Supermichael777
Supermichael777 t1_jea9q4d wrote
Reply to Eli5 Why is there still a famine in Africa despite the fact that they have been receiving foreign aid for decades? by Illustrious-Pen9569
Because foreign aid doesn't build resilience, it builds in a dependence. And the primary purpose of goods based aid is to stabilize the prices of certain goods by destroying surplus. Foreign aid just looks better than piling it up and dumping kerosene on it.
It's important to understand that every field, which we can call farming capacity, will on average produce a similar amount as any similar field. However, this realized production varies year to year, and in a given region this variation tends to trend the same direction. It's also not entirely predictable. Bad weather, new pests, etc. can cause low production.
It's also important to understand that this is a marketed set of goods. Everyone wants grain, especially people who can turn 1.5 tons of grain (price 450$/metric ton) into 1 ton of chicken (price 1500 per ton). Chicken producers(general corporations, not small farmers) remain grossly profitable even at high grain prices. People in a developing economy struggle to afford market rate grain in good years.
Dumping a pile of random stuff on people kills the local market for that stuff. To a non industrialized economy, being used as the dumping ground for grain surpluses and clothing surpluses kills two pillars of the local economy, farming and fashion. So when short years come you don't have the farming capacity to cover the sudden shortfall or the economy to outbid richer nations with a production shortfall. You don't have the local economy to properly signal demand, because no one has anything to exchange of any value or rarity.
It doesn't help that most of them are export driven national economies that have had large losses of arable land to climate change, destruction from mining and drilling, or usage for cash crops. Those cash industries feed the nations in fat years, but in short years they can't afford it.
And even with local production, it's a market good. Without a local government that wants to trap local production of grain it will be brought to market, bought, and shipped to the highest bidder. If the chicken corporations can still get a good price for chicken they can still outbid the locals on grain. It's sadly often in the best interests of everyone in control of African nations farming to export all produced goods, even in time's of famine, to enrich themselves with foreign exchange.
The purpose of food aid has always been to stabilize grain prices without destroying capacity, so in short years the capacity fills the host nations needs. Africa is simply being used as a spring, crushed when times are rough so no one else feels the bumps as bad.
Supermichael777 t1_jbzdzw0 wrote
Reply to comment by pickyourpants in BBC and Gary Lineker: Tweets decision comes at high price for BBC by Errorboros
We have a winner.
Supermichael777 t1_jacy3e9 wrote
Reply to comment by manifold360 in [Homemade] Made an Anglicised "Philly Cheesesteak" using melted and unmelted cheddar, brown sauce and english mustard topping the minced beef, all on a baguette as that's what I had. by xander012
In general the brown sauce is made with all the flavor boiled out of the other food.
Supermichael777 t1_j57wvrm wrote
Reply to The Fyre Festival fraudster is launching his latest thing, and it looks like a party on an island. by shakycam3
doesnt this break the terms of his diqualification?
Supermichael777 t1_j3nwne2 wrote
Reply to homemade I miss you GIF by milny_gunn
That's definitely a war crime by the way, the superstructure pattern and lack of guns means that's a cruise ship converted to a floating hospital.
Supermichael777 t1_iydcy9o wrote
Reply to comment by Loki-L in IBM and Maersk to shut down TradeLens supply chain platform - Project with shipping giant was once floated as ideal blockchain use case – but industry didn't buy in by Loki-L
When the competing solution costs a penny it's a bit of a price hike.
Supermichael777 t1_ixrkjlo wrote
Reply to comment by csk1325 in Researchers 3D-printed a fully recyclable house from natural materials | Engadget by PxN13
Cheaper to build doesn't mean cheaper to buy, most of a homes price is speculation on the land underneath it
Supermichael777 t1_ixdc8ij wrote
Reply to comment by flow_man in U.S. regulators approved a plan to demolish four dams on the lower Klamath River and open hundreds of miles of salmon habitat in the largest dam-removal and river-restoration project in the world. by doginasweater39
Wyoming is like measuring the expected weight of groceries against a family size bag of potato chips
Supermichael777 t1_iwl05ww wrote
Reply to comment by Humane-Human in Minor party candidate who called for Daniel Andrews to be hanged preferenced ahead of Labor by Liberals by Jeremy_Gorbachov
Economic liberalism with conservative social tendencies. Liberals aren't your friends. It's the politics of wealth, trading power for wealth, and trading wealth for power.
Liberalism is the old guard of modern and post modern economics. It is a conservative position in practice, because closely aligning power and wealth is inherently opposition to changing the systems of wealth and power.
Supermichael777 t1_jeff11u wrote
Reply to FBI: Mandalay Bay shooter in Las Vegas who killed 58 was angry about how casinos treated him by YourUncleBuck
Oh and he also idolized Timothy McVeigh and Hitler.