4 ms·

Yup. The regulations on food in the US is exactly to make sure the shelves stay stocked no matter what. Without such regulations, you'd experience random item

Yup. The regulations on food in the US is exactly to make sure the shelves stay stocked no matter what. Without such regulations, you'd experience random items being unavailable and price shocks. One thing people often don't figure or realize is food takes time to grow. It requires long term thinking to make sure supplies are sufficient. Left to their own devices, farmers will often chase after last season's cash crop. That is bad. It's far better for farmers to stick to more predictable growing and for more dedicated incentives to be issued.

fredthompson 7mo ago
[flagged]
- array_key_first 7mo ago
  It's true though, these regulations exists because speculation and profit-chasing in agriculture is what lead to the dust bowl and worsened the great depression. We really, really don't want a repeat of that.
  - boothby 7mo ago
    The amazing thing about people failing to learn from history is that everybody thinks they're too smart to (a) learn history or (b) follow rules enacted to prevent the disasters of yesteryear.
    - renewiltord 7mo ago
      [flagged]
      - Alupis 7mo ago
        [flagged]
        renewiltord 7mo ago
        [flagged]
        Alupis 7mo ago
        I'm sorry, what?
      - Dylan16807 7mo ago
        [flagged]
      - dang 7mo ago
        Could you please stop posting unsubstantive comments and flamebait? You've unfortunately been doing it a lot lately. We've already asked you a whole bunch of times not to do this. Eventually we ban accounts that won't stop. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
        renewiltord 7mo ago
        Sure, but I think you should strive to run your community in a way where you’re policing the “I don’t endorse X, but I don’t understand why more people don’t do X” that this comment espouses https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47773488 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47773488 You’re busy policing this while people are out there saying “Destroy their things and firebomb their houses”. So is it just that I made a mistake in my phrasing? Should I just frame the same comments in the style “I would never endorse X, but I don’t understand why others don’t do X”? I can do that easily without LLM assistance if you like. But if you want your community to be exclusively endorsers of violence against enemies of a chosen tribe, then you should ban me so you can keep your little tribe of Ted Kaczynski fanboys.
        dang 7mo ago
        This is one of those cases where the word "but" negates everything that precedes it. If you think we haven't been moderating the type of posts you're talking about, you haven't been tracking HN moderation lately*—which is fine, why should/would you? But in that case you shouldn't be taking snarky swipes at the mods based on galactically mistaken assumptions. * e.g. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47728106 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47728106 More importantly, you shouldn't be pointing fingers at others instead of taking responsibility for your own bad behavior. Even if you were right in what you said, it wouldn't justify your breaking the rules. Moreover you have a longstanding pattern of doing this and we've been cutting you slack for years. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47367674 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47367674 (March 2026) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45486692 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45486692 (Oct 2025) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42686976 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42686976 (Jan 2025) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41833543 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41833543 (Oct 2024) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41673360 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41673360 (Sept 2024) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41089956 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41089956 (July 2024) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29959119 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29959119 (Jan 2022) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27992950 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27992950 (July 2021) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26537346 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26537346 (March 2021) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26537333 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26537333 (March 2021)
- cogman10 7mo ago
  I grew up on a farm and lived around farmers. This is my lived experience. I saw first hand farmers tear up a barley fields to plant wheat when the price got high enough. Farming is a game of speculation. Planting last year's cash crop can be a successful strategy just like buying APPL today will likely yield good returns. Yet, it's a very hard market to predict with a lot of luck involved. Maybe only a few chase the cash crop and you win big. Maybe everyone does and you lose. Maybe there's a natural or political disaster that pumps up your crop. There was nothing insulting, condensing, or dismissive about my comment. Highly speculative markets, like food, have booms and busts that can swing wildly. That's bad for something like food. The free market does not work with crops.
  - all2 7mo ago
    > The free market does not work with crops. I'd argue that this should be refined to something like "farmers that speculate heavily struggle in an under-regulated free market". Financial stability in highly volatile markets depends on appropriate planning, saving, and distribution. I say this from the investment perspective, but I would venture to guess that it also applies to hard goods like food-stuffs.
    - cogman10 7mo ago
      I disagree with that refinement. The nature of farming is speculation. It's inescapable. In a completely free market there's no way to guarantee success. Even with the best planning and saving you can't know what the rest of the market is doing and because of the long tail, you are locked in to harvesting and selling your crop no matter what. You can speculate and be the farmer that always plants and grows wheat. You'll see booms and busts based on that. You can also switch up what you are growing based on your best guess about demand. Both strategies can be successful. Funnily, one way to make farming less risky is a futures contract. And, if you know anything about futures commodity trading you know they are some of the most risky forms of trading.
  - fredthompson 7mo ago
    [dead]

fredthompson 7mo ago

[flagged]

array_key_first 7mo ago
It's true though, these regulations exists because speculation and profit-chasing in agriculture is what lead to the dust bowl and worsened the great depression. We really, really don't want a repeat of that.
- boothby 7mo ago
  The amazing thing about people failing to learn from history is that everybody thinks they're too smart to (a) learn history or (b) follow rules enacted to prevent the disasters of yesteryear.
  - renewiltord 7mo ago
    [flagged]
    - Alupis 7mo ago
      [flagged]
      - renewiltord 7mo ago
        [flagged]
        Alupis 7mo ago
        I'm sorry, what?
    - Dylan16807 7mo ago
      [flagged]
    - dang 7mo ago
      Could you please stop posting unsubstantive comments and flamebait? You've unfortunately been doing it a lot lately. We've already asked you a whole bunch of times not to do this. Eventually we ban accounts that won't stop. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
      - renewiltord 7mo ago
        Sure, but I think you should strive to run your community in a way where you’re policing the “I don’t endorse X, but I don’t understand why more people don’t do X” that this comment espouses https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47773488 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47773488 You’re busy policing this while people are out there saying “Destroy their things and firebomb their houses”. So is it just that I made a mistake in my phrasing? Should I just frame the same comments in the style “I would never endorse X, but I don’t understand why others don’t do X”? I can do that easily without LLM assistance if you like. But if you want your community to be exclusively endorsers of violence against enemies of a chosen tribe, then you should ban me so you can keep your little tribe of Ted Kaczynski fanboys.
        dang 7mo ago
        This is one of those cases where the word "but" negates everything that precedes it. If you think we haven't been moderating the type of posts you're talking about, you haven't been tracking HN moderation lately*—which is fine, why should/would you? But in that case you shouldn't be taking snarky swipes at the mods based on galactically mistaken assumptions. * e.g. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47728106 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47728106 More importantly, you shouldn't be pointing fingers at others instead of taking responsibility for your own bad behavior. Even if you were right in what you said, it wouldn't justify your breaking the rules. Moreover you have a longstanding pattern of doing this and we've been cutting you slack for years. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47367674 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47367674 (March 2026) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45486692 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45486692 (Oct 2025) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42686976 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42686976 (Jan 2025) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41833543 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41833543 (Oct 2024) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41673360 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41673360 (Sept 2024) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41089956 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41089956 (July 2024) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29959119 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29959119 (Jan 2022) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27992950 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27992950 (July 2021) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26537346 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26537346 (March 2021) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26537333 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26537333 (March 2021)
cogman10 7mo ago
I grew up on a farm and lived around farmers. This is my lived experience. I saw first hand farmers tear up a barley fields to plant wheat when the price got high enough. Farming is a game of speculation. Planting last year's cash crop can be a successful strategy just like buying APPL today will likely yield good returns. Yet, it's a very hard market to predict with a lot of luck involved. Maybe only a few chase the cash crop and you win big. Maybe everyone does and you lose. Maybe there's a natural or political disaster that pumps up your crop. There was nothing insulting, condensing, or dismissive about my comment. Highly speculative markets, like food, have booms and busts that can swing wildly. That's bad for something like food. The free market does not work with crops.
- all2 7mo ago
  > The free market does not work with crops. I'd argue that this should be refined to something like "farmers that speculate heavily struggle in an under-regulated free market". Financial stability in highly volatile markets depends on appropriate planning, saving, and distribution. I say this from the investment perspective, but I would venture to guess that it also applies to hard goods like food-stuffs.
  - cogman10 7mo ago
    I disagree with that refinement. The nature of farming is speculation. It's inescapable. In a completely free market there's no way to guarantee success. Even with the best planning and saving you can't know what the rest of the market is doing and because of the long tail, you are locked in to harvesting and selling your crop no matter what. You can speculate and be the farmer that always plants and grows wheat. You'll see booms and busts based on that. You can also switch up what you are growing based on your best guess about demand. Both strategies can be successful. Funnily, one way to make farming less risky is a futures contract. And, if you know anything about futures commodity trading you know they are some of the most risky forms of trading.
- fredthompson 7mo ago
  [dead]