In a piece on rising food prices Alex Renton says this:
But the factors behind the price rises in Leith are exactly the same as those in Mexico, or in China – where, last Wednesday, the government introduced price controls on dairy products, meat, vegetables and cereals. And while food price inflation hit 18 per cent last year in China, there\’s no good reason why they should not do that here. In fact, there are a lot of reasons why they should.
So there are no reasons why there should not be price controls on food and reasons why there should. A few paragraphs up he says:
Habits will change, although it\’s unlikely we\’re going to see Soviet-style queues at empty shelves.
A complete idiot, obviously. The fixing of prices below the cost of production means that no one will produce and thus we will get Soviet-style queues at empty shelves.
Why is it that journalists are ignorant of the most basic concepts of economics?
Because “journalist” is too kind a description. “Hack” (or just plain “idiot”) is more apt.
But journalist keep telling us chickens are too cheap and the poor dairy farmers are being paid a pittance for their milk AND now they want to bring in price controls to reduce prices.
“Why is it that journalists are ignorant of the most basic concepts of economics?”
You could have left off the ‘..of the most basic concepts of economics?’ and your comment would still have been correct..
Too many policies, too many of them bad, and too many of those bad policies somehow involve chicken.
As Marx said “Get the chicken right and the rest will just fall into place.”
Do have a look at the version of my piece on the Guardian/Observer website http://observer.guardian.co.uk/focus/story/0,,2243786,00.html
This shows that the line about “Soviet-style queues” is not my analysis but that of James Walton, an economist with an industry-funded research group.
Otherwise, guilty as charged.
Obviously if they had any real skills or talents they would be working in the City, no?
Journalism gets those that can’t, but want desparately to see their name in the media. Needy, insecure and stupid. No wonder they liked Diana so much.
I’m not sure if he said what you said he said. He may have meant “there is no reason why [food prices should not rise by 18% in the UK}…”?