Thursday, June 10, 2010

Market System



(click on image to enlarge)

The advantage of the market system is the market yields efficient allocation of resources.

As everyone knows the CME is dominated by one or two big players. As can be seen by the above graph, the NASS survey and the CME are the same, except for a time lag.

The Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) publishes numerous data bases including the Producer Price Index (PPI). There is a PPI data base for "natural cheese." The correlation between the CME block Cheddar and the PPI is .95 - pretty close to a perfect correlation.

Now if you believe in a market system, you have to raise all kinds of doubts about the control exerted by so few players.

Maybe what we have is "Plutocracy is rule by the wealthy, or power provided by wealth." http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&cd=1&ved=0CBkQFjAA&url=http%3A%2F%2Fen.wikipedia.org%2Fwiki%2FPlutocracy&ei=4osRTJaJFMTflgfRh7iaCA&usg=AFQjCNEO9XicOAj2rmPhTB0jNPmq_i44tQ&sig2=ERR6DpVgaormpiXQCbvJ5A

Not a pleasant thought.

3 comments:

  1. So John what do you here our friends at National Milk Proceesers foundation is doing after last meeting?
    I here they are coming up with new ways to scr er I mean pay us. Is that true? JR

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  2. Great info in the website above on plutocracy. "A disproportionate influence the wealthy have on political process in contemporary society", and also described as a "fusion of money and government".Lobbying is also mentioned and we all know who is spending that money.

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  3. What's most important in the dairy industry is who's money they are spending. And, how it is used against the people they claim to be working for.DWCovert

    ReplyDelete