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Yeah, but our dairy quota system is kinda fucked imo. We've created a market where the quotas are estimated to be worth somewhere between 40-45 billion. This fi

• b112 24d ago
  That's quite cheap then. You see, the Americans are liars, as you may well know. They get upset at supply management, but they do it too. Instead of controlling production, and setting fair prices for producers, they handle it, like a bunch of nitwits, on the backend. They buy up excess milk, make cheese out of it, to artificially keep the market price high, and then store it for decades as it rots, in large underground limestone caverns. They buy out herds if production levels are too high. They have bought out large numbers of farms more than once, spending enormous sums, to reduce the supply. In fact, the American government has cost the American consumer far more than a measly $250 per year, for they force higher pricing too. And to do it? They spend like crazy, they spend tax money like crazy. But here's the thing. Every single government handles food production in some way. Every one. And the result is upward pricing pressure, almost always. We act responsibly. Sanely. The Americans just shrug their shoulders, blather on about not interfering, then do it anyhow regardless. Do not fall for their lies. It's all they do these days. The only goal they have, is to make us far more dependent upon them.
  • snayan 23d ago
    Brother, nothing in my comment did I learn from American sources as a result of this trade war. I've found our dairy cartel silly for a long time. Look at the impact of NZ and Australia removing their quota system around the turn of the century. I just don't like how opaque the whole thing is and I don't think most Canadians have an understanding of the impact on their pocketbook.
    • b112 23d ago
      The concept of an entirely unrestrained market, is an illusion spread primarily from US thinktanks and sources. Yet my point was, even though Americans spout blather about market intervention via Governments, they do it too. Australia and NZ are bad examples. They are incredibly isolated for fresh milk competitors, and fresh cheese too. We, meanwhile, have a market 10x larger next door. But beyond that every government manages its agricultural industry. If NZ and Australia "did well" without market supply at the front, then you can be sure they did so by bail outs, market interference, and other methods at the back end. And those methods cause consumers money, taxes are used to do these things. There is no open dairy market in the US. It's an illusion, as I mentioned. Look at thr disaster of 2008. Americans did the same thing, didn't manage and regulate, then the market explodes, and they spend trillions in clean up. That's still manipulation and market management, it's just the most disruptive, damaging, stupid way to do so. And American have the money, and the ability to manipulate the world's reserve currency in situations like this. We don't. We have to manage things responsibly. I'm OK with positively modifying supply management. Find a specific problem, fix it. Improve it. But not with tossing it.
      • snayan 22d ago
        Yeah, I actually think we're relatively aligned here. I'm not saying burn it all down, free market, fuck the goals. I'm just saying, and I know this is an estimate, but if you take the $244/annum/pp estimate from studies as to the cost of supply chain management... you're looking at about $10 billion per year. Broadly, I think the goal of our supply chain management is to preserve a robust domestic dairy, poultry, and egg industry, maintain emergency production capacity, support rural communities, smooth out extreme price volatility, and ensure farmers can survive downturns. I'd just be very surprised, if we asked ourselves, ok, how can we most efficiently achieve the above, and actually tried to solve the above problems from first principles today, we'd land on the current solution. It just feels like we should be able to achieve a much better outcome for $10 billion dollars, or we should be able to achieve the equivalent of the current outcome for far less than $10 billion.
        • 22d ago