this post was submitted on 10 Aug 2023
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I wish my country's government had the testacles to cap prices on food. I order food mostly online and I compared prices from 2 years ago and most things are at least 200% more expensive, cheese for example is like 600% though.
If they cap prices on food, then you'll see food shortages instead of expensive food
How so? In my country, certain basic food items are priced capped AND rationed, meaning you're only allowed to buy a certain amount of it at a time.
> but but but muh freedum market$$
No! Worldwide, the agricultural sector is THE MOST SUBSIDISED economic field. You can't have it both ways. If taxpayers' money is used to prop up your business, you have a duty to the taxpayers and country.
Subsidies may distort the market but they don't change the existence of the supply/demand curve. Any producer of a product is going to sell their goods to the highest bidder, and if someone is capping what a product can sell for that means capping what they can purchase the product for. Grocery stores aren't going to sell for a loss.
If the central government enacts a scheme of rationing and central purchasing, that's one thing. But in a free market situation if a grocery in country A will buy lentils for €1 a kg and country B can only pay €.50 then the lentils are getting sold to country A until that demand is fulfilled. Which means shortages in country B.
Considering how much billionaires hoard, im happy just tacking a sales quota on at the same time so they just have to eat losses for a bit. People eating is more important, and frankly anything that forces the robber barons to lose money back into the system is a good thing
Why wouldn't they just close their business if it was unprofitable
They could, and if they do, the land it occupied should be seized and turned into a community owned cooperative.
Cool, so, the government can just turn into bandits if we don't like what private citizens do on their own land. Oh, and if they complain, why not just send them to the gulag?
Yeah it's not cool to seize commercially zoned land when a corporation is idling on it because it doesn't like a policy, that's a communism guys!
However, seizing residential land so that we can build another casino on it... that's just the wonderous free market at work!
Edit: eminent domain isn't communism, pick up a grade school civics book
Eminent domain involves compensation at fair market value, not theft. And typically, we use property taxes to motivate property owners to find economically productive uses for their land/buildings.
a) you'd be surprised how little the "fair market value" often is under eminent domain
b) no we don't, if we did we'd be largely following georgism... The majority of current property taxes tax improvements on the land, not the land itself. It's often cheaper to have an empty lot than a functioning business.
Land value taxes are great. But even without them, it makes little sense to have a potentially functioning, commercially viable plot of land sitting empty. Any rational company is going to sell or lease that land out. Including farmers.
As long as it's commercially viable.
"It makes little sense" and yet it happens all of the time precisely because unlike the fictional policy set you concocted for your argument, we actually don't incentivize people to make the best use of their land through property taxes.
Most localities in the US tax land improvements instead of the land itself, which is the exact opposite of what you were saying we do.
I've never seen a property tax scheme which isn't partly based on the land value. So....
The portion of the tax due to land value in and of itself is paltry compared to the tax collected on land improvements.
People living in condos have no actual land they own and yet are taxed a percentage of the resale value of the improvement (i.e. what they actually own) yearly.
Just because you have no idea how property taxes work doesn't mean that they work the way you dreamed up.
When you get a bill for your taxes it itemizes the amount paid to land value vs the amount paid due to improvements. Want to take a guess which amount is bigger?
I've always seen the same tax rate on land value as improvement value. And yes, I do know how property taxes work. I pay them in three states, you arrogant child.
Even if the rates are identical, the amounts are lower because "unimproved" land has less "fair market value", humble grampy!
In California, the property taxes also don't even rise with the value of property generally. So someone newly buying a condo will pay much, much more in property taxes than say someone that holds a vacant lot for decades....like there are in Oakland...where they had to pass a ballot measure to start taxing people for holding onto vacant lots... Which according to you could never exist....cuz of property taxes.
A society that values an individuals right to profit over the collectives right to eat is not a just or moral society, and it is the collective responsibility of the many to change the society to preclude from such possibilities. If that means sending mentally ill speculators and unethical industrial farmers to prison, then so be it. Better than sending the poor and minorities there for crimes of poverty only necessitated by others greed in the first place.
Speaking of gulags, why does the US have both the highest prison population and highest per capita prison population in the world, if we don’t already send people to the gulag?
You might have a point if communist nations didn't have a history of dismal agricultural failures and capitalist countries didn't have a history of food surplus. Lmao
Also, whataboutism with the US prison population doesn't excuse locking up political prisoners, since you're apparently fine apologizing for that.
Political prisoners like Leonard Peltier, Mumia Abu-Jamal, Fred Burton, “Xinachitli” Alvaro Hernandez, Reverend Joy Powell, Ghassan Elashi, Mufid Abdulqader and Shukri Abu-Baker, Eric King, Daniel Hale, Alex Saab, Ed Poindexter, Veronza Bowers, Jessica Reznicek, Emmanuel Quinones, or any of the hundreds of thousands of asylum seekers illegally detained at the border and held in concentration camps every year? Or lest we forget Edward Snowden, who fled the nation to avoid becoming a political prisoner, or Chelsea Manning who spent 7 years as a political prisoner, or Julian Assange of course?
Look, I’m not defending political prisoners, I’m calling out your random talk of gulag as what it is, a lack of reflection on the most heavily criminalized and incarcerated society in known history and a rabid reactionary whataboutism when faced with the inherent injustice the system we currently have represents.
You couldn't list off the political prisoners of communist regimes in a month if you never stopped typing. And yes, I got your point. It was whataboutism. You want to talk about overuse of prisons in the US, you can, but the US doesn't lock up people because they disagree with the government. Every communist regime has. Brutal authoritarianism is a defining feature of communism.
They literally do. They manufacture crimes with no witnesses nor evidence against prominent dissidents and imprison them for life.
Whatever lies you need to tell yourself, kiddo
Me: provides a list of political prisoners in the US
You: ThE uS dOeSnT hAvE pOlItIcAl PrIsOnErS.
The whataboutism is YOURS. You brought up gulags. I only asked you why the US has the highest population of prisoners in the history of humanity.
Taking the first person on that list, he was convicted of murder. If you think he didn't do it, okay, and he denies it, but he has had his applications for clemency, appeals, and a jury trial to press his case. He's not a political prisoner, he's a convicted murderer. Whether you think he's guilty or not. Dead people aren't invented. That's not a "made up crime."
This is one reason why I have a hard time talking to people like you. You assume a conclusion and deny even the possibility that someone convicted of murder may have done it, then draw a conspiracy about political motives for imprisonment.
Okay, kid. Here's an experiment for you. You say the US locks up political prisoners and is worse than communist nations. Go to the street right outside the White House and hold a sign with your favorite criticism of Joe Biden. Then, go fly to China and go interview people in Tianenmen Square about what precisely happened there in 1989. See what happens.
Jfc. Make an honest fucking argument. You and I could talk about how to reduce the prison population here, but the fact is that however flawed the US justice system is, it is punishing people for crimes, not political thought or agitation. You and I may think some sentences are excessive, or some crimes shouldn't be crimes, or sentences should be committed.
But the Chinese government will lock you up in prison if you disagree with the ruling party. Here, the opposition has multiple fucking TV networks with seats in the White House press room. Fucking clown show.
There is definitive evidence in Peltier’s case that the witnesses were coerced by the FBI, which makes their testimony inadmissible, yet the white supremacist judge still allowed it to be entered and used against him. There’s no evidence, just manufactured consent to placate tubes like you with no critical thinking skills.
I have already been threatened by the government for my ENTIRELY PEACEFUL speech, because they don’t like when you stand on the corner with signs that have the names of murderous police officers. Told that if I continued doing what I did, I’d be put “in the ground.” Totally normal behavior for a non-totalitarian police force.
His lawyers have had lots of time to make that argument in court. I'm not in jail because I haven't gotten into a shootout with the FBI. And I note that you're still here, in our imperfect country, ignoring my entire point and trying to pretend that you don't have free speech. Yet, still speaking.
Most food here is locally produced, I don't see how that would create a shortage. Like people aren't going to sell their grocery stores cuz their margins are thin again and farming is so heavily subsidised that I don't see it effecting farmers.
If a local producer can get more selling to someone in the next country, they will. Basic economics. Prohibit them from doing so and they might plant something more profitable or just say "fuck it" and let their fields lie fallow, if they're not making a profit. Farming ain't free and farmers are on thin margins.
Small farms are long gone. Farmers the the most heavily subsidized sector in the country, and they’re not run by Ma and pa, but big multi-national corporations who use extractive agriculture that damages the soil, results in worse yields than more sustainable agriculture, and requires insane amounts of chemical fertilizers, is rapidly contributing to the death of all of our most critical pollinators.
I have really almost no sympathy for monoculture farmers who grow thousands of acres of almonds using trillions of gallons of water in a state perpetually under severe drought.
Literally, just by seizing the lands used to grow alfalfa for Saudi Arabia and almonds in California, the majority of the country could be fed cheap on low water, low maintanence, high yield food forests. We don’t need to subsidize murder farms where pigs are fed to their children as slurry when that same land could be used for vertical gardening.
The use of farmland for exclusively profit driven reasons is what drove the Great Depression. Farmers don’t deserve A profit if what they’re growing isn’t sustainable or catered towards the health of the people.
🙄
*affecting
And you're wrong. Farmers and grocery stores are already operating on thin margins. Sure we could double subsidies but then why not just make food free instead? How about we just make food free for people who can't afford it, maybe with some sort of special card
Farmers yes, grocery stores not anymore. Profits of companies is public info here and they started racking it in the moment the massive 'inflation' started. My parents live near a farm and they just buy veggies directly from them for like a fraction of the price, I unfortunately live in a city though. Prices are better at local markets but there arent many of those.
Prices are better from a farm because you're skipping two steps on the distribution chain, at least - a food warehouse and the grocery store. Could be three, some grocery stores buy from an intermediate warehouse distributor that services smaller stores.
So potatoes might be sold at .20 on a farm and .50 at the store, because they need to be sold twice to reach the store, transported twice, bagged, washed, stored twice, and finally placed in the retail front for sale.
Why did you ignore the part where I said that the profits for grocery stores soared? Producing food has not become more expensive, that's all public info here.
It runs the risk of affecting the farmers a lot especially in Europe where they will soon have to deal with very expensive electricity. So the government would have to know that it's really price gouging and not a necessity (I believe it's price gouging, but governments can't (or shouldn't) make rash decisions on beliefs.)
Dont. Here in Hungary the commie ruling party (fidesz) capped some food prices, which lead to world recorder food inflation (47% measured), and top 3 overall inflation (36% measured). A lot of food products are 100-300% more expensive, also i cant say any product (not just food) that isnt became at least 40% more expensive. When caps lifted, there was a smaller price drop.
They also capped the fuel prices, then when they revoked the cap, the fuel became one of the most expensive from the surrounding countries.
Communist methods cause more problems than solve
Fidesz are now commies? Yeah sure.
They always were, orban was a secretary of the communist youth organization (KISZ), and most of his party members had high level functions in KISZ and the state communist party (MSZMP). They currently also act like that, with some fascist spicing on the surface.
Sure, anyone who had political power back then was "communist". But is his party communist? What communist policies do they want?
They are commies, not communists. These are not the same. Communists actually beliving in something, commies arent. These are commie style things: -govermental prices -govermental success propaganda (picking some real, but mostly fake stats, and cheering these up, while hiding the not so good statistics, and saying those are fake, made by western subversion, telling everything good is made by them and the supreme leader, everything thats not good is done by western subversion) -governmental demonizing propaganda (actually same as in full commie times, like "declining decadent west, but the mighty east", who tells something against their myths is a western spy, everyone is weak and unsuitable who isn't the,, "fight" "war" against everybody who is not them -govermental pressure to leave, or give up to them everything that isn't controlled by the party -fidesz (orban's party) voted against revealing communist agent files, 23 times, which means they are anti-communist only in words, but actually they are in these files as agents. Probably this how putin is blackmailing orban, as they have a copy of every document from the hungarian goverment from 1945-1989, and maybe more. -they using the same slogans, and passwords like the commies did -they act very similarly as their predecessors in rákosi, and kádár system (the two eras, and dictators of the commie ruling) did
Yea we have a food inflation pretty close to those measured numbers though in reality its a lot higher and that's without any caps. Also how could a food price cap cause inflation in food prices? That's literally the thing you are capping.
The things that are capped no longer produce (as much) profit, so food suppliers move to items that do bring in profit. Uncapped goods are now more desirable, and the suppliers increase prices to try to make up for the shortfall caused by price controls, making uncapped items even more expensive.
Government intervention like price controls always makes things more expensive, it's just a question of where that expense is spread to.
The government capped the price of electricity here a short while ago and that lowered the price of power massively.
Seems the solution would be to cap the price of all food then.
No, it isnt lowered the price, but you will pay for it elsewhere, indirectly, same like we are in hungary (that also caused rise in inflation). Communism not worked, and never will
Yea, price capping is as much communism as having public healthcare and when the price of electricity was capped it lowered the prices massively.
What was going on was the local power companies made deals with other countries and basically acted as middle men for reselling that power for a massive markup. Our government made a mandatory power plan that forces power companies to produce electricity locally for local supply at a fixed price and that pretty much fixed that. Those companies couldn't sell power at a massive markup anymore because everyone would just switch to the government power plan then.
No, the the prices don't get lowered on capping them, just you pay it from elsewhere. For example in hungary the commie orban capped the electricity and and natural gas prices, so the people pay less on the bills they get (well, not always since they restricted the "discount" only to private person users, and with limit, if someone out of these, they pay much more than the actual real international market price), but they pay of the real, actual price from their tax (in hungary every taxpayer pays 17000 hungarian forint extra over the actual natural gas bills, just they dont see it, as its taken from the usual tax). So the dumb people just seeing the lower price on the bill they actually get, but not the tax money that is used to pay their "discounts". Also, as the companies getting the electricity, and natural gas on "govermental market price", which is 2x more than "discounted" price in electricity, and 7x more in natural gas (about 4x more than the real international market price), which causes prices going up in restaurants, groceries, every commodities that are made, or processed by local companies, which causing the skyhigh inflation. Its just simple common sense, and the economic fundamentals, but a lot of hungarian people lack of these, and not just hungarians :(
Who? How could cause? In EU the second highest inflation is in slovakia (first is hungary), which is the half of the hungarian inflation. The difference is few hundred kms, and that in slovakia they dont have price capping commies like orban, and his comrades. And yes, here in hungary the real inflation is much more higher than the "measured" (ordered).