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From: mrh@cybvax0.UUCP (Mike Huybensz)
Newsgroups: net.politics.theory,net.politics
Subject: Re: Extent of hunger in America
Message-ID: <789@cybvax0.UUCP>
Date: Sun, 20-Oct-85 18:42:44 EDT
Article-I.D.: cybvax0.789
Posted: Sun Oct 20 18:42:44 1985
Date-Received: Wed, 23-Oct-85 06:04:22 EDT
References: <203@gargoyle.UUCP> <3913@topaz.RUTGERS.EDU> <215@gargoyle.UUCP> <454@calgary.UUCP>
Reply-To: mrh@cybvax0.UUCP (Mike Huybensz)
Organization: Cybermation, Inc., Cambridge, MA
Lines: 26
Xref: watmath net.politics.theory:1313 net.politics:11624

In article <454@calgary.UUCP> radford@calgary.UUCP (Radford Neal) writes:
> Conspicuously absent from this list are the following:
> 
> 	--- Eliminate all programs designed to reduce the amount of
>             land under cultivation and hence keep up food prices.
>
> 	--- Do away with legislation granting monopolies to certain 
>             food producers (e.g. milk producers) which also keep up
>             food prices.
> 
>         --- Eliminate all tarifs and import quotas on food, designed
>             to keep food prices high.

These are all programs designed to keep commodity prices high so that
producers remain in business.  (Some have additional goals, such as soil
conservation.)  Reducing commodity prices has extremely little effect
upon retail shelf prices of most foods.  Take a $2 box of corn flakes,
for example.  There's probably less than a cent worth of corn or any other
ingredients in it.  Processing, packaging, distribution, and advertising
are what cost the rest.  Changing the price of the corn won't affect
the price of the flakes significantly.  This is an extreme example,
but most other commodities have large markups at the retail level that
mask much of price changes at the commodity level.
-- 

Mike Huybensz		...decvax!genrad!mit-eddie!cybvax0!mrh