111–120 of 259 posts
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> This is what unions are for They're independent companies. They aren't employed by anyone. They aren't labour they're owners. That's not what a union is for.
Correct, that is what a cartel is for
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I have gripes with capitalism, but this isn't one. Capitalism essentially allocates resources to where they are most efficient (although IMHO not as purely as most Austrian economists would argue, because people aren't all that rational and information asymmetry makes rationality impossible in many other cases). Sometimes (ok often) that goes to huge megacorps due to economies of scale, but in return you take on mass…
> Monopoly is a vastly over simplified model that doesn't consider much of modern economics. Interestingly, it was actually invented to demonstrate to people how evil capitalism is[2]. Close. Monopoly was created by Lizzie Magie, a Georgist, and its purpose was to demonstrate how evil land ownership by monopolies/rent seekers is and to advocate for a Land Value Tax [1]. Many of the forces you describe that apply to o…
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What do you think their advantage comes from? Most regulatory compliance is a fixed cost. Amazon's lawyers get paid the same hourly rate to read the same regulations as yours, but they can amortize the cost over a billion customers. The more regulations there are, the larger the advantage to big corporations. Half their advantage comes from the complexity and stupidity of financial regulations that make it so small b…
Scale. This applies to processing regulation and also to purchasing power, organizational ability and much else besides.
> Half their advantage comes from the complexity and stupidity of financial regulations
No doubt that excessive regulation is a burden and regulatory capture is a thing. "Half their advantage" overlooks all of their other advantages.
The fact is, regulation is hard to get right. It's generally a good idea to avoid over-regulating, but there are real dangers to under-regulation as well.
As a small farmer, I can tell you: independent small-scale farming is not profitable in any meaningful manner. Government is actively killing it, by giving away every possible concession to Big Ag. The food in stores is pretty much all garbage compared to food raised on small farms. It sickens me to see things go this way, but this is the reality that we have created.
fellow small farmer(live stock only) with a day gig. The only benefit to having a small farm these days is it provides a tax shelter, and an enjoyable(yet difficult) hobby. Even if you outright own the land, by the time you figure in maintenance and equipment on any cattle farm under 500-1000 head of cattle you simply can't turn a profit in a meaningful way. What you CAN do is use it as a tax shelter where you sorta…
In my experience, a small farmer basically needs to cook their books to appear profitable. Profit is not realistic if you include all of the actual costs.
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We have opposite experiences with pork and poultry. The meat we get from local homesteads are noticeably way better than store bought. Maybe beef is a different story. I don't know... During 2020 summer, we raised 4 peking ducks in our backyard. We gifted some of the processed meat to extended family members. And to this day, they still can't stop talking about how good the meat were.
Poultry that is free range is more stringy and chewy. It also much leaner and smaller. I lived off free range chicken when i worked summers on my grandfather's farm in Hawaii. It is all personal preference. If you order chicken pho at a Vietnamese restaurant it will most likely be free range chicken or what they call "Walking chicken". It is completely different than a Tyson Chicken from Costco with oversized breast…
This is happening to every industry. There is an obvious consolidation and massive wealth transfer still ongoing. Sickening
Easy enough to solve: tax wealth and redistribute it with a UBI.
As a small farmer, I can tell you: independent small-scale farming is not profitable in any meaningful manner. Government is actively killing it, by giving away every possible concession to Big Ag. The food in stores is pretty much all garbage compared to food raised on small farms. It sickens me to see things go this way, but this is the reality that we have created.
> Government is actively killing it, by giving away every possible concession to Big Ag. If government were out of the picture would small-scale farmers be better able to compete with Big Ag? If you were making policy, what would you have government do instead?
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I am someone who usually gets their beef from costco, small middle eastern markets and sometimes when its on sale at the neighborhood grocery store (Publix). Would you mind sharing in what ways what I'm consuming is trash compared to what comes from small farms?
I buy grass-fed beef from my neighbor. There's no difference as far as I can see. I like to support my neighbor, but there's no magic, no difference cooking, no startling color-change tricks as reported elsewhere in this thread.
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The food in stores is cheap. And that matters to consumers more than whatever alleged quality small-time farmers can produce (was food actually better a hundred years ago? Doubt).
I highly recommend you to visit third world countries and sample food from there. I grew up in Burma and have been living in the US for almost 20 years. Every time I went back to Burma, I buy milk, egg and chicken from local markets. I boil the milk and egg, and make curry out of the chicken. The milk is super creamy and if you boil it for 2-3 times, you get like 1-cm creamy foam on top. I tried the same with Costco…
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> All the farmers complain around me about “getting good help”. I assume this is due to the low pay to quality of life ratio offered by farming jobs.
Getting people drug addicted removes potential help and illegal immigration drives down prices