Supermarkets are evil, they are driving down the prices for suppliers forcing poor farmers to go out of business. This must be stopped!
But just a minute – how do we do this? After all those farmers already receive a subsidy from the Common Agricultural Programme to produce their sheep, beef or milk so the taxpayer is already (in theory) subsiding the price of these goods.
Apparently we need a regulator! Who – according to Tim Farron, President of the Liberal Democrats - would:
Totally agree! A strong regulator would make sure consumers don't pay more & that farmers get a better price
So we create a system where the price to the supplier is fixed (or subject to controls to guarantee a minimum price which amounts to the same hill of beans) but the supermarket can’t pass that on to the consumer.
We would have a subsidised, loss-making farming business with state determined minimum prices and a grocery sector with state determined maximum prices. If that’s not a recipe for disaster, I don’t know what is!
Rather reminds me of the Soviet Union!
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2 comments:
Won't be long before we start having to queue for bread.
The cold war was all for nought. The communists have taken over by stealth. Perhaps we need a "Berlin Wall" around Westminster - to keep the politicians away from the rest of us.
Small correction. Under the CAP farmers no longer receive payments linked to production, but rather receive payments based upon how much land they own. These are known as 'Single Farm Payments'. They are much less trade distorting than the old production linked payments and have eliminated the old 'milk lakes' and 'butter mountains'. However the CAP is still very expensive (about 55 billion Euros per annum), but it is less bad than it used to be!
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