Either you just don't get what I am trying to tell you or you play dumb on purpose.
Sure the producer sells it at a profit.... to him but we (as the taxpayer, human beings, you know) pay a price for it in other ways, taxes, destroyed environment etc. etc.
So no, 77 cents is by FAR not the real price of that can of tuna, it's way too cheap.
Europe in General is "more green", but then the political system allows for it.
The more I learn about the Canadian system the more I think it is severly broken, I wonder if anyone will ever change it? Doubtful, it keeps too many people in power.
Of course they laugh, the TTC cant POSSIBLE correct the problem with transport as long as all this idiotic urban sprawl continues. Every city in the country has gotten so f'ed up in the last 25 years to the point that its going to take 150 years to correct it.
But you have to start somewhere, and the idea of giving Streetcars on St. Clair their own lane sounds pretty good to me, but of course a lot of people are already objecting this again.
Hail the car, bah, I have one, but quite frankly I only use it to get to work, and if I wouldn't need to work in Markham I wouldn't even use it that often.
One solution is to consume less, more simple products, made locally
That's pretty much what I am trying to do, now if my company would let me work downtown instead of up in Markham I might actually be really happy (and spend less time on the DVP and in my car).
All highways should be pay-for-use. Our Gov should tax based on kilometers and vehicle weight.
I think it goes beyond that, there are other things that are being subsidized, not only the roads, but pretty much every single aspect of "mass production". Economy of scale only gets you so far.
Stand against the coronation of Paul Martin! VOTE GREEN!
I would if I could, but I can't I am an alien in Canada, though I do vote green back in Germany.
For that matter, here in the US, a first-class postal letter costs $0.37. According to your logic, a postal carrier picks my single letter out of my mail box, drives it all the way to California, or where ever, and delivers it to the destination mail box, all for $0.39.
Okay, let's see what has to go into the price calulation:
Those are the "obvious" ones by which they calculate their price, right?
But what about hidden costs?
- Usage of Roads - REAL cost of the fuel - Real cost of raw materials - Real cost of energy
etc. etc. etc.
The way we pay for our products are not "real" in that sense, and no, economy of scale doesn't work their either.
Let's look at the tuna again:
For 77 cents (that was the last price I paid), I receive:
- A can - Paper banderol - tuna
So how does it get on my table?
Trawler is going out and fishing, for that the trawler needs to be build, maintained. The people on the boat need to get paid.
Then the tuna get's unloaded, those people need to get paid, it needs to get cleaned and cut up, more people who need to get paid, next you have to package it, this isn't done by hand so you need to buy and maintain those machines (don't forget the electricity to run those), then it needs to be put on flats, which are made out of cardboard and wood, which again has to be produced, with energy etc. etc.
You get the picture. The reality is that the true cost is hidden from us, and I still don't think that at 77 cents I pay the true cost, to the enviroment or to the people who do it.
There was a research paper I read a while ago, but I couldn't find the link on google, that explained these quite nicely, there are reasons why stuff is so cheap and the main reason for this is that someone else is making up the shortfall. Be it the taxpayer of taiwan who pays to get the fish re-stocked or be it us who pay for the road construction because the heavy trucks have destroyed them. The matter of fact is that most of the food we are buying these days does not reflect the actual costs.
For every kCal that is consumed in North America, on average 5 kCal have been used to produce it, and that doesn't even count the sun, just the fossile fuel sources we plunder for this.
On the topic of the parent post, what shocks me about Southern Ontario thinking is the way developments work. Being that you're from Southern Ontario, you've certainly heard of the Oak-ridges Moriane project. 6000 houses are being built. WTF?!
Actually I am from Europe, only living here for 4 years but yes, I have heard about it, though last I heard I think they stopped it, they better.
They'll just put 2-car garages on the front of the houses, pave the driveways, install garage door openers, and widen the roads into the city.
Mississauga is a perfect example, they don't invest in public transit, in fact there are people who complain about the idea to run a GO Train from Union into Pearson (Airport).
They build the Sheppard Subway line (nice going Lastman) when it would have made a lot more sense to extend the subway further north and maybe run it along Steeles (haha, that's funny).
But hey, what am I complaining about, I can't even vote here.
Stronger urban planning would hook it up to a rail system express to the major working areas of the city. Include condominum developments for a higher-density around the railstation.
Oh please, that would make SENSE. Like the light rail system they are proposing to run out to Kitchener / Waterloo from Toronto, it's needed, right now all you can get is Greyhound.
I'm strongly of the opinion that the -- let's rezone growing fields up into the most lucrative form of housing -- kind of city planning is nothing but municipal and provincial corruption. There are big bucks in development.
Yep, and MIssissauga is the worst of the lot in the GTA, they ran out of their own land and are now haggeling neighbouring cities to give them land so that they can expand even further.
A friend of mine is living in Brampton, we met there a couple of times for training rides up north into the "country side" she told me how with each year she has to go further to get away from the houses, the farmers are just selling the land off to developers.... And people buy it, no public transit, nothing, but 4 lane roads.
Sad, meanwhile of course people laugh at the TTC, especially when they ask for more money.
There is an Anti-Spam Module out there for Movable Type. So far I have only been hit once, and I hope it stays that way, but who knows, if people would start reading my blog I am sure I get more.
Let's look at your argument: Since your (inexpensive) produce is grown in far-away places and brought to you, something must be wrong with the "market."
Let me put it this way: If I pay 65 cent/l for gas (as of this morning), I get 9l to a 100K, then I can see quite clearly that somehow 87cents (no matter how cheap the bulk rate for fuel is) will pay for the transport alone. I would say someone is someone giving money to allow this stuff to be so cheap, no?
Now I imagine that huge greenhouses could be built to grow citrus and other tropical-climate crops in, but you'd find the cost of those greenhouses would have to be ammortized into the selling price of the fruit, and that fruit would be much more expensive as a result.
And I guess the fruit just "beams" itself from the tree into the supermarket? There is also energy cost involved, and yes I agree, a green house would not be a good idea (especially considering the amount of food that would need to be grown).
You seem to be proposing that manufacturing costs be traded for delivery costs:
Actually my point is that what we pay for our produce at the register is not an accurate reflection of the true costs. There is a lot of hidden costs (e.g. Transportation) that we obviously don't seem to pay for.
Having said that, the question would be: Who is paying for that?
When's the last time you saw a Canadian-grown Macadamia tree or date palm?
I didn't, but you obviously missed my point, it was not about "is it feasable to grow a pineapple at the waterfront in Toronto", but rather: "How can it be that the gas is more than I pay for the can?"
You haven't answered that, someone is going to pay for that and the question would be if it makes ecological sense to subsidies such absurdity on the scale we do right now?
I am with you on this one. I try hunting for local stuff, but sometimes it seems just bizarre.
Thinking of it, it just strikes me at times to stand in a supermarket and just look at the amount of food that is in there, I tried to picture someone come from a 3rd world (or even 2nd world) country and see all this.
It's not horrifically wrong at all. It makes perfect sense and it is the way the world economy should work. That is, unless you'd like to go back to preindustrial conditions and live by the mercy of the harvest.
What is wrong is simply the cost, I am sure there is more spent on fuel to truck the apples to the store than I pay for it.
Someone has to subsidize it, I wonder who.
Remember, there is no free lunch (or apple).
Besides, Ontario grows quite a lot of their own apples.
Maybe, but even if, they were still made in Jamaica and I would venture the guess that the raw materials weren't grown there either.
This isn't the only one, I look at a can of Tuna and it comes from Taiwan, I look at the Pineapple it comes from Thailand, Manadrin slices I bought the other day (67 cents a can) came from China and so forth.
Or let's go with fresh fruits, I live in Toronto and guess what, most of my apples come from California.
There is something horrificly wrong in the way the market works I'd say.
I hear walking is much more efficient. You can walk a mile on only a small meal, prob the equivalent of 1/2lb of vegatables. This, of course, makes it more efficient.
You get roughly a mile to 100kCal... Your average choclate bar has between 200 - 300 kCal so on a choclate bar you could walk ~3 miles.
For your 60mile commute I guess you would need to eat quite some choclate.
Now can someone please explain to me why I'm supposed to feel guilty for exploiting the long dead biomass of a bacteria, plants and dinosaurs?
I agree with your observations, but to answer your question: You should care because this stuff can be used for something way better, for example in the hospital or the computer you're sitting in front of right now.
Reality is that (as massive as it is) the amount of gas we burn in our cars each day pales in comparision to the amount of energy we waste by trucking our food half way around the world.
Maybe someone can explain to me how it can be that an apple from California is cheaper than one that is grown here in Ontario? How can it be that trucking something (that is mainly water) a couple of thousand kilometres makes it cheaper than just buying it locally?
but I do care about plastics and other poly-things that we get from oil-based resources...
Read an article a while ago where someone was pointing this out as well, he concluded by saying:
"Oil is to precious to just burn it up."
I agree, I lately have been paying more attention on what stuff I have, what it's made off etc.
Even "worse" I have started to look where for example my food and other things are coming from and it is very very clear to me that my 25K commute is not my biggest "energy waste" but rather where my food is coming from.
No, you dont have to stop making people. You have to reduce the resources people use for personal transportation.
I got another good one for: Be more local.
The other day in the supermarket I saw some cookies, they sold for 87 cents (plus tax).
Problem is: They were made in Jamaica, sold to Singapore and then finally sold in Canada.
I just guess here, but I would say those cookies travelled more than I did in the past 2 years and most definetly used more than 87 cents worth of energy.
Oh, and as for the caloric value, according to the nutrional information on the back, the pack contains 600 kCal.
I have used "normal" SLRs for over 10 years now, and the cost of film and development never stopped me of taking pictures. Mainly because the development of the negative is dirt cheap, I never went out and got EVERY single picture I took printed.
Instead I got the negatives, a light tabel and a maginifiying glass to decide which one I truly wanted prints off.
Dark room costs aren't that expensive either, a really expensive one here in Toronto was $10/h including chemicals, so the only cost was paper (of course I mainly do B&W which makes life a bit easier and cheaper).
Now I was looking at digital cameras for quite some time but I couldn't convince myself of buying just yet (an SLR), but yesterday I sprang for an A300, P&S, digital zoom, but takes some rather nicepictures. Although the bad thing about this camera is that it eats batteries like candy (I'd say the flash is the problem).
I am still looking at the Rebel, though I am wondering if it makes sense to buy one and not just wait until the "pro" cameras are coming down a bit more.
The nice thing about traditional photography is that the body isn't really what is so expensive but the lenses, in Digital Photography you still need the good lenses but the body is a lot more expensive.
National healthcare creates an imbalance of power between the people and their government that is fundamentally incompatible with the intents of the founders of this country.
I can just see how it causes imbalance by keeping all those poor sobs at the bottom healthy, heck if they can't afford good medical care then why should I pay for it.
You are aware that Ideology relates to an ideal world, not to the real world?
The US isn't democratic, it isn't capitalistic either, neither was the soviet union ever a communist country.
Repealing the anti-murder laws is arguably a violation of the First Amendment. Neither extreme of anarchy or socialism is the foundation of the USA; rather the Constitution protects rights essential to allowing people to live free from tyranny and to pursue whatever path they choose.
And I guess giving everybody healthcare runs contrary to those goals?
Selfishness is a fact of life, and, as long as our economic and legal systems take this fully into account, we'll be just fine. Communistic and socialistic idealism is founded on an impractical and naive hope (i.e., easier said than done).
Well in that case: Why not give everyone a knife, take away with all those laws that try to prevent that we kill each other and let the strongest one win?
Slashdot Mirror
Either you just don't get what I am trying to tell you or you play dumb on purpose.
Sure the producer sells it at a profit.... to him but we (as the taxpayer, human beings, you know) pay a price for it in other ways, taxes, destroyed environment etc. etc.
So no, 77 cents is by FAR not the real price of that can of tuna, it's way too cheap.
Europe in General is "more green", but then the political system allows for it.
The more I learn about the Canadian system the more I think it is severly broken, I wonder if anyone will ever change it? Doubtful, it keeps too many people in power.
Of course they laugh, the TTC cant POSSIBLE correct the problem with transport as long as all this idiotic urban sprawl continues. Every city in the country has gotten so f'ed up in the last 25 years to the point that its going to take 150 years to correct it.
But you have to start somewhere, and the idea of giving Streetcars on St. Clair their own lane sounds pretty good to me, but of course a lot of people are already objecting this again.
Hail the car, bah, I have one, but quite frankly I only use it to get to work, and if I wouldn't need to work in Markham I wouldn't even use it that often.
M.
Pretty much the notion that at the end of the day the money I pay at the regist is accounting for all the costs that are incurred.
M.
One solution is to consume less, more simple products, made locally
That's pretty much what I am trying to do, now if my company would let me work downtown instead of up in Markham I might actually be really happy (and spend less time on the DVP and in my car).
M.
All highways should be pay-for-use. Our Gov should tax based on kilometers and vehicle weight.
I think it goes beyond that, there are other things that are being subsidized, not only the roads, but pretty much every single aspect of "mass production". Economy of scale only gets you so far.
Stand against the coronation of Paul Martin! VOTE GREEN!
I would if I could, but I can't I am an alien in Canada, though I do vote green back in Germany.
For that matter, here in the US, a first-class postal letter costs $0.37. According to your logic, a postal carrier picks my single letter out of my mail box, drives it all the way to California, or where ever, and delivers it to the destination mail box, all for $0.39.
Okay, let's see what has to go into the price calulation:
1. Fuel Cost.
2. Maintenance Cost
3. Employee cost.
Those are the "obvious" ones by which they calculate their price, right?
But what about hidden costs?
- Usage of Roads
- REAL cost of the fuel
- Real cost of raw materials
- Real cost of energy
etc. etc. etc.
The way we pay for our products are not "real" in that sense, and no, economy of scale doesn't work their either.
Let's look at the tuna again:
For 77 cents (that was the last price I paid), I receive:
- A can
- Paper banderol
- tuna
So how does it get on my table?
Trawler is going out and fishing, for that the trawler needs to be build, maintained. The people on the boat need to get paid.
Then the tuna get's unloaded, those people need to get paid, it needs to get cleaned and cut up, more people who need to get paid, next you have to package it, this isn't done by hand so you need to buy and maintain those machines (don't forget the electricity to run those), then it needs to be put on flats, which are made out of cardboard and wood, which again has to be produced, with energy etc. etc.
You get the picture. The reality is that the true cost is hidden from us, and I still don't think that at 77 cents I pay the true cost, to the enviroment or to the people who do it.
There was a research paper I read a while ago, but I couldn't find the link on google, that explained these quite nicely, there are reasons why stuff is so cheap and the main reason for this is that someone else is making up the shortfall. Be it the taxpayer of taiwan who pays to get the fish re-stocked or be it us who pay for the road construction because the heavy trucks have destroyed them. The matter of fact is that most of the food we are buying these days does not reflect the actual costs.
For every kCal that is consumed in North America, on average 5 kCal have been used to produce it, and that doesn't even count the sun, just the fossile fuel sources we plunder for this.
On the topic of the parent post, what shocks me about Southern Ontario thinking is the way developments work. Being that you're from Southern Ontario, you've certainly heard of the Oak-ridges Moriane project. 6000 houses are being built. WTF?!
Actually I am from Europe, only living here for 4 years but yes, I have heard about it, though last I heard I think they stopped it, they better.
They'll just put 2-car garages on the front of the houses, pave the driveways, install garage door openers, and widen the roads into the city.
Mississauga is a perfect example, they don't invest in public transit, in fact there are people who complain about the idea to run a GO Train from Union into Pearson (Airport).
They build the Sheppard Subway line (nice going Lastman) when it would have made a lot more sense to extend the subway further north and maybe run it along Steeles (haha, that's funny).
But hey, what am I complaining about, I can't even vote here.
Stronger urban planning would hook it up to a rail system express to the major working areas of the city. Include condominum developments for a higher-density around the railstation.
Oh please, that would make SENSE. Like the light rail system they are proposing to run out to Kitchener / Waterloo from Toronto, it's needed, right now all you can get is Greyhound.
I'm strongly of the opinion that the -- let's rezone growing fields up into the most lucrative form of housing -- kind of city planning is nothing but municipal and provincial corruption. There are big bucks in development.
Yep, and MIssissauga is the worst of the lot in the GTA, they ran out of their own land and are now haggeling neighbouring cities to give them land so that they can expand even further.
A friend of mine is living in Brampton, we met there a couple of times for training rides up north into the "country side" she told me how with each year she has to go further to get away from the houses, the farmers are just selling the land off to developers.... And people buy it, no public transit, nothing, but 4 lane roads.
Sad, meanwhile of course people laugh at the TTC, especially when they ask for more money.
Remove the tinfoil hat. There's no conspiracy here to put your domestic apple growers of business.
I still think you oversimplify things.
There is an Anti-Spam Module out there for Movable Type. So far I have only been hit once, and I hope it stays that way, but who knows, if people would start reading my blog I am sure I get more.
M.
Let's look at your argument: Since your (inexpensive) produce is grown in far-away places and brought to you, something must be wrong with the "market."
Let me put it this way: If I pay 65 cent/l for gas (as of this morning), I get 9l to a 100K, then I can see quite clearly that somehow 87cents (no matter how cheap the bulk rate for fuel is) will pay for the transport alone. I would say someone is someone giving money to allow this stuff to be so cheap, no?
Now I imagine that huge greenhouses could be built to grow citrus and other tropical-climate crops in, but you'd find the cost of those greenhouses would have to be ammortized into the selling price of the fruit, and that fruit would be much more expensive as a result.
And I guess the fruit just "beams" itself from the tree into the supermarket? There is also energy cost involved, and yes I agree, a green house would not be a good idea (especially considering the amount of food that would need to be grown).
You seem to be proposing that manufacturing costs be traded for delivery costs:
Actually my point is that what we pay for our produce at the register is not an accurate reflection of the true costs. There is a lot of hidden costs (e.g. Transportation) that we obviously don't seem to pay for.
Having said that, the question would be: Who is paying for that?
When's the last time you saw a Canadian-grown Macadamia tree or date palm?
I didn't, but you obviously missed my point, it was not about "is it feasable to grow a pineapple at the waterfront in Toronto", but rather: "How can it be that the gas is more than I pay for the can?"
You haven't answered that, someone is going to pay for that and the question would be if it makes ecological sense to subsidies such absurdity on the scale we do right now?
I am with you on this one. I try hunting for local stuff, but sometimes it seems just bizarre.
Thinking of it, it just strikes me at times to stand in a supermarket and just look at the amount of food that is in there, I tried to picture someone come from a 3rd world (or even 2nd world) country and see all this.
Must be mind boggeling.
M.
Shop at farmers markets.
I do, at St. Lawrence Market in Toronto, but guess what: Most of the stuff they sell there is coming in via the Ontario Food Terminal and is (at best) from the far end of the province....
Sad.
Must be some damned good cookies :-)
When most people say a calorie they actually mean a kCal....
M.
It's not horrifically wrong at all. It makes perfect sense and it is the way the world economy should work. That is, unless you'd like to go back to preindustrial conditions and live by the mercy of the harvest.
What is wrong is simply the cost, I am sure there is more spent on fuel to truck the apples to the store than I pay for it.
Someone has to subsidize it, I wonder who.
Remember, there is no free lunch (or apple).
Besides, Ontario grows quite a lot of their own apples.
Maybe, but even if, they were still made in Jamaica and I would venture the guess that the raw materials weren't grown there either.
This isn't the only one, I look at a can of Tuna and it comes from Taiwan, I look at the Pineapple it comes from Thailand, Manadrin slices I bought the other day (67 cents a can) came from China and so forth.
Or let's go with fresh fruits, I live in Toronto and guess what, most of my apples come from California.
There is something horrificly wrong in the way the market works I'd say.
M.
You get roughly a mile to 100kCal... Your average choclate bar has between 200 - 300 kCal so on a choclate bar you could walk ~3 miles.
For your 60mile commute I guess you would need to eat quite some choclate.
I agree with your observations, but to answer your question: You should care because this stuff can be used for something way better, for example in the hospital or the computer you're sitting in front of right now.
Reality is that (as massive as it is) the amount of gas we burn in our cars each day pales in comparision to the amount of energy we waste by trucking our food half way around the world.
Maybe someone can explain to me how it can be that an apple from California is cheaper than one that is grown here in Ontario? How can it be that trucking something (that is mainly water) a couple of thousand kilometres makes it cheaper than just buying it locally?
M.
Read an article a while ago where someone was pointing this out as well, he concluded by saying:
"Oil is to precious to just burn it up."
I agree, I lately have been paying more attention on what stuff I have, what it's made off etc.
Even "worse" I have started to look where for example my food and other things are coming from and it is very very clear to me that my 25K commute is not my biggest "energy waste" but rather where my food is coming from.
Guess I should get my own garden
M.
I got another good one for: Be more local.
The other day in the supermarket I saw some cookies, they sold for 87 cents (plus tax).
Problem is: They were made in Jamaica, sold to Singapore and then finally sold in Canada.
I just guess here, but I would say those cookies travelled more than I did in the past 2 years and most definetly used more than 87 cents worth of energy.
Oh, and as for the caloric value, according to the nutrional information on the back, the pack contains 600 kCal.
M.
I have used "normal" SLRs for over 10 years now, and the cost of film and development never stopped me of taking pictures. Mainly because the development of the negative is dirt cheap, I never went out and got EVERY single picture I took printed.
Instead I got the negatives, a light tabel and a maginifiying glass to decide which one I truly wanted prints off.
Dark room costs aren't that expensive either, a really expensive one here in Toronto was $10/h including chemicals, so the only cost was paper (of course I mainly do B&W which makes life a bit easier and cheaper).
Now I was looking at digital cameras for quite some time but I couldn't convince myself of buying just yet (an SLR), but yesterday I sprang for an A300, P&S, digital zoom, but takes some rather nice pictures. Although the bad thing about this camera is that it eats batteries like candy (I'd say the flash is the problem).
I am still looking at the Rebel, though I am wondering if it makes sense to buy one and not just wait until the "pro" cameras are coming down a bit more.
The nice thing about traditional photography is that the body isn't really what is so expensive but the lenses, in Digital Photography you still need the good lenses but the body is a lot more expensive.
And just in time I found this on the newswire.
National healthcare creates an imbalance of power between the people and their government that is fundamentally incompatible with the intents of the founders of this country.
I can just see how it causes imbalance by keeping all those poor sobs at the bottom healthy, heck if they can't afford good medical care then why should I pay for it.
You are aware that Ideology relates to an ideal world, not to the real world?
The US isn't democratic, it isn't capitalistic either, neither was the soviet union ever a communist country.
Repealing the anti-murder laws is arguably a violation of the First Amendment. Neither extreme of anarchy or socialism is the foundation of the USA; rather the Constitution protects rights essential to allowing people to live free from tyranny and to pursue whatever path they choose.
And I guess giving everybody healthcare runs contrary to those goals?
Selfishness is a fact of life, and, as long as our economic and legal systems take this fully into account, we'll be just fine. Communistic and socialistic idealism is founded on an impractical and naive hope (i.e., easier said than done).
Well in that case: Why not give everyone a knife, take away with all those laws that try to prevent that we kill each other and let the strongest one win?
Would solve a lot of problems, no?