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For those not watching the news this morning, power was disrupted at Fukushima Daiichi yesterday afternoon. Power was eventually restored to the control room, but 3 of the 4 cooling pools are still without power. They have ~90 hours to get power back to them before temperatures are expected to exceed safe limits (65 celsius).quote:Fukushima Daiichi Plant, cooling pools continue to be without power in reactor buildings 1, 3, and 4 Sheep fucked around with this message at 00:31 on Mar 19, 2013 |
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Mar 19, 2013 00:22
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Mr. Fix It posted:It's simple: the Japanese are wasting money on food in a misguided, inefficient, market distorting exercise in de facto welfare by protecting inefficient farming. What's wrong with welfare? You say that like it's supposed to trigger some sort of boogeyman response in me where I go, "Oh noes! Welfare! The horror!" If you're so against welfare then you should probably keep the farming infrastructure as it is in Japan. A lot of the farming is done by rural and old people who aren't going to be on the lookout for jobs or won't really be able to get new jobs very easily when GloboRiceCorp puts them forcibly out of business. So after they're put out of business they would probably need explicit welfare instead of the de facto welfare you're saying this policy is. Mr. Fix It posted:Buy up all the loving olds' farm land, put them to work nursing the super-olds, and sell the land to farming conglomerates that can actually turn a profit without ridiculous protections. Why does it have to turn a profit? Again, like the welfare thing, you're stating this like I'm supposed to have some sort of strong negative reaction. You're not backing up anything, and just come off like an unhinged libertarian. Also, it was kind of cute the first time you denigrated old people/rural people, but it's starting to get really tiring. I don't understand how you expect people to take your argument seriously when you show clear contempt for the actual people involved in the situation you're discussing. On the one hand you claim to care about competition, but then on the other hand you admit yourself that absent market protections, it would just be taken over by conglomerates. That would most certainly lead to collusion and price-fixing as it has in every situation. So at the end of your plan you're advocating: 1) Hollowing out domestic food production in favor of importing. 2) Vastly increasing unemployment. 3) Increasing the amount of money being siphoned out of the Japanese economy by multinationals. Do you by any chance work for a multinational that produces cheap rice? That's the only way I can make sense of your arguments. There's a lot of poo poo wrong with Japanese markets, economics, and politics. Tariffs on rice that provide a livelihood for a lot of people and protect the core of the food supply strikes me as one of the least offensive practices Japan engages in. If you're worried about long term efficiency then I can kind of see a point. Japan could do more with the land it has if used more efficiently. This is a problem that doesn't really need an explicit policy solution, though, because Japan is going to be forced to become more efficient in these areas as the population decreases. Also, removing tariffs would not lead to more efficient use of Japanese land for farming. It would lead to that land being paved over after all those people were put out of business with cheap imported rice.
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Mar 19, 2013 01:08
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ErIog posted:What's wrong with welfare? You say that like it's supposed to trigger some sort of boogeyman response in me where I go, "Oh noes! Welfare! The horror!" It also makes rice cost more to consumers, though. "Old people/rural people" aren't the only people involved.
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Mar 19, 2013 01:27
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ErIog posted:If you're worried about long term efficiency then I can kind of see a point. Silver2195 posted:It also makes rice cost more to consumers, though. "Old people/rural people" aren't the only people involved.
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Mar 19, 2013 01:42
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ErIog posted:What's wrong with welfare? You say that like it's supposed to trigger some sort of boogeyman response in me where I go, "Oh noes! Welfare! The horror!" quote:Why does it have to turn a profit? Again, like the welfare thing, you're stating this like I'm supposed to have some sort of strong negative reaction. You're not backing up anything, and just come off like an unhinged libertarian. quote:Also, it was kind of cute the first time you denigrated old people/rural people, but it's starting to get really tiring. I don't understand how you expect people to take your argument seriously when you show clear contempt for the actual people involved in the situation you're discussing. quote:On the one hand you claim to care about competition, but then on the other hand you admit yourself that absent market protections, it would just be taken over by conglomerates. That would most certainly lead to collusion and price-fixing as it has in every situation. quote:So at the end of your plan you're advocating: quote:1) Hollowing out domestic food production in favor of importing. quote:2) Vastly increasing unemployment. quote:3) Increasing the amount of money being siphoned out of the Japanese economy by multinationals. quote:Do you by any chance work for a multinational that produces cheap rice? That's the only way I can make sense of your arguments. quote:There's a lot of poo poo wrong with Japanese markets, economics, and politics. Tariffs on rice that provide a livelihood for a lot of people and protect the core of the food supply strikes me as one of the least offensive practices Japan engages in. quote:If you're worried about long term efficiency then I can kind of see a point. Japan could do more with the land it has if used more efficiently. This is a problem that doesn't really need an explicit policy solution, though, because Japan is going to be forced to become more efficient in these areas as the population decreases.  quote:Also, removing tariffs would not lead to more efficient use of Japanese land for farming. It would lead to that land being paved over after all those people were put out of business with cheap imported rice.
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Mar 19, 2013 02:22
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There's an intergenerational battle going on and Eirog, you're on the wrong side!
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Mar 19, 2013 02:34
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Don't side with olds. Death to the olds.
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Mar 19, 2013 03:27
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Food security is an important issue, and it's not likely to go away. With the depletion of fish stocks getting worse every year, price for marine products are going up too. I'm not claiming to have any answers, since I don't know the first thing about maximizing crop yields etc. etc., but saying gently caress agriculture altogether because it's fiscally inefficient seems pretty short-sighted. Reforming agriculture sounds like a good idea, but replacing the current status quo with US-style agribusinesses strikes me as unlikely to be much better. So far I have yet to hear any proposal that looks to be sustainable long-term. The rice issue is an important one though, mainly because so much arable land is devoted to rice cultivation, and polished white rice has a pretty lousy nutritional profile. More diversity would help a lot.
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Mar 19, 2013 03:34
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Protocol 5 posted:The rice issue is an important one though, mainly because so much arable land is devoted to rice cultivation, and polished white rice has a pretty lousy nutritional profile. More diversity would help a lot. Try convincing someone over here that rice isn't the healthiest food on Earth. I agree with you in concept but I don't see any way it's going to happen.
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Mar 19, 2013 03:38
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I dunno about Japan but a Korean friend told me why she only ever ate white rice growing up: when her parents were young, white rice was rationed, they had to eat brown rice most of the time. Now that they are adults they sure as HELL aren't going to make their children eat anything but the whitest rice. Just the act of rationing it massively increased its psychological value over other kinds or rice.
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Mar 19, 2013 03:40
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Grand Fromage posted:Try convincing someone over here that rice isn't the healthiest food on Earth. I agree with you in concept but I don't see any way it's going to happen. I know that, that's why I brought it up. The whole ridiculous obsession with rice and how only Japanese rice is good enough is totally loving people over. My stance on most issues facing Japan is morbid curiosity. You know, what is it going to take?
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Mar 19, 2013 03:45
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Protocol 5 posted:I know that, that's why I brought it up. The whole ridiculous obsession with rice and how only Japanese rice is good enough is totally loving people over. My stance on most issues facing Japan is morbid curiosity. You know, what is it going to take? Sorry, I don't know who lives in Asia and it's hard to understand the rice thing until you do. I really liked all the (little) time I've spent in Japan so watching the slow-motion trainwreck is sad. Also, I live in Korea which is in many ways going the same road as Japan, but about twenty years behind. I keep hoping they look at the mistakes Japan has made and go a different way, but that would require acknowledging that Korea has been copying Japan for decades. It's worked so far but needs to go a different path soon.
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Mar 19, 2013 03:49
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It's only been recently that Americans have started eating whole wheat bread again, and most people I know still only eat white bread. I don't think enriched bleached flour is all that much better than polished white rice. Although I'm Chinese and not Japanese so maybe they eat much more rice and much less vegatables and meat and such. They don't, like, eat only rice at a meal, right? tractor fanatic fucked around with this message at 04:05 on Mar 19, 2013 |
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Mar 19, 2013 04:03
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Protocol 5 posted:I know that, that's why I brought it up. The whole ridiculous obsession with rice and how only Japanese rice is good enough is totally loving people over. My stance on most issues facing Japan is morbid curiosity. You know, what is it going to take? I wouldn't say it is totally loving them over. They spend a bit more on rice than they should but also believe it is the best rice in the world. For a country obsessed with luxury goods is it really terrible for them to believe such a thing? A lot of my friends are happy to show off when they get a bunch of rice from some relative's farm. Japan isn't hosed because people have no choice to pay higher prices for rice grown on small farms. Its hosed because of a shrinking population and expensive workforce that is hard to fire even though demand for their exports continues to drop.
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Mar 19, 2013 04:04
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It's pretty ridiculous to look at rice farming in isolation from the rest of the economy. Yes, in the absence of tariffs, obviously rice farmers will lose their jobs. There's an element of human tragedy involved there as there is whenever people lose their jobs. But, nobody has a right to a particular job, in general. Nobody has a positive right to farm just because they were born in a farming community or just because they were previously farmers. Further, as we've already indicated, as a government welfare strategy, subsidizing the farming industry in woefully inefficient. It would be much cheaper just to give old farmers money to live on. You could provide money for retraining for those that want it and provide, say, a pension for those that are old and are reasonably incapable of retraining. This sort of approach would have the net benefits of reducing prices for consumers while saving on subsidies and possibly (likely) providing a boon to Japanese manufacturing and export industries through entry into the TPP. In general subsidies are a really rear end-backwards way of setting up social welfare programs. Just because you're being strange about this, ErIog, the reason why it is good for farmers to make a profit rather than be propped up by the government is precisely that that government money cannot then go to other government programs, such as healthcare or infrastructure or education. Also, it reduces the potential tax income to the government. I'm not saying that supporting old people is a bad thing, but that this is not the way to do it. Also, a big problem with subsidies is obviously that they get more entrenched over time. If an industry has no competitive advantage and relies on government support that arguably removes any incentive to improve their own practices (innovate or add capital) and become competitive. Instead, rational actors can structure their operations to maximize the government support they receive. It distorts the market in that it replaces normal market forces, which improve competitiveness and result in greater wealth for everyone, with these distorted incentives. Then, government is stuck with a constituency of voters who are reliant on continued government support. They won't retrain and do something else and they won't improve. Assuming their otherwise competitors continue to innovate or invest in their own practices, the subsidized industry will fall further and further behind. This, you will note, is the exact issue that Japan has now. The agricultural sector will need to restructure at some point, it can happen now or it can happen later. The strategy now seems to be to wait for the old farmers to die off. If the Japanese government had not intervened in rice farming to begin with, presumably farming here would already be organised into Japanese agricultural corporations, competitive on the world market or it wouldn't exist at all. But, the question in this thread has been whether the rice subsidy structure is worth more to the government and the public than entry into the TPP. Japanese exporting is based on manufacturing and services, not agriculture so you're weighing the value of employment in these sectors against each other. Comparing raw numbers, according to the Japanese government (http://www.stat.go.jp/english/data/handbook/c12cont.htm) total employment in agriculture was 2,070,000 in 2011. That's a relatively minor industry in a country of 127 million. By contrast, 9,970,000 were employed in manufacturing, with 8,550,000 as "manufacturing process workers." Hell, employment in finance and insurance was 1,550,000. That's not to say that ojisan farmer could up and become a banker, but that there are other real people who stand to benefit from opening of foreign markets to Japan. Holding on the agricultural industry is a greater net detriment to Japanese society. Gleri fucked around with this message at 04:18 on Mar 19, 2013 |
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Mar 19, 2013 04:14
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tractor fanatic posted:It's only been recently that Americans have started eating whole wheat bread again, and most people I know still only eat white bread. I don't think enriched bleached flour is all that much better than polished white rice. It's not comparable though. If American meals were centered around a bowl of white bread with a few side dishes and Americans believed white bread was the only food anyone really needs and was the healthiest thing in the world to eat, then it would be. Chinese cuisines are generally quite a bit less rice centric than Japan and Korea, from what I've seen. Japanese meals aren't just a bowl of rice, but the rice is considered the core of the meal and the rest is optional. Same in Korea. There are some foods that don't involve rice that are exceptions here (soba for example), but this is the rule if rice is on the table.
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Mar 19, 2013 04:32
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I won't bother quoting the whole post and going point by point, but I'll just come back to what I said earlier in this line of discussion. With the voting constituency being old 60-somethings, you are still talking about an issue of either just closing up shop and giving them a remuneration check, or keeping the market locked down. While Japan isn't as anti-welfare as the US for instance; I still doubt the govt. would be keen on the idea, especially when you consider they are already struggling to keep their SS system afloat with a shrinking population. The only thing I do want to ask is this. quote:They won't retrain and do something else and they won't improve. Fake Edit: I just googled and its about what I figured too on population involved in farming. http://www.stat.go.jp/data/nenkan/zuhyou/y0705000.xls (Up through 2011, if I looked I bet there is a up through 2013 data set). It shows exactly what you would expect. The majority of people involved in farming are people over 65+.
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Mar 19, 2013 07:12
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Also, I think there is a certain local governance issue of having ghost towns poping up. Farmers ultimately feed back into a rural economy that supports service and other ancillary jobs. You wouldn't just put the farmers on welfare but hope that there is enough left over from government checks to keep whatever local economy that there is left going. It isn't a real desirable situation either way and unfortunately, the most cautious and safest route (keep on doing the same thing) isn't going to actually fix the issue.
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Mar 19, 2013 07:43
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Ardennes posted:Also, I think there is a certain local governance issue of having ghost towns poping up. Farmers ultimately feed back into a rural economy that supports service and other ancillary jobs. You wouldn't just put the farmers on welfare but hope that there is enough left over from government checks to keep whatever local economy that there is left going. It isn't a real desirable situation either way and unfortunately, the most cautious and safest route (keep on doing the same thing) isn't going to actually fix the issue. Tying into that, I'd feel remiss to not mention one of my favorite blogs about Japanese poo poo, Spike Japan. He talks a lot about the decline of rural Japan, closed railways, highways that go nowhere since the real estate bubble popped, small villages fighting to survive, all that stuff. And he's quite a writer so it's quite a good read even when it's about some normally completely uninteresting poo poo, like annual trends in economic indicators or whatnot.
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Mar 19, 2013 08:14
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ReidRansom posted:Tying into that, I'd feel remiss to not mention one of my favorite blogs about Japanese poo poo, Spike Japan. He talks a lot about the decline of rural Japan, closed railways, highways that go nowhere since the real estate bubble popped, small villages fighting to survive, all that stuff. And he's quite a writer so it's quite a good read even when it's about some normally completely uninteresting poo poo, like annual trends in economic indicators or whatnot. And apparently he's giving up the gig. Quite a loss!
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Mar 19, 2013 09:06
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Ned posted:And apparently he's giving up the gig. Quite a loss! Yeah, I just saw that. Shame if he actually gives it up, because he does offer a lot of interesting insight into the side of Japan that most people don't ever see and all the various ongoing problems therein. Everyone go read his articles and maybe he'll change his mind!
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Mar 19, 2013 09:40
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quote:What exactly do you expect them to "retrain" into? "Retrain" is something you tell people in their 20s, 30s, and maybe 40s, but by time you are 50 or 60, you won't be retraining. Even assuming they can and do retrain, I'm incredibly skeptical that they'd even be able to make a move employment-wise. The dynamics in employment and especially in changing careers is immense in Japan, especially when you're older. Likely candidates would probably be tourism or other agricultural products. But, that's also why I talked about pensioning them off. The rigidity of the Japanese labor market is another, very pressing issue, but that's not the topic here. When I was writing this I was really thinking about this as an example: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Collapse_of_the_Atlantic_northwest_cod_fishery. I grew up in Newfoundland, on the East Coast of Canada, during the cod moratorium (which is still in effect). It was the largest industrial closure in Canadian history and in a province of 500,000 people, 35,000 fishermen lost their jobs in a day. While it isn't completely analogous, since it was precipitated by an ecological disaster, I think the socioeconomic factors are similar. The data I've said suggests that the cod fishery hadn't really been consistently prosperous since the late nineteenth century, excepting the World Wars, but it had been propped up first by the British and then by the government of Canada in large part out of humanitarian concerns. It was in the end heavily subsidized by the federal government. They kept the cod fishery going, and ended up destroying the ecosystem in the process, because no one was willing to deal with human cost of shutting it down, retraining people and damaging a "way of life". But, in the event, the experience was that while moratorium was in fact economically disastrous for a number of communities, ultimately the province has thrived in a way that would previously have been unthinkable. Even older people were able to move into new industries and greatly improve their standard of living. We were vastly more prosperous 20 years after the moratorium than at any point in history. Some people fish for more valuable fish, the tourism industry has taken off and the economy has greatly diversified. The point is that I've seen this happen first hand. The death of industry is not necessarily a bad thing. It ultimately benefits the people involved by forcing them to move into economically productive activities. I don't want to spark a derail but I'm just indicating that when I look at Japan I am reasoning from an analogy with my personal experience. I see in Japan the same sort of issues (fears about the loss of rural life, loss of national identity, humantarian concern for jobs, and a belief in an inability of working population to change) writ large. The analogy is of course not perfect, in that nobody is planning to ban rice farming. Also, the scale is completely different. But, I think that it is an illustrative example that government economic intervention and subsidies actively stifle the incentive to improve or change. It is entirely possible that given creative marketing and sound business practices, Japanese rice farmers could move up the value chain and profitably export "premium" rice. But, nobody is being forced to do that now. Also, the sort of consolidation into large agri-businesses that you see in the States has not happened. Honestly, when I look at the Japanese economy in general, I think this is the central challenge. There is a persistent fear of letting firms or industries collapse and letting capital be re-directed to more profitable uses. That’s what precipitated the bubble economy and that’s what’s preventing meaningful and sustained recovery. The bubble would never have been so bad if the Bank of Japan had simply let a recession happen in the early 80s, had a wave of bankruptcies and let the money be put to better uses. I mean, come on, if you look at the main Japanese exporters virtually all of them were founded prior to or immediately after World War II. Imagine if the United States was still dominated by GM and US Steel. Anyway, I’ve drifted off topic. The point of the whole diatribe is that exposing the Japanese agricultural sector to greater competition and potentially causing significant consolidation in the agricultural sector would ultimately benefit everyone. Japan is simply not very good at growing rice. It would be better if they did less of that and more of something else and let somebody else do the rice growing. Gleri fucked around with this message at 10:04 on Mar 19, 2013 |
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Mar 19, 2013 09:57
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Gleri posted:Also, the sort of consolidation into large agri-businesses that you see in the States has not happened. There's also another reason why you haven't seen megacorp agriculture companies like Mosanto, show up in Japan. Wiki posted:Since the postwar Land Reform (1945–1949), Japanese farms have remained fragmented and small. To prevent the reconsolidation of farmland, joint-stock companies cannot own farmland; agricultural cooperatives can own farmland only if they do the actual farming. Currently the average rice farmer works only 1.65 acres(whereas the typical American farm is 160 times larger) (Hsu, 1994). Kenishi fucked around with this message at 12:04 on Mar 19, 2013 |
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Mar 19, 2013 11:53
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Kenishi posted:You state this like its a thing everyone should strive for. Having every industry be consolidated and turned into mega-corps. That way instead of paying $3.25 for a candy bar you can now get it for a whole $3 bucks! People in the US complain about it all the time, "Where did all the grocers go? All we have is Wal-Mart now. Where did all the electronics stores go? All we have is Best Buy." The "race to the bottom" economic model hasn't produced much except stagnant wages and outsourcing; just so corporations can scrap an extra 20 cents off each sell here and there, then push more dividends to their stock holders. I do think it's a good thing. Lowered prices for consumers mean more freedom of choice for consumers. In particular when you're talking about food, more and cheaper food (which everyone has to buy) means more money for whatever else you like, like books or movies or whatever. And, regardless, while it may not be a goal, I don't think that it's something government should be involved in. There's a fundamental disconnect in our thinking here, because I tend to view Wall-Mart as a good thing on the whole. While sure, I fully agree that the aesthetic experience of shopping at a neighbourhood grocer, for instance, is much nicer than shopping at Wall-Mart, I really don't think it's reasonable for government to deny people the choice and force everyone to pay higher prices. It's fine for you to make that choice, but someone else might rather put their child in swimming lessons or eat two hamburgers today rather than one. I honestly think it's terrible when cities restrict Wall-Mart from coming in. The added costs may be fine for you, but there are people for whom the presence of Wall-Mart means a materially improved standard of living. And, I think this is just as true for tariff barriers preventing free trade between countries. As nice as the romantic notion of yeoman farmers in the countryside might be, large, industrial agriculture is way more efficient. There is no point imposing increased costs on the average consumer because you think ojisan rice farmer is a more pleasant notion than a corporation. It all may be moot in an generation anyway, since it's not like any young people want to live as farmers in the countryside. They may want there to be farmers, but the average person would rather that be someone else.
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Mar 19, 2013 14:09
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Personally, I think the best solution is to just draft 2/3rds of the males under 30 in Saitama and send them to the fields.
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Mar 19, 2013 14:18
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Gleri posted:free trade If tomorrow you revoked tariffs on rice, there wouldn't be any 'adapting' or 'improvements.' All there would be is a study and a news article a year from now showing that almost a million people over the age of 65 are now poorer than they were last year and that many of them are pleading to local governments for welfare assistance because they no longer make enough. The anti-LDP news rags will run articles talking about elderly who died because they could no longer get by and how the welfare system is taxed even more now that most farmers are effectively unemployed. And all for what? So we (the Japanese in this case) could line the pockets of some foreign stockholders. It'd be political suicide and is exactly why it'll never happen in this generation. This is really just an ideological argument on libertarian economic Darwinism vs "maybe we shouldn't disregard the potential millions that might die from 'free trade.'"
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Mar 19, 2013 15:24
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Kenishi posted:The only problem with 100% free trade in the rice/agri business in Japan is that its like going 100% cold turkey on a heroin addiction. Free trade isn't the answer to fixing Japan's agricultural industry. The answer is reworking policy on agriculture so it can eventually compete on an international level and scale back tariffs. Not that either of these are ever going to occur. What a bunch of fear-mongering and straw-men. Borrowing a line from ErIog, do you by any chance work for JA? That's the only way I can make sense of your arguments. 
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Mar 19, 2013 15:36
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Mr. Fix It posted:What a bunch of fear-mongering and straw-men. Borrowing a line from ErIog, do you by any chance work for JA? That's the only way I can make sense of your arguments. For a country obsessed with the superiority of the local product you don't think people would blame the foreigners for their woes when it got taken away? Everything going to poo poo for a little while is basically guaranteed when you mess with any system. But is it really necessary to mess with it? If the farmers really will all be gone in a decade I don't see why they shouldn't just wait it out.
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Mar 19, 2013 16:05
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Kenishi posted:There's also another reason why you haven't seen megacorp agriculture companies like Mosanto, show up in Japan. Mr. Fix It posted:What a bunch of fear-mongering and straw-men. Borrowing a line from ErIog, do you by any chance work for JA? That's the only way I can make sense of your arguments.  Because for any example you'd care to give I could probs drag up three that showed how it hosed people over. And also way to see the difference between how a thing would be reported and how it would be, guy. Are you an economist by any chance? Do you often have problems telling real things from false ones?
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Mar 19, 2013 16:06
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Stringent posted:Personally, I think the best solution is to just draft 2/3rds of the males under 30 in Saitama and send them to the fields. Think some other country tried to do that in modern history. It turned disastrous when incompetent/unmotivated people were sent to the country side for work  Even countries with national drafts/civil service records like Singapore/Korean causes billions of dollars in lost productivity and time.Gleri posted:I do think it's a good thing. Lowered prices for consumers mean more freedom of choice for consumers. In particular when you're talking about food, more and cheaper food (which everyone has to buy) means more money for whatever else you like, like books or movies or whatever. I can see where you are coming from with this line of reasoning. Lots of people in China actually agree with what you have said. They love wall mart, big stores, big supply chain mega corps because back in the day, they had nothing. Lack of infrastructure, lack of choices, (also a relatively smaller wealth gap). When the economy exploded, people welcomed walmart and pizza hut and macdonalds and a whole bunch of western companies. For a lot of people, quality of life improved. At a cost. quote:As nice as the romantic notion of yeoman farmers in the countryside might be, large, industrial agriculture is way more efficient. I agree that mechanization leads to vastly increased efficiency and productivity. But then again, there is a price to pay. As much as I love JA (Shizuoka melons are the best in the world) when you concentrate food security to just a few meg corps then they will gain and ungodly amount of power. As the biggest players,tax payers, employers, supply chain deciders, they can easily dictate food policy. You start getting HFC's, Fast food companies dictating production, and all sorts of scenarios for the sake of specialization. Markets can adapt, technology can adapt, businesses can adapt. But do we really want people to adapt? Should our bodies, our habits, our culture adapt to new technologies? I think so. But how much? I'm not sure. Kenishi posted:The only problem with 100% free trade in the rice/agri business in Japan is that its like going 100% cold turkey on a heroin addiction. Free trade isn't the answer to fixing Japan's agricultural industry. The answer is reworking policy on agriculture so it can eventually compete on an international level and scale back tariffs. Not that either of these are ever going to occur. I think food security is a very very touchy subject and also affects international geopolitcs. Sure times are relatively peaceful nowadays, but we are always so close to having some drought, disease, bad harvest, etc gently caress up. International markets may be swift to compensate food storage fluctuations but people balk/have trouble at adjusting to change of food prices/consumption patterns. Look at the Fukushima, you see hordes of people hoarding rice but leaving other starches alone  Even if Japanese tariffs/subsidies are removed Japan still has to deal with foreign markets who subsidize their agricultural industries. America, Thailand, EU, etc/ Which makes them disadvantaged and bankrupts the local farmers. Or they just get devasted with futures trading. With increased rural unemployment that's just going to force faster urbanization and slow down their population growth even more. But it's a tough game to play. If you end up oversubsidizing, then you lose your agricultural crown and lose even more wealth. Look at Thailand, they are enacting populist policies for political favour, and the rice subsidizes is costing the country a lot of money. caberham fucked around with this message at 17:16 on Mar 19, 2013 |
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Mar 19, 2013 16:55
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Mr. Fix It posted:What a bunch of fear-mongering and straw-men. Borrowing a line from ErIog, do you by any chance work for JA? That's the only way I can make sense of your arguments. Is it really fear-mongering if its well within the realm of the possible? If you went free market overnight, without any sort of govt. assistance or change to current policy (like that bizarro law I quoted from wiki earlier), you wouldn't be adding 'competitiveness' to the industry, you'd be wiping it out. Most of these small farmers wouldn't be able to adapt because they work the field on their own. Whereas Monsanto has GM crops to push out more yield and (probably) machines that could harvest/plant that same field in half an hour. You can shrug and say "Welp, that's just how the market works." but if that's all you have to offer for your argument in support of opening the market; then I can tell you aren't going to be swaying constituency's mind. caberham posted:I think food security is a very very touchy subject and also affects international geopolitcs. ; lets just hope they aren't using crop revenue to pay off a mortgage.
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Mar 19, 2013 17:26
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Deceitful Penguin posted:Good gods that's genius. So at least something is safe from the corp fucks. Who's calling for a sudden influx? There's a ton of other reforms that need to happen before opening the gates. It's moot anyways, since no reform will happen and the government will somehow get a TPP that doesn't touch agricultural tariffs. It is funny to see you laud those land reforms, as rural Japan whithers away due to migration to places with actual work and olds dying off. Rural Japan doesn't need protectionist tariffs, it needs economic growth. Which it won't get as long as resources are misallocated to keeping Grandpa Taro's farm barely afloat.
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Mar 19, 2013 17:33
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Kenishi posted:Is it really fear-mongering if its well within the realm of the possible? No one said overnight. That's one of the strawmen I was referring to.
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Mar 19, 2013 17:34
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Mr. Fix It posted:No one said overnight. That's one of the strawmen I was referring to.
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Mar 19, 2013 18:42
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Mr. Fix It posted:Who's calling for a sudden influx? There's a ton of other reforms that need to happen before opening the gates. It's moot anyways, since no reform will happen and the government will somehow get a TPP that doesn't touch agricultural tariffs. It is funny to see you laud those land reforms, as rural Japan whithers away due to migration to places with actual work and olds dying off. Rural Japan doesn't need protectionist tariffs, it needs economic growth. Which it won't get as long as resources are misallocated to keeping Grandpa Taro's farm barely afloat.
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Mar 19, 2013 20:58
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Deceitful Penguin posted:You mean as opposed to the flourishing rural areas of the US, where the system you favour is in action? Domestic food production in most of the developed world will never be as profitable as imported food from economically oppressed nations; the only way you can make it "profitable" is to just get rid of all the people and when you reach that point, why bother? Why give a bunch of money to some suit fuckers just to keep a pointless industry going? It is indeed the correct policy to minimize the number of people working in agriculture, though subsidies are of course A Dumb Thing.
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Mar 20, 2013 14:14
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I wonder if all that unemployment people talk about these days might be connected to hyper efficient corps and technology. Oh well I'm sure socialism will be here soon to give everyone a living wagahaahahahah (USER WAS PUT ON PROBATION FOR THIS POST)
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Mar 20, 2013 16:23
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It's worth mentioning that agriculture reform doesn't have to be a one-step on/off process: one morning you wake up and you get no subsidy at all and you starve. The U.S. successfully transitioned off subsidizing tobacco with the http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fair_and_Equitable_Tobacco_Reform_Act . Existing tobacco growers got a 10-year payout from 2005 to 2014. That gave farmers time to quit, transition to other crops, or sell out. Furthermore, for the first time farmers who weren't covered under the existing subsidy system got the opportunity to grow unsubsidized tobacco. Wall Street Journal article copied into Free Republic. "The system was junked in 2004 through a $9.6 billion buyout of tobacco growers and farmers who owned quotas, with tobacco companies funding the payments. Thousands of tobacco farmers, many reaching retirement age, collected their checks and stopped growing the crop. Some farmers planted strawberries or tried to raise catfish in their farm ponds." And then, in an unsubsidized market, small holdings were combined into larger ones, and economies of scale kicked in. Tobacco is still being grown profitably. Overall, the program has been a success. The people who depended on tobacco subsidies weren't simply kicked in the teeth and left to starve; they got time (and money) to transition. What's the hitch? Well, the U.S. is a Federal system. When Jesse Helms and Strom Thurmond, the powerful Senators from North and South Carolina, left the Senate in 2003, then the interests of the tobacco-growing states lost veto power in Congress. That was what made an end to subsidies possible. Y'all in this thread have made it pretty clear that rural voters dominate Japanese politics, so a solution that enrages the farm vote can never be pushed through. (For the record, I think tobacco is bad for you. I am suggesting a model for agriculture subsidies ending, not endorsing tobacco growing per se.)
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Mar 20, 2013 17:31
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In the news today, kids. Govt to step up aid to lift low birthrate / Will help more people marry, have children Administration setting up a commision to figure out why people aren't having kids or getting married. Possible solutions? Loans for marriage and afterward. More preschools. Govt-funded dating services. Post-natal counseling. Low income housing. A real solution? quote:In reality, however, many young people are shying away from getting married or having children, as an increasing number of them work as nonregular employees with low wages and little job security. Also in kid news. Mother granted custody of son after Australian dad abducted boy from Japan after 2011 tsunami, citing radiation risk The father sounds like a slime ball but this line made laugh. quote:Justice Stuart Fowler cleared the way for the boy's return to the non-Hague signatory country recently with the "hope" Japan will eventually join the UN convention. 
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Mar 21, 2013 05:54
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| # ? May 10, 2024 03:06 |
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Government-funded speed dating?
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Mar 21, 2013 06:26
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