Climate change anyone?

[AHPP]

44 minutes ago, sime42 said:

Easy tiger! You've jumped forward several steps all by yourself there. I didn't say state food control, or anything like it. I merely suggested some regulation to try to address some of the major problems that we're all facing right now.
As you've probably realised by now I am not at all a fan of our State, and especially not our current government. That said I would not even begin to equate them with Russia or North Korea. What a strange idea.

Once these people start interfering, they can't/don't stop.

 

 

Edited December 16, 2020 by AHPP

[AHPP]

47 minutes ago, sime42 said:

As you've probably realised by now I am not at all a fan of our State, and especially not our current government.

I didn't realise. You called for them to do things.

 

Say your ideal government gets in. You give them loads of powers. A few years down the line, a worse government gets in and inherits the powers. How pleased are you now.

[trigger_andy]

Just now, AHPP said:

You'd see the real cost at the shop, which is preferable to the current system of seeing artificially low prices but paying the real price plus some. Subsidies make things more expensive. The thing still needs paying for but then so does the administration of collecting tax and paying the subsidies. You pay less at the shop but more overall.

 

Say milk costs 80p. Pay the shop 80p and the milk's yours.

Now say some government cvnt decides to force milk to be 60p at the shop. He gives the farmer 20p so he sells it to the shop for 20p less. You pay 60p at the shop but you've had to pay the 20p the farmer got in tax somewhere else and then more tax to pay said government cvnt to go to work, say 5p. 80p milk now costs 85p.

Someone with a better understanding of this than I could better answer but we simply do not see the real cost in the shops. We see an artificially low cost in the shops and the hidden cost is paid for via the taxpayer. Its like communism but with extra steps. 

 

So regarding your premise of 80p milk I think the reality is more that the real cost of milk is 80p. But the Government is making those who actually pay tax cover 40p of that through subsidies. The milk in the Shop is now 60p. Those that dont pay tax get their milk at 60p but the taxpayer has paid £1.00 for that 80p milk. Yet everyone who is paying 60p for that milk is up in arms as its so expensive. 

 

That in my mind is state controlled prices. The state is keeping the prices of staples artificially low by making the taxpayer in effect pay twice. Remove all subsidies, level the playing field and have the end user pay the actual cost of food and a lot of people would be in for a very nasty shock, and most likely starve to death. People really do not know how good they have it, all thanks to state controlled prices.

 

The State controls the prices by determining how much subsidies they pay the Farmer. 

[AHPP]

22 minutes ago, trigger_andy said:

Someone with a better understanding of this than I could better answer but we simply do not see the real cost in the shops. We see an artificially low cost in the shops and the hidden cost is paid for via the taxpayer. Its like communism but with extra steps. 

 

So regarding your premise of 80p milk I think the reality is more that the real cost of milk is 80p. But the Government is making those who actually pay tax cover 40p of that through subsidies. The milk in the Shop is now 60p. Those that dont pay tax get their milk at 60p but the taxpayer has paid £1.00 for that 80p milk. Yet everyone who is paying 60p for that milk is up in arms as its so expensive. 

 

That in my mind is state controlled prices. The state is keeping the prices of staples artificially low by making the taxpayer in effect pay twice. Remove all subsidies, level the playing field and have the end user pay the actual cost of food and a lot of people would be in for a very nasty shock, and most likely starve to death. People really do not know how good they have it, all thanks to state controlled prices.

 

The State controls the prices by determining how much subsidies they pay the Farmer. 

Yeah. I said that. You missed the important bit where the government cvnt gets paid for setting it up. That's the bit that makes subsidies increase prices, not just get to the same price another way.

Edited December 16, 2020 by AHPP

[trigger_andy]

2 hours ago, AHPP said:

State food control. No thanks. 

 

Just now, AHPP said:

Yeah. I said that.

So your original point is you'd not like the idea of the State controlling our food prices and when I explain my understanding of how the State is actually controlling the food prices your reply is 'yeh, I said that'? 

 

What? 

[AHPP]

21 minutes ago, trigger_andy said:

 

So your original point is you'd not like the idea of the State controlling our food prices and when I explain my understanding of how the State is actually controlling the food prices your reply is 'yeh, I said that'? 

 

What? 

Suffice to say we both understand the situation.

Edited December 16, 2020 by AHPP

[openspaceman]

1 hour ago, trigger_andy said:

Remove all subsidies, level the playing field and have the end user pay the actual cost of food and a lot of people would be in for a very nasty shock, and most likely starve to death. People really do not know how good they have it, all thanks to state controlled prices.

Farming is a volatile thing, some years there is glut and some scarcity. Farmers do well in scarcity because of the price elasticity of food, when you have insufficient you will pay a lot but as soon as you are satisfied you will buy no more at any price. The government intervenes  to stabilise prices and when we originally joined the common market this europe wide intervention caused  various food mountains and attracted a lot of fraud, not to mention the cost of administering the scheme  in wages for two levels of civil servants.. While the CAP seemed to favour poor farmers in France its effect here was the opposite with big landowners gaining immensely while small marginal farmers struggled.

 

My first job was on a dairy farm and a herd of 35 cows paid one man;s wages, now because of price pressure on milk (supermarkets pay less than cost of production) only big dairies with heavy investment in mechanised/robot milking can survive and one man has to deal with 200 cows. I think we now import a lot of our milk from economies with lower wages.

 

[Stere]

If all  UK agri subs were  removed loads of smaller farmers would go out of buisness and  areas of marginal land in Wales and Scotland wouldn't be worth farming anymore so would re-wild. Something thats happened already in  many EU countries.

 

Rewilding: as farmland and villages are abandoned, forests, wolves and bears are returning to Europe

THECONVERSATION.COM

---

The abandonment of crops and pastures allows the natural regeneration of bushes and forests and the recolonization of...

 

 

Also much  food imported is subsidized by other goverments  and cheaper to produce  so UK farmers couldn't compete on price with thoose imports.

 

Edited December 16, 2020 by Stere

[Youngstu]

10 minutes ago, Stere said:

If all  UK agri subs were  removed loads of smaller farmers would go out of buisness and  areas of marginal land in Wales and Scotland wouldn't be worth farming anymore so would re-wild. Something thats happened already in  many EU countries.

 

Rewilding: as farmland and villages are abandoned, forests, wolves and bears are returning to Europe

THECONVERSATION.COM

---

The abandonment of crops and pastures allows the natural regeneration of bushes and forests and the recolonization of...

 

 

Also much  food imported is subsidized by other goverments  and cheaper to produce  so UK farmers couldn't compete on price with thoose imports.

 

Ecologically this would be a good thing, being one of the most depleted nations in terms of wildlife. Economically and socially this would obviously be an awful thing for those directly affected but due to the tiny proportion of the population and the economy this would have a minimal effect nationally. There are many very good arguments that a policy encouraging the rewilding and the abandonment of unsustainable agriculture could actually be a good thing for the local people as newly available recreational opportunities, as well as others would have the potential to provide more jobs and income (self sustaining ) then the current models provide. 

[trigger_andy]

21 minutes ago, openspaceman said:

Farming is a volatile thing, some years there is glut and some scarcity. Farmers do well in scarcity because of the price elasticity of food, when you have insufficient you will pay a lot but as soon as you are satisfied you will buy no more at any price. The government intervenes  to stabilise prices and when we originally joined the common market this europe wide intervention caused  various food mountains and attracted a lot of fraud, not to mention the cost of administering the scheme  in wages for two levels of civil servants.. While the CAP seemed to favour poor farmers in France its effect here was the opposite with big landowners gaining immensely while small marginal farmers struggled.

 

My first job was on a dairy farm and a herd of 35 cows paid one man;s wages, now because of price pressure on milk (supermarkets pay less than cost of production) only big dairies with heavy investment in mechanised/robot milking can survive and one man has to deal with 200 cows. I think we now import a lot of our milk from economies with lower wages.

 

I understand the glut verses scarcity point but do think it runs far deeper than that. Without the subsidies I doubt many farmers could keep going even if they put money made in scares times away to cover the glut periods. Prices still fluctuate due to disease and weather conditions, ie flooding and drought. Admittedly not as much as with out the subsidies but I really cant see Farmers making a living off of the prices they get for their produce if they where not heavily subsidised.  Is that to stop wild swings in the market price or is it to allow everyone to continue to afford staple produce at the expense of those that pay tax? I suspect a bit of both but leaning more towards a steady flow of cheap produce to keep the masses fed. Fed and watered masses dont tend to revolt. The Romans taught us that.  Instead of the Circus we religiously follow sports such as Football. 

 

What we've allowed to happen to the Dairies is shocking really. I still remember walking to the local Dairy in Braemar as a kid with my Mum to take a jug/container down to collect some milk. I made some pocket money as a 12 year old helping on the Dairy Farm we used to rent a cottage on. That was a one man operation.  

 

Surely these big dairies can only afford to invest in mechanised milking if they are being heavily subsidised considering they are being paid less than the production cost of the milk?  Its like they are almost giving the milk away for free and making a living off of the subsidies. We in turn pay a few pence per pint of milk at POS but not really realising we're paying through the nose for it because as we're paying  taxes we're paying for the portion that those who dont pay tax are not paying as well. 

 

At least where I come from the milk is all local. Grahams springs to mind. The biggest player in Scotland (I believe) Is Wisemans, but they are not even Scottish owned anymore. But we have loads of Dairy farms round our way still, good beef as well but that can only be expected from the heartlands of Aberdeen Angus.  

 

These are of course my uneducated musings, but an interesting subject none the less. 

Edited December 16, 2020 by trigger_andy