>From: "Michael S. Lorrey" <retroman@turbont.net>
>
>Zero Powers wrote:
> >
> > >From: James Rogers <jamesr@best.com>
> > >
> > >If producers give away excess capacity below cost, it lowers the
>average
> > >margin on the grain that they do sell for a profit, sometimes forcing
> > >them out of the market. The short-term effect may be beneficial
> > >(recovering expenses), but the glut of too cheap grain creates a very
> > >negative long-term effect on overall production because it decreases
>the
> > >effective market size from a producers standpoint. If the world worked
> > >your way, the producers would quickly sink into unprofitability and
> > >would shut down.
> >
> > So its just like OPEC. They are destroying produce to artificially
>inflate
> > the price. Perhaps this indicates that there are too many grain
>producers
> > and that society (and the grain market) would be better off if some of
>them
> > *did* shut down? I realize that probably wouldn't go over too well for
> > those producers that had to do the shutting down. But in general might
>it
> > not be better than the collosal waste that current practice creates?
>
>The thing is, Zero, that in an economy the size of ours (which a single
>person cannot totally appreciate), a few million pounds of grain is the
>sort of waste you will get merely because the system that is already in
>place to discourage farmers from planting too much might be off on its
>estimates by a fraction of a percent, or if the estimated rainfall is
>off by a few percent.
>
>A good comparison is to compare the grain production of the US with the
>wood consumption of building a house. Most contractors and architects
>will budget in at least 10-20% overage for wood that is waste cuttings:
>its those ends of short wood that are useless, or wood that arrives with
>splits, knots, warps, theft, etc.. Using the current wastage of the US
>grain market, which deals with forces of nature that are far harder to
>estimate for and control than a supply of well cut wood, the contractors
>would have to improve their efficiency by a factor of two to four to be
>as good and efficient with their wood.
That seems to make sense. As much as I *hate* waste, I cannot completely
eliminate it from my own life. I don't suppose I can blame contractors or
farmers for having the same problem. Do you know how much grain is dumped
on average per year? And what percentage that is of total US production?
-Zero
"I like dreams of the future better than the history of the past"
--Thomas Jefferson
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