inflation

People, especially elected public officials, who are in favor of inflation support things that cause it. A recent example is that the US Congress just raised the minimum wage.

Supporters of inflation lie and say things like the increase will only affect a few minimum wage workers. The truth is that tens of millions of union employees have written in their contracts that if the minimum wage goes up, they automatically get the same percentage in increase.

So if the minimum wage goes up 10%, union workers earning $20 per hour, get a raise to $22 per hour, union workers earning $30 per hour get a raise to $33 per hour, union workers earning $40 per hour, get a raise to $44 per hour, etc.

This starts wage price spiral. The costs of labor go up, so companies raise their prices to compensate for the increased cost. That makes the cost of living go up, so Congress raises the minimum wage to help ( as they claim) low wage workers. What really happens is that the increase gives a raise to well paid union members. This rasies to cost of doing business, so companies raise their prices, etc. etc,.

Politics and Faith

Conservatives base their politics on faith in an unseen god that they claim is perfect.

Liberals base their politics on faith in a well seen government that can never be perfect.

Both base their politics on faith.

Neither grounds their politics in reality.

Fair Trade Coffee

I am kind of right wing when it comes to economic matters. When I heard about Fair Traded Coffee, my automatic reaction was that a bunch of liberal do gooders are trying to screw up the market place. Most of the time when communists, socialists, liberals, do gooders think they know better than the market place, the results of what they do just makes things worse in the long run.

This time I think they are right. It is my opinion that Fair Traded, Organic, Shade Grown, Bird Friendly Coffee is the way to go. First let’s look at Fair Traded. Until the Fair Traded movement began, coffee growers were dirt poor and could barely feed their children, let alone accumulate capital. Large numbers of them in Columbia, for example, started growing coca plants used to make cocaine. They did it for economic reasons; They earned more money. They didn’t want to, but they had to feed their families. Fair Traded Coffee helps them earn enough money to keep them in the coffee business, not the drug business.

Crops grown with modern fertilizers require farmers to either spend their hard earned capital on manufactured fertilizers well before they sell their crop, or to borrow money and go into debt to buy the fertilizer. This is a huge financial risk for them. Organic farming uses local natural products that are either free or cheap to fertilize crops and is a much safer business decision for poor coffee growers.

Shade grown coffee is just that. It is grown surrounded by big shade trees that protect the coffee trees from the sun and wind. You get a bigger crop per coffee tree and better tasting coffee.

Bird friendly again is just that. Birds like to live in big, shade trees. When a farmer has lots of birds living in shade trees, they eat lots of insects, so the farmer has to use much less pesticides, or sometimes none at all. Either way he has to spend less of his capital to buy pesticides, or borrow less to pay for them, or maybe have no financial risk because he doesn’t have to buy any pesticides at all.

In conclusion, Fair Traded, Organic, Shade Grown, Bird Friendly, Coffee is the way to go.

Next let’s do it for chocolate.