal standards and enforcement. Murder, theft, and enslavement is the norm where the rule of law and enshrinement of rights are absent.

Much of the US enslaved human beings for hundreds of years - liberty is clearly only something we get by being a member of a specific society.

Re: Nestlé Takes Majority Stake in Blue Bottle

#102

Post by twothamendment »

BartSaM wrote: post #99
amelius wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is that per day?

Per month. Not everyone lives in 1st world country. Cubic meter is a lot for many people.

About 8.5 gallons per day or 32 liters. A few gallons per day in an emergency is plenty for drinking, cooking and hygiene so 4x that much is a good start.

Re: Nestlé Takes Majority Stake in Blue Bottle

#103

Post by vaishaksuresh »

mrleiter wrote: post #12

As this thread will ultimately will end up discussing the corporate evil that Nestlé apparently is, I want to, for the sake of the discussion, point out the reasonableness of the CEOs statement regarding water as a human right: He argues water should have a market value so that it is treated more like a resource that should be well managed. Of course a state can also do this and in my opinion should, but of course as…

>water should be a human right to humans who need it for living, but not for gardening or washing a car

Isn't water already a managed resource? People pay for the water they use to garden or wash cars right? Sure it is the same amount irrespective of what you use the water for, but it is still not free right?

Re: Nestlé Takes Majority Stake in Blue Bottle

#104

Post by bamboozled »

ErikVandeWater wrote: post #30
mrleiter wrote: post #12

As this thread will ultimately will end up discussing the corporate evil that Nestlé apparently is, I want to, for the sake of the discussion, point out the reasonableness of the CEOs statement regarding water as a human right: He argues water should have a market value so that it is treated more like a resource that should be well managed. Of course a state can also do this and in my opinion should, but of course as…

And I don't get exactly what it means to declare water a human right. There are certainly people in the world not getting the clean water they need. But how do you solve this? You set up an international agency to acquire water for them. But where do you get the funding for this agency? If it really is a _human_ right, is this agency above local laws? What are the restrictions on this agency? Can this agency ban the…

It's really easy, you take your relatively enormous salary and donate $30 a month to help organisations build infrastructure they need. Imagine if everyone did this?

Oxfam would be a good place to start https://www.oxfam.org.au/

Re: Nestlé Takes Majority Stake in Blue Bottle

#105

Post by tedmiston »

pdog wrote: post #64

> The rapidly expanding niche accounts for 15 to 20 percent of coffee consumed in the United States, according to the Specialty Coffee Association. One in every five or six cups of coffee is Blue Bottle or "third-wave specialty" coffee? This simply can't be true considering the scale of Starbucks, McDonald's, and Dunkin' Donuts, let alone brewing at home and coffee consumed at diners and non-specialty restaurants. I'…

If they measure "coffee consumed in the United States" by dollars than it could mean each cup of craft coffee counts for ~4x cups of McDonald's coffee.

Re: Nestlé Takes Majority Stake in Blue Bottle

#106

Post by whyenot »

wavefunction wrote: post #82
brm wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He might have a point on water, but... Where are his statements on their practices regarding infant formula, the use of child slavery for chocolate, the use of general slavery in their seafood production in Thailand, and the intimidation of workers who wish to unionize in India?

Or how they steal public water and sell it while also claiming to not be subject to the laws governing that water.[0] [0] http://www.bbc.com/news/business-36161580

Your linked article does not support your assertions that they are "stealing" water.

By the way, the 36 million gallons mentioned in the article is about 110 acre feet, or the same amount of water used to irrigate a 25-50 acre almond orchard (depending on location). It's nothing, and it's being used as drinking water, not to wash cars, water lawns, fill swimming pools or any of the other more wasteful ways people use water.

Re: Nestlé Takes Majority Stake in Blue Bottle

#107

Post by ovao »

cwkoss wrote: post #94
tetrep wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are you saying that supply can't scale to demand? Because what you've described, a limited supply and increasing demand, is commonly solved by increasing supply. Unless we're at 100% coffee output for the Earth, which I don't think we currently are.

I'm saying that supply of highest-quality coffee may be less elastic than demand. Certainly we could grow more coffee, and that would likely increase net output of high quality coffee. However, if a company is buying the 'best 10%' of coffee and need to double their output, it is more likely that they buy 80th-90th percentile coffee than reinvest their profits into increase the quality that tranche of coffee to meet…

An interesting argument I hadn't considered. I wonder, though, how genuinely impactful bean quality is for the end product. It's well understood that it's impactful to some degree, but do premium roasters need the top 10%, or is, say, the better half of arabica produced sufficient to yield effectively the same brewed product?

Said another way, is the slope of quality distribution that severe?

Re: Nestlé Takes Majority Stake in Blue Bottle

#108

Post by cwkoss »

ovao wrote: post #107
cwkoss wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm saying that supply of highest-quality coffee may be less elastic than demand. Certainly we could grow more coffee, and that would likely increase net output of high quality coffee. However, if a company is buying the 'best 10%' of coffee and need to double their output, it is more likely that they buy 80th-90th percentile coffee than reinvest their profits into increase the quality that tranche of coffee to meet…

An interesting argument I hadn't considered. I wonder, though, how genuinely impactful bean quality is for the end product. It's well understood that it's impactful to some degree, but do premium roasters need the top 10%, or is, say, the better half of arabica produced sufficient to yield effectively the same brewed product? Said another way, is the slope of quality distribution that severe?

Good question, I'd also be interested in the answer.

I'd guess its a long-tailed distribution something like this (https://qph.ec.quoracdn.net/main-qimg-3b21f991d3f0446ce30b9b...) (quality on x axis, volume on y-axis) However, I know little about the complexities of coffee agricultural and manufacturing process, mostly just speaking in abstract armchair economics terms.

Re: Nestlé Takes Majority Stake in Blue Bottle

#109

Post by mikeyouse »

whyenot wrote: post #106
wavefunction wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Or how they steal public water and sell it while also claiming to not be subject to the laws governing that water.[0] [0] http://www.bbc.com/news/business-36161580

Your linked article does not support your assertions that they are "stealing" water. By the way, the 36 million gallons mentioned in the article is about 110 acre feet, or the same amount of water used to irrigate a 25-50 acre almond orchard (depending on location). It's nothing, and it's being used as drinking water, not to wash cars, water lawns, fill swimming pools or any of the other more wasteful ways people use…

The local impact is much greater though if the water is pumped out of the ground and then shipped out of state. All of your other examples end up back in the local water table. It's silly to argue that 30 million gallons of water being shipped out of range of the local reservoir is inconsequential -- especially in a state with constant droughts and rapidly depleting reservoirs.

(I've helped manage large aquaculture projects dealing with much larger quantities of water, so I'm not reacting to what seems like a big number. It's striking how differently the EPA treats the diversion of ground water vs. surface water)

Re: Nestlé Takes Majority Stake in Blue Bottle

#110

Post by bufordsharkley »

mrleiter wrote: post #12

As this thread will ultimately will end up discussing the corporate evil that Nestlé apparently is, I want to, for the sake of the discussion, point out the reasonableness of the CEOs statement regarding water as a human right: He argues water should have a market value so that it is treated more like a resource that should be well managed. Of course a state can also do this and in my opinion should, but of course as…

This is absolutely true in the general sense, but is negated by the rents being given to those who own water rights due to prior appropriation. In the absence of a payment for these water rights (analogous to the payment we pay for spectrum rights on radio frequencies), there is going to be a misallocation of water and waste.

An essay about the issue: https://www.progress.org/articles/water-creates-rent

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