• unfreeradical@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    What is the rule that is given as determining a commodity price realized at the point of sale?

    Would a situation ever arise such that the price realized would not exceed the production costs, yet such a sale would also occur as following from the profit motive?

    • HardNut@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      I think what you’re asking me, is whether farmers would be willing to sell something at a loss? The answer is yes, because not selling it is a bigger loss. It’s actually incredibly common for farmers to sell certain product at a loss just to maintain cash flow and make sure they are able to put their more valuable products to market

      • unfreeradical@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        Sure. Once a product has been created, the cost of production is not a determinant of whether or when to sell, or price realized at sale.

        What is the name of the rule or principle that an economist would identity as the one resolving a sale price on a commodity markets?

        • HardNut@lemmy.world
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          1 year ago

          This works a lot better if you just make your point. Are you referring to supply and demand? Or maybe you’re referring to the subjective theory of value, or the labor theory of value? Seriously, you’re being really awkwardly coy, and I don’t know what you’re getting at. It feels like you’re trying to lead me to a gotcha but I gotta say it works way better on me to just be straight forward

          • unfreeradical@lemmy.world
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            1 year ago

            Your earlier comment insinuated that any sale price for a product would be agreeable, as long as it exceeds the production cost but not the price affordable to all consumers who have need of the product.

            You now appear to concede that neither constraint has any actual bearing on price realized at the point of sale, but rather the value is resolved entirely by the principle of supply and demand.

            As such, I am not understanding as broadly coherent your initial round of questions.

            Perhaps, rather, you have answered your own question, about the piece absent from your own analysis.

            • HardNut@lemmy.world
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              1 year ago

              Your earlier comment insinuated that any sale price for a product would be agreeable, as long as it exceeds the production cost

              No, I did not insinuate this.

              • unfreeradical@lemmy.world
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                1 year ago

                You wrote…

                Whatever cost of production has already been spent. Selling it at a reduced profit is still profit, so what’s missing here?

                At any rate, my position remains, that I am not understanding as broadly coherent your initial round of questions.

                If you wish to attempt another presentation of your concerns or questions, perhaps taking into consideration the more recent discussion, I will try to address it.

                • HardNut@lemmy.world
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                  1 year ago

                  Sure, it’s very straight forward. People are saying that farmer’s are dumping cow’s milk to reduce supply, and therefor retain high prices. But, if the farmers (cows) have already produced their milk, dumping it simply makes them no money instead of less money than expected. Unless there’s something else to consider here, there’s no reason, including greed, for the farmer to dump the milk. If someone was greedy, would they not try and sell every last bit of milk they could?

                  What I’m alluding to, is that these farmers did not choose to dump their milk. It does not make sense for farmers to dump their milk, because they make more money if they sell more milk. They cannot store milk and wait for the market price to go up, because it spoils. When a farmer has milk to sell, they want to sell all of it, because being able to sell all of it means they make more money, always, regardless of market price. There may even be cases where dumping it will lose them the chance to net profit. Considering the negative impact dumping milk has on the farmer, it straight up can’t be greed motivating the farmer to do it. In fact, we know what causes farmers to do it, because these cases have been thoroughly reported on, and the reason behind it frankly isn’t really up for dispute.

                  The milk dumping issue went viral because of an Ontario farmer who exposed the issue on Tik Tok. He shared the same sentiment, that he would’ve loved to sell all that milk, but he was unable to sell it because he had exceeded his quota given by the Ontario Dairy commission. Dairy farmers in Ontario are only allowed to sell through that source, and that source’s expected demand fell through in covid, so they just stopped all sales altogether. This is not the only time it happened either, there are several reported cases of farmers being told outright by the government to dump their products.

                  It’s really not something that’s up for debate, capitalism did not cause this, over regulation by the Canadian government did.

                  https://toronto.citynews.ca/2023/02/02/dairy-farmer-dumping-excess-milk/ https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-52192190

                  • unfreeradical@lemmy.world
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                    1 year ago

                    Perhaps under conditions resembling the theoretical perfect competition imagined by authors such as Adam Smith, your analysis might tend to be more strongly tied to practical reality, but our current monopoly capitalist dystopia is starkly different. Since supply is under consolidated control, discarding supply, through a choice of one supplier or through collusion of a few with each other or with the state, induces a scarcity that inflates prices and thereby raises profits.

                    Businesses have been increasingly discovered discarding product in recent years. Amazon has moved viable merchandise to landfills, because of the greater profit from setting prices high enough that the full inventory would not sell.

                    Also, discarding unsalable product during overproduction crises within the bust-boom cycle has been a consistent feature throughout the history of capitalism.

                    In the recent case you mention, of the milk dumping, households were unable to afford milk due to lost income, and so supply was wasted to protect price stability. The families still wanted the milk, and any household would have been happy to purchase at lower prices, even those able to afford the higher prices.

                    Even as families suffer and product is wasted, oligarchs continue consolidating wealth.

                    It is an incoherent objection that farmers in Canada dumping milk is somehow separate from capitalism, the system that organizes production and distribution, in Canada and everywhere else. The observation that the government is providing direction for such activities is not one that confers any value to the objection.

                    Any system is inefficient if it leads to overproduction.

                    Any system is anti-human if it supports destruction of product useful to others simply to support higher prices realized by producers.

                    I feel the case against capitalism is quite well corroborates by the observations referenced in your objections.