I've been watching it develop. So far, food supply disruptions have been largely a matter of convenience. Your favorite product is out of stock. At the beginning, there was "stocking up", which looks a lot like hoarding, but really it's just a rather common sense reaction to the fact that you don't want to go to the grocery store for a few weeks. That should go away, eventually.
Now, though, we're hearing of actual, pending, shortfalls, especially for meat. I won't link to a specific article, but try putting "meat" in a google news search. What you will see is some bleak forecasts.
Yesterday, Tyson Foods bought a full page ad in the New York Times to talk about supply chain disruption.
This could be bad.
Meanwhile, farmers are actually destroying crops and destroying animals.
So, can the government do anything about this? Should they?
I honestly don't know the answer to the first question. How do you increase slaughterhouse capacity? It would seem that at the very least, government could provide testing to workers at key food processing centers, so that workers could be sent home before they have a chance to infect lots of other workers. Is there anything else they could do?
The answer to the second question rather obviously depends on the answer to the first question. However, if the answer to the first question is yes, then I say the answer to the second question is yes. It's food. We have to eat. The "free market" won't take care of this problem.
Is government doing anything about it now? Is anyone looking into this problem?
One thing I am certain of is that the solution is not to give someone money to compensate them for their losses. I can't eat money. I just read today that in this time of meat shortfalls, one facility had to kill two million chickens. If the farmers are compensated for their lost money on raising those chickens, I still can't eat the chicken. I'm not saying that we absolutely shouldn't give anyone money in this situation, merely that doing so does nothing to solve the problem.
And if real food shortages develop, should we blame Donald Trump? Yes. That's the point of having a government, to do something about the really big problems that private enterprise can't handle. To be fair to The Donald, if I can't buy meat real soon, I'll also throw some hate toward congressional leaders, who have less power to act than the President has, but if they are not at least making a whole bunch of noise about it, they really should share some of the blame.
So, here's a thread specifically for issues related to food supply, and whose fault it is if there isn't enough of it. I put it in USA politics because I anticipate that "whose fault is it" will be a significant part of the discussion, and because I am particularly interested in the situation in the USA. However, even better than the "whose fault is it" discussion would be information about what could, realistically, be done. Then we can get around to blaming politicians for not doing it.
Or, is it too much hype? Other than having to pay and addition 20% or so for meat, is there really a big problem here? Is it just hype, or will there be actual food shortages, with accompanying malnutrition?
Now, though, we're hearing of actual, pending, shortfalls, especially for meat. I won't link to a specific article, but try putting "meat" in a google news search. What you will see is some bleak forecasts.
Yesterday, Tyson Foods bought a full page ad in the New York Times to talk about supply chain disruption.
This could be bad.
Meanwhile, farmers are actually destroying crops and destroying animals.
So, can the government do anything about this? Should they?
I honestly don't know the answer to the first question. How do you increase slaughterhouse capacity? It would seem that at the very least, government could provide testing to workers at key food processing centers, so that workers could be sent home before they have a chance to infect lots of other workers. Is there anything else they could do?
The answer to the second question rather obviously depends on the answer to the first question. However, if the answer to the first question is yes, then I say the answer to the second question is yes. It's food. We have to eat. The "free market" won't take care of this problem.
Is government doing anything about it now? Is anyone looking into this problem?
One thing I am certain of is that the solution is not to give someone money to compensate them for their losses. I can't eat money. I just read today that in this time of meat shortfalls, one facility had to kill two million chickens. If the farmers are compensated for their lost money on raising those chickens, I still can't eat the chicken. I'm not saying that we absolutely shouldn't give anyone money in this situation, merely that doing so does nothing to solve the problem.
And if real food shortages develop, should we blame Donald Trump? Yes. That's the point of having a government, to do something about the really big problems that private enterprise can't handle. To be fair to The Donald, if I can't buy meat real soon, I'll also throw some hate toward congressional leaders, who have less power to act than the President has, but if they are not at least making a whole bunch of noise about it, they really should share some of the blame.
So, here's a thread specifically for issues related to food supply, and whose fault it is if there isn't enough of it. I put it in USA politics because I anticipate that "whose fault is it" will be a significant part of the discussion, and because I am particularly interested in the situation in the USA. However, even better than the "whose fault is it" discussion would be information about what could, realistically, be done. Then we can get around to blaming politicians for not doing it.
Or, is it too much hype? Other than having to pay and addition 20% or so for meat, is there really a big problem here? Is it just hype, or will there be actual food shortages, with accompanying malnutrition?
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