The Great Sugar Shakedown

[Michael]

Thats exactly what has been happening...and because other nations use the dollar as a world currency most of that money has remained outside the US.

Without the 'world reserve currency' status all that money printing would have crushed the dollar's domestic buying power.

This is why I think local competing currencies would be much better.

Imagine if MI had a cheap wage. Would could manufacture again. Oh, but then perhaps other states would try to do the same. In the end we'd have private a public currencies (even gold, which is actual money given it's intrinsic value) and taken as a whole we'd be much more flexible and our society much more resilient. As it is, we are being milked by an immoral government who couldn't find it's own ass with both hands, an immoral federal reserve and an immoral military-driven petro-dollar. Which has created an immoral society where financial-rape and debt-slavery is moral. Steve Jobs and $300 iPhone = Bad. Income-rape and selling General-F%cked (my new name for the 20 somethings) down the river = Good.

So we resort to more tax to pay more Michiganders to sit at home on benefits and "health related I can't work but like PS3 and getting stoned because I'm a babyboomer and whaaa the world owes me a free lunch/medicare even if it comes at the expense of my grandkids entire lives -f*ckem I want I want me me me me mememememe" unemployment packets.

It will come to a head. I'm under no illusion my side of the argument is going to win. I can't even make headway that rape is immoral :shrug:

 

[adoucette]

This argument could be made for many, if not all, things.

What about iPhones? What about computer processing chips? What about toys? Etc... etc... etc....

Yes it can, and that's why so much of our manufacturing is now done over seas.

It seems to be a structural problem having to do with our monetary system. Perhaps being locked to oil is screwing up our currency? Maybe if we didn't back it up with our military (immoral as well) we could compete? Our productivity would give us the cutting edge.

It has nothing to do with our Monetary system.
As for productivity, sometimes it does, but some things we still have to do by hand, and then there is no big productivity difference. Indeed, we have things like child labor laws and other countries don't.

And, at the end of the day, it's up to people like the owners of Coke and Pepsi or candy makers to organize their own future contracts with sugar plantations.

Your notion that "they'll bump the price up" suggest the CEOs of Coke and Pepsi are complete idiots. You don't think they know that? You don't think they'll sign big contracts that are mulit-years in length with futures and insurance?

You can only do that for a short period of time, eventually the fact that you have no domestic sugar production will give the suppliers the pricing advantage.

 

[Michael]

Yes it can, and that's why so much of our manufacturing is now done over seas.



It has nothing to do with our Monetary system.
As for productivity, sometimes it does, but some things we still have to do by hand, and then there is no big productivity difference. Indeed, we have things like child labor laws and other countries don't.

Our monetary system, the one we set up for the entire world following WWII has NOTHING to do with why manufacturing is now done overseas? OK, then you won't mind us changing it to a competitive currency with both private and public companies offering their own currencies.

Which, one would think, someone with your skills, would do well in. Not only that, you don't even have to act immorally. People can freely choose - like Zenga, FFmiles, BPay, Bitcoin, etc....

You can only do that for a short period of time, eventually the fact that you have no domestic sugar production will give the suppliers the pricing advantage.

And Coke and Pepsi are too dumb to figure this out for themselves? They need you to do it for them? Hmmmm.... maybe you should let them know you're available for acting CEO

IOWs I'm sure they can organize this for themselves.

 

[eyeswideshut]

Typical American Diet May Fuel Autism

The idea that diet may have a role in autism is not new, but pinpointing the effect of food choices has been challenging. A new study indicates the typical American diet may fuel autism because it is associated with mineral deficiencies, use of high fructose corn syrup, and an inability of the body to eliminate toxins.
The autism epidemic may involve dietary factors

The recent report from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention noting that 1 in 88 children has autism spectrum disorder (ASD) has sparked a furor of concern and investigations into the prevention and causes of this developmental disorder. One angle involves the role of diet, and according to Commander (ret.) Renee Dufault of the US Public Health Service and former FDA toxicologist, that angle may include macroepigenetics.

Macroepigenetics is a scientific approach, developed by Dufault, that explores the impact of dietary factors such as high fructose corn syrup on the body and the development of chronic disorders. As the term implies, macroepigenetics involves consideration of nutritional, environmental, and genetic factors and how they work together to contribute to a specific health issue.

A person’s neurodevelopment can be negatively affected when gene expression is altered by dietary factors, such as a mineral deficiency or exposure to toxins from the environment, such as pesticides. The study’s authors explained that gene variants of paraoxonase-1 (PON1) are associated with autism in North America but not in Italy, which indicates there is regional specificity in the interactions between genes and the environment.

Therefore, in this review the investigators used the macroepigenetic approach to compare differences in diet and exposure to toxic substances between these two populations to identify factors that could be involved in the autism epidemic in the United States.

Dufault and his team concluded that, after reviewing the prevalence of autism in the United States and Italy using the Mercury Toxicity Model, that the increase in autism is not related to exposure to mercury in fish, dental amalgams, or vaccines, but to the consumption of high fructose corn syrup (HFCS).
http://www.emaxhealth.com/1275/typical-american-diet-may-fuel-autism

 

[quadraphonics]

I agree with all your points but you are assuming that the lower production costs with lower labor costs due to immigrants willing to work for less will be passed on to the customers in lower prices rather than increase the profit margins.

That indeed should happen, but only if there is price competition in the market.

Well, duh. Good thing we have a competitive market and anti-trust regulations, eh?

In many cases where immigrant labor is used, for example picking crops, the large agricultural corporation (land owners) may be the only supplier of that crop at that local at that time of year. I.e. & E.g. they may have essentially a monoply on the supply of fresh peaches, in volume, to supper markets of their area.

First of all, immigrant labor is used in all kinds of sectors - notably, food service, construction, maintenance, etc. We're talking pretty much anything here, including white-collar jobs.

Second of all even in agriculture there is sufficient national competition. If it was a monopoly pricing situation food costs would have exploded a long time ago. And the seasonal, local fruit market is a terrible example of potential price gouging: in that case, the supplier has a surfeit of products he has to move right now, before they spoil and are worth nothing. Even with a monopoly, the supplier in that case is over a barrell and has to slash prices to clear the market. This is why seasonal local produce like that is unbelievably cheap - literally, a small fraction of the price one pays for it the rest of the year, or in more distant locations.

 

[Billy T]

A little more on the posts 117 &119 (Quad & Billy T discussion);

Except for a few cases (see 119) Quad is correct that allowing more immigrants into US who will work for lower wages will cause deflation. (Employers can lower the prices of their products, if their costs are lower).

A general reduction in prices is by definition deflation; however most people associate deflation with increase of their purchasing power, but if the lower prices are cause by lower wages that may not be the case (except probably for those living from their savings, not income, assume dollar is not declining more rapidly than prices).

For example, assume prior to expansion of labor force by people willing to work for lower salaries, the labor cost of a $100 product was $60. And that after that influx, wages drop by 1/3. I.e. now product has $40 of labor cost and sell for $80, - a 20% reduction. YES, that is deflation.

The reduction in salary income is however, 1/3 – a 33.33% reduction. So customer buying must decrease by more than13%.

Now not as much needs to be produced, so fewer workers are required. The highest paid 13% are fired. This further improves the manufactures profit margin, say by15%. If he does not pass the saving on, but we are assuming he does 100% as it is not a post 119 monopoly case. So now the average labor cost is $(40 -0.15x40) = $34 and the product sells for $74 with a 26% reduction from the original, pre-influx, price. More deflation, but wages have dropped from $60 to $34 or by 57%. (Falling more than twice as fast as prices are.)

SUMMARY:
Pre influx of cheap labor price to income, P/I = 100/60 = 1.67
First order adjustment, P/I = 80/40 = 2.00
After Second order adj, P/I = 74/34 = 2.18
Probably settling down to P/I = 2.2

Note that even though the influx is deflationary, the influx has made it ever harder for the workers to buy, so they buy less, and less is produced and economy falls into recession. I.e. even in this deflation, they have lost 2.2/1.67 = 1.32 or 32 % of their buying power - exactly the same as if there were 32% inflation with salaries constant.

The point illustrated by these results is general although above is not an exact calculation as buying from saving will increase to slightly off set these results. I.e. what caused the purchasing power of the worker´s income to decrease is unimportant. It could for example be a rapid increase in widely needed raw material, like oil.

For example, during GWB´s 8 years for first time in modern US history, the worker´s purchasing power (and their percentage of the population)* decreased. Thus, it is not surprising that two different recessions began while GWB was POTUS.

The rich, especially Republicans, don´t believe this or recognize the wisdom of Henry Ford´s decision to pay his workers well, forcing other employers to do somewhat the same. In an economy that is 2/3 consumer buying, cutting their purchasing power is stupid and leads to recession, or worse, in the current case: At least to global expansion of liquidity and destruction of fiat money´s value, ending in long-lasting depression as beyond some critical point, more printing press money does not stimulate the economy - but repeats the German experience with hyper-inflation and economic collapse. As I predicted 8 years ago and see no reason to change the prediction, that “critical point” for US comes on or before Halloween 2014.

*The workforce as a percentage of the population still continues to decline - so much so that now the unemployment rates is dropping as the workforce shrinks. Also the aging "baby boomers" are still part of the population, but not of the workforce, in most cases. Some deflation helps them, and is another mechanism that makes life harder for the workers (and their yet unborn children) via the growing debt and interest cost to service it.