Word in this a.m.'s Asheville Citizen-Times about one of our most important local industries: Christmas trees. The dread word "overproduction" occurs in graph # 4, along with the words "rising production and transportation costs," which earn the whole report the headline "Asheville Area Christmas Tree Growers Not So Merry This Year."
What is this? Blue Monday?
Yikes! The Free Market takes its usual course. We will likely see: 1) price cuts, as the many producers compete for shares of a dwindling market; 2)consolidation, as producers seek greater efficiencies, driving some marginal growers out of business; 3)efforts to trim labor expenses, which can only mean greater hardship for the Mexicans who do most of the work; 4) grow other crops on the hillsides now devoted to trees, which may or may not be as profitable as the current use; 5)when all else fails, demand government bailouts!
ReplyDeleteI suppose you people would rather see everyone forced to buy Frasers at a price set by the government rather than follow the laws of supply and demand.
ReplyDeleteAmazing.
If anything's amazing, BD, it's your ability to make stuff up. Where did anyone say one single word about the government forcing people to buy Frasers?
ReplyDeleteToo much coffee this a.m.?
Henery, I will try to explain in small words. The original thread was about over production. This implies there is something wrong with the free market making a correction.
ReplyDeleteDo you understand now?
The blog post doesn't say there's anything wrong with free market corrections at all. JW is simply reporting something that hasn't appeared in our local media that is likely to impact local farmers and the local economy. Many of us are interested, since either we or our neighbors raise Frasers for income.
ReplyDeleteNot every posting is a critique. Much of it is simply FYI for those of us who are interested.
I dunno, Henery, I don't think it's too much coffee; I think he had a fight with the missus...left him in a bad mood.