4 ms·
> Cheap food prices are a very good thing. If anything, food should be more expensive. Current prices do not represent the cost of production, hence subsidies.
by noteflakes 3y ago
> Cheap food prices are a very good thing.
If anything, food should be more expensive. Current prices do not represent the cost of production, hence subsidies. The consequences are nefarious: farmers spending their entire career paying off debt, half of produce ending up in the trash, underpayed immigrants working in agriculture, cheap imports (subsidized by the origin country) putting pressure on local producers...
Food is literally something we cannot live without. It should be valued accordingly.
- dauertewigkeit 3y agoIf that is the economist's conclusion than I'd rather kick the economist than take his advice.
- Martinussen 3y agoAre subsidies not inherently valuing something highly? Except with some safeguards to prevent "Well you're poor so why are you worth keeping alive". Maybe it's better to shift ag subsidies to things like food stamps/some form of UBI, but that would definitively be a prerequisite.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- NotSuspicious 3y agoCheap food stabilizes the entire system. Expensive food is how you get riots.
- PH95VuimJjqBqy 3y agoI think you're spot on and it honestly amazes me how we have so much evidence of this throughout history and yet people can will still end up thinking about this purely in terms of "the free market".
- dukeyukey 3y agoExpensive food _literally_ kills civilizations. Not just cities, or countries, entire civilizations.