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When's the last time a free market had a famine? How often do "not free" markets have famines? In the US, poor people are fat. They don't lack food. (They d

by anamax 14y ago

When's the last time a free market had a famine? How often do "not free" markets have famines? In the US, poor people are fat. They don't lack food. (They don't lack TVs, cars, or houses either.)

yarrel 14y ago
How are the crops doing in the US this summer, btw?
- anamax 14y ago
  > How are the crops doing in the US this summer, btw? Not particularly well. We'll have to reduce our exports and draw down some of our reserves. In other words, our poor people can continue to be fat, not starving. They might buy fewer TVs for a while or reduce the amount of processed calories to handle the extra cost. We can have several years of bad crops before we'll have a food shortage. Of course, it would help if we stopped using food for automobile fuel. (The brazilians would love to sell us methanol for less but they don't have an early presidential primary.)
mikeash 14y ago
Famine isn't the issue. A famine is when there simply isn't enough food within a population. The issue at hand is when there's enough food that isn't well distributed, which is a completely different phenomenon.
- anamax 14y ago
  > Famine isn't the issue. It is to the people starving. > The issue at hand is when there's enough food that isn't well distributed, which is a completely different phenomenon. As I pointed out, US poor people are fat. Why don't we have distribution problem?
  - mikeash 14y ago
    "It is to the people starving." No. Famine means a widespread lack of food. The problem for the people starving isn't famine, because if it was, there would be a lot more people starving. The problem is that they lack food. "Famine" is not a synonym for that. Why doesn't the US have a distribution problem? Two reasons: 1) we produce so much that it covers up a lot of inefficiencies in the system and 2) widely available government assistance. Despite this, people do still go hungry here.
    - anamax 14y ago
      Dance around all you want, but we're still stuck with the "inconvenient truth" that poor people in the US are almost always over-fed. They're not starving. (The exceptions are folks who don't like the free food, which makes them a lot like the folks who are homeless because they don't like the free shelter.) Where else are the poor as well off? (Inequality does not make someone less well off. Well off is what you have, regardless of what someone else has.)
      - mikeash 14y ago
        Why is that an inconvienient truth, exactly? I don't understand why the excellent access to food of the American poor has anything to do with whether the free market can feed everyone.
        anamax 14y ago
        > I don't understand why the excellent access to food of the American poor has anything to do with whether the free market can feed everyone. It's the (mostly) free market that is producing that food at low cost and in such large amounts. As I asked at the beginning, where do you have both free markets and starving people? I ask because it's easy to find places with starving people, yet they're not uniformly distributed. And, how many places with not free markets manage to not have starving people and/or the occasional famine?

by anamax 14y ago

When's the last time a free market had a famine? How often do "not free" markets have famines? In the US, poor people are fat. They don't lack food. (They don't lack TVs, cars, or houses either.)

yarrel 14y ago

How are the crops doing in the US this summer, btw?

anamax 14y ago
> How are the crops doing in the US this summer, btw? Not particularly well. We'll have to reduce our exports and draw down some of our reserves. In other words, our poor people can continue to be fat, not starving. They might buy fewer TVs for a while or reduce the amount of processed calories to handle the extra cost. We can have several years of bad crops before we'll have a food shortage. Of course, it would help if we stopped using food for automobile fuel. (The brazilians would love to sell us methanol for less but they don't have an early presidential primary.)

mikeash 14y ago

Famine isn't the issue. A famine is when there simply isn't enough food within a population. The issue at hand is when there's enough food that isn't well distributed, which is a completely different phenomenon.

anamax 14y ago
> Famine isn't the issue. It is to the people starving. > The issue at hand is when there's enough food that isn't well distributed, which is a completely different phenomenon. As I pointed out, US poor people are fat. Why don't we have distribution problem?
- mikeash 14y ago
  "It is to the people starving." No. Famine means a widespread lack of food. The problem for the people starving isn't famine, because if it was, there would be a lot more people starving. The problem is that they lack food. "Famine" is not a synonym for that. Why doesn't the US have a distribution problem? Two reasons: 1) we produce so much that it covers up a lot of inefficiencies in the system and 2) widely available government assistance. Despite this, people do still go hungry here.
  - anamax 14y ago
    Dance around all you want, but we're still stuck with the "inconvenient truth" that poor people in the US are almost always over-fed. They're not starving. (The exceptions are folks who don't like the free food, which makes them a lot like the folks who are homeless because they don't like the free shelter.) Where else are the poor as well off? (Inequality does not make someone less well off. Well off is what you have, regardless of what someone else has.)
    - mikeash 14y ago
      Why is that an inconvienient truth, exactly? I don't understand why the excellent access to food of the American poor has anything to do with whether the free market can feed everyone.
      - anamax 14y ago
        > I don't understand why the excellent access to food of the American poor has anything to do with whether the free market can feed everyone. It's the (mostly) free market that is producing that food at low cost and in such large amounts. As I asked at the beginning, where do you have both free markets and starving people? I ask because it's easy to find places with starving people, yet they're not uniformly distributed. And, how many places with not free markets manage to not have starving people and/or the occasional famine?