There was talk about renaming the Krugman thread for this purpose, but that seems to be going nowhere. Besides which, I feel the Krugman thread should be left to discuss Krugman while this thread can be used for more general economic discussion.
Discuss:
- The merits of competing theories.
- The role of the government in managing the economy.
- The causes of and solutions to our current economic woes.
- Comparisons between the economic systems of different countries.
- Theoretical and existing alternatives to our current market system.
edited 17th Dec '12 10:58:52 AM by Topazan
United Earth
He seems to be saying the truth...
Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that.
The Mod with the Migraine
V
Krugman on Corbyn
, while Corbyn wants to 'reindustrialise' Northern England
edited 4th Aug '15 8:54:15 AM by Greenmantle
Keep Rolling On
A nice butterfly
FMI released some time ago an analysis of why Costa Rica cannot into Economy.
Apparently our then-president dun goof'd. Just in case you all can have more examples of how Presidents cannot into money.
It has always been the prerogative of children and half-wits to point out that the emperor has no clothes
V
Farmers in fresh protests over supermarket milk prices
West Midlands dairy farmer Michael Oakes, from the National Farmers' Union (NFU), said: "We've got to the point where we're getting an unsustainable price for our milk. "I'm getting paid 24p (per litre) and it's costing me 28p to produce. So we thought we'd go along to the retailer, we've bought the milk and we're going to give it away to the consumer and explain why."
"The global market at the moment is over supplied, we haven't seen the pick up in demand that we might have expected from places like China and India which were growing quite rapidly," he said. "So until that picks up there will be problems. But it's absolutely wrong to look at retailers here. Retailers are actually doing the right thing - they are paying the best prices - but these are global conditions outside their control."
British dairy organisation AHDB Dairy said the the average UK farm gate price was 24.06p per litre in May, a decrease of a quarter over 12 months.
No longer a forum herald
Hi there, England. Enjoying your cup of milk? 
It's to be expected when a market like food reaches a point where too many distribution channels point to the same old markets, instead of exporting to places that actually demand it. When excess supply drives the price below any kind of sane profit equilibrium...well, here you go.
Expergiscēre cras, medior quam hodie. (Awaken tomorrow, better than today.)
Lost in Space
Yep. The market solution here is for the farmers to cut their production of milk in order to reduce supply and thereby cause prices to increase. The regulatory solution is to decouple the price of milk from the farmers' income — pay them for their labor and nationalize the production cost.
edited 4th Aug '15 2:42:08 PM by Fighteer
"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"
No longer a forum herald
Or to try and find a way for the milk to be shipped to other countries lacking in it, with that profit getting back to the farmers.
edited 4th Aug '15 2:43:23 PM by TotemicHero
Expergiscēre cras, medior quam hodie. (Awaken tomorrow, better than today.)
Lost in Space
Which would again require some form of intervention by government in markets.
"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"
Who decide how much their labor is worth? And what if the transporation cost is too high to sell the milk in foreign markets? In the long run you have to have a way to rationally manage supply.
I think there’s a global conspiracy to see who can get the most clicks on the worst lies
![[up]](https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/smiles/arrow_up.png "[up]"){kind=icon}
This has happened before: the Swiss practically lept on hard cheese as an export item because... milk lakes in the C13th - C15th, of all times (the Black Death directly killed people, not dairy herds: milk cows who had a few patriarchs who knew the paths to get home and how to topple fences, often enough — cows are hard to switch off). Again, powdered milk, baby formula and milk chocolate were treated as saviors in the late C19th.
edited 4th Aug '15 8:42:41 PM by Euodiachloris
Cows can be switched off (not producing milk 24/7) if they weren't kept pregnant all the time.
But of course they have to be kept pregnant all the time...
I'm trying to get myself to finally figure out how to make yogurt from soymilk or coconut milk.
Plants are aliens, and fungi are nanomachines.
My point was, you can't just flip a switch to stop them producing milk. An unmilked cow is likely going to be a very unhappy cow with a good chance of developing necrotic ulcers and other problems around the udders — but, that takes days to a week to occur. And, not all will die from that, though — even though our breeding of them is directly behind this problem. We've bred them to, quite litterly, start bursting themselves if we don't milk them.
It takes a couple of weeks to slow down to a stop: ask any female mammal who has had a terminated pregnancy from the mid-point onwards, at the very least (yup: you don't even need to suckle a baby to have an issue — abortion, miscarriage, still birth, live birth... it doesn't matter to the hormones behind milk production). Cows have it worse both in volume produced and reduction time; some milk goats, too — although not as much.
Cows in pain find a way to spread that pain around if you ignore them: stampede. The clock starts ticking when you don't show up at the regular time. For panicked cows and, then the later dying ones. The only way to reduce milk quotas in a month is to cull your herd. Hello, beef glut. Spot the problem when you need to raise quota...
edited 4th Aug '15 10:44:36 PM by Euodiachloris
I know. I'm just expressing one of too many reasons why it's hard for me to generate sympathy for the (cow) milk industry.
Britain also has one of the highest ratios of vegetarians. Plus, one of their most popular science shows made fasting hip last year.
So, the lower prices for milk may not just be because of oversupply but also because of lower demand due to altruistic reasons plus health reasons.
When it comes to which is healthier, cow milk falls below soy milk and especially almond milk.
Plants are aliens, and fungi are nanomachines.
I've got family in the dairy business, mate. It's not like my cousins made the decisions that created the Victorian push towards "efficient milk producers".
Their land isn't particularly well suited to grains and too damn hilly if you want pulses, and there's not enough of it that is sheltered against erosion for sheep or goats, the greedy buggers. What are they supposed to do? Watch trees grow as they pack up a farm that's been on loan to the family for over 500 years? (Well, I guess they could approach the Percy family about converting some to terracing, and get in hock for three or four generations trying to convert to fruit/ vines... but, that bites, and is hardly a year-round earner. If mushrooms, invalidate the lease by not managing all the land by barning what you can of it up! Yay! )
Leaving cows to just die isn't any more humane.
edited 4th Aug '15 11:51:52 PM by Euodiachloris
V
Although, apparently imports of milk are a problem.
Keep Rolling On
Everyone knows they don't just let cows die.
Cows get turned to beef, unless we're in India.
But if your relatives are "nice" dairy farmers who don't slaughter cows until they're very old, kudos to them but still - if there's lower demand for cow milk, imho it's better overall for the world.
Raising cattle for food is one of the most least sustainable sources for food. There's even d-bate if 1000mg of calcium daily is good for you as there's even studies suggesting too much calcium increases bone-related problems.
Plants are aliens, and fungi are nanomachines.
Blowout soon fellow Stalker
Guys you can like still milk cows without really adding to the dairy supply.
Just go dump it out or something.
Oh really when?
Or use it to feed baby cows.
... How do you break even when you're sloshing your product down a drain, when you're close to bankrupt month-to-month as it is?
Throwing your own produce out when importing from elsewhere is only viable if you somehow get paid for doing so.
Get real. And, about feeding baby cows: wonderful. That's sweet: what do you do with them then, Einstien, considering one calf can't drink all a modern cow produces. You're still going to face the whole bursting problem. And, have more cattle to support.
Blowout soon fellow Stalker
Because supply/demand reasons or something.
Poor farmers set all their wheat and shit on fire back in the Depression, I'm assuming it'll help somehow.
Oh really when?
Unlike wheat, cows generally need to eat. Acreage only gets you so far. Particularly as milk cows need calcium and vitamin suppliments because of being turned into milk factories.
Burning cows isn't that easy, either. Letting them just rot is a lesson in plague production and water table contamination.
Blowout soon fellow Stalker
Well my understanding is that the issue is with dairy oversupply, not cow oversupply.
Keep feeding and loving the little cowsies and just destroy the product.
edited 5th Aug '15 1:41:18 AM by LeGarcon
Oh really when?
I think there's a fertilizer effect to that.
And yes, you can use milk to water your plants too.
Or maybe you can go into the "free range cow" milk business and charge a premium for (happy) cow milk.
Or just pray that your govt. subsidizes milk (more?).
edited 5th Aug '15 1:40:35 AM by probablyinsane
Plants are aliens, and fungi are nanomachines.
Former trader Hayes found guilty in world's first Libor trial
After a nine-week trial and seven days of deliberations, the jury of five women and seven men found Hayes, a 35-year-old former UBS and Citigroup trader, guilty of all eight counts of conspiracy to defraud.
In the first trial of a defendant accused of Libor rigging, Hayes had faced up to 10 years imprisonment for each count of conspiracy over the manipulation of London interbank offered rate (Libor), a crucial benchmark for around $450 trillion (£288.3 trillion) of financial contracts and consumer loans, between 2006 and 2010.
The London trial, which kicked off on May 26, marked a new phase in the inquiry that has led to 21 people being charged and some of the world's most powerful banks and brokerages paying around $9 billion in regulatory settlements.
Justice Jeremy Cooke said a message had to be sent to the world about dishonest conduct in financial services. “Probity and honesty are essential as is trust ... The Libor activities of which you took part puts all that in jeopardy."
Hayes, who sat impassively as he received the verdict, had asked to say goodbye to his wife Sarah before entering the dock. They shared a brief kiss before he was locked in the dock to hear his sentence.
After Hayes left the dock his wife told Reuters the sentence was “horrific” as she made her way out of the courtroom.
The Serious Fraud Office (SFO) had alleged Hayes set up a network of brokers and traders spanning 10 leading financial institutions and cajoled or bribed them to help rig for profit rates designed to reflect the cost of inter-bank borrowing.
Stephen Rosen, partner and head of the financial disputes team at London law firm Collyer Bristow, said the outcome was significant for the SFO.
"This is a success for the Serious Fraud Office, which has put immense resources into pursuing this ground-breaking prosecution, seen as a test case to determine whether it can prosecute other allegedly dishonest Libor traders," Rosen told Reuters. "It is now more likely to do so.”
Hayes, who has been diagnosed with mild Asperger's Syndrome, said during his trial he had been transparent about trying to influence rates and that his managers were aware of and condoned trading methods that were common industry practise.
He said he received no training, that Libor was at the time unregulated, his requests for rate levels fell within a "permissible" range and that he left a trail of emails and computer chats because he didn't think he was doing anything wrong.
"(I was) either the stupidest fraudster ever because I wrote everything down, or there was an element of me that genuinely didn't think about it," Hayes has said in documents shown to the court. "I might be a lot of things, but I'm not stupid."
Although the court had been shown evidence that Libor manipulation was prevalent at UBS before Hayes arrival in 2006, Cooke said Hayes had developed the practices using interdealer brokers, external traders and rate submitters.
Hayes’ counsel Neil Hawes said the conduct Hayes had been convicted for had been prevalent for at least five years before he arrived at UBS. Citigroup and UBS both declined to comment on the verdict.