> Just like Tesla, a farmer can't promise to produce vegetables for less than the cost of fertilizer. Based on the foods that the world prefers to eat, it's just not feasible.
Actually, they do: subsidies distort the hell of out the price discovery mechanisms in Markets. At no point in time can a farmer sell a 1lb(~1/2Kg) of tomatoes at the hieght of season for for $1 or less, much less in the off-season. And yet they do because of the distortions in correctly pricing the inputs, transport and labour as a result of wanting to remain on the crop insurance and subsidy program.
This is seen the World over in various ways too, in the EU farmers are paid to let their fields go fallow and orchids entirely neglected for seasons; it's one of the biggest reason why Farming as a profession has an average age of 60+ World wide as any younger person not born into the Lifestyle or from a Legacy Farming family will quickly see how impractical it is to operate with this system in what amounts to near subsistence levels of poverty. As an outsider going into the Industry for culinary and ecological activist reasons it's incredibly daunting when you realize that in 100 years we created a system in which less than ~2% of the World's population feeds the ~98% and how fragile this system is and how much of a miracle it hasn't blown up in our faces long ago.
It's maintained by fanciful economic machinations and make-believe accounting created by Nation-states to essentially keep a slave labour class in place and avoid peasant revolts due to mass hunger to the detriment of everyone--and that often breaks down, see EU dairy farmer protests in 2012/13/20, and the widespread Indian suicides in the early 2000s and now the farmer revolts happening in New Dehli. Not to mention the amount of subsidies there are for multinationals to sell processed junk into the Market and sold to children school programs at an inflated prices that have resulted in lots of disease and have actually made the average population shorter: a possible inference and consequence of undernourishment due to consuming nutrient deficient food.
The Tesla model, while only slightly relevant due to State and Federal subsidies for EVs, is not painting as good as a picture as an analogy for the reasons you think if you have an understanding of either or both Industries: I happen to have worked in both.
But suffice it to say that up until recently (Federal subsidy of $7500 expired in 2019) in the US where most Tesla deliveries take place--specifically CA-- and where most of the fruit in the US is grown in (Central Valley) it is safe to say that EXACTLY both of those things happened to a certain degree.
Farming works at scale. Back the day when i was a kind, there were a hell of a lot of part-time farmers in bavaria. Working a day job in a factory and running a farm, usually an old family farm, as a side business. That changed, now most of those I know rented out their farmable land to larger full-time farming neighbors. none of these people were necessariyl poor, so. At least going by their equipment and cars, even back when cars were bought and not leased. It still is a hell of a job, with basically no free time.
I think it is different for others regions, were soil is less well suited and getting the necessary scale is difficult.
That’s not how the Tesla subsidies works and that is a naive interpretation of what I said. The tax credits were a transaction between the Federal government and Tesla’s customers. Tesla still got paid the $7,500 and there was no fanciful economics there.
> That’s not how the Tesla subsidies works and that is a naive interpretation of what I said. The tax credits were a transaction between the Federal government and Tesla’s customers. Tesla still got paid the $7,500 and there was no fanciful economics there.
Actually it isn't, and you are only focusing on the Federal Tax credit whereas I purposely mentioned California's EV program in my statement (but didn't elaborate for brevity's sake) that deducts the sticker price for the end consumer in various ways [0] with State/Local Government based subsidies that make Tesla's product (and other EVs for that matter) more accessible to the end consumer.
In the end I think its one of the few examples of a good use of taxes, unlike the Ag based subsidy model; but to deny it isn't a direct benefit to Tesla is to deny reality as most EV and Hybrid deliveries take place in California by a significant margin and thus proves my actual claim that you see these practices in Ag as well.
Actually, they do: subsidies distort the hell of out the price discovery mechanisms in Markets. At no point in time can a farmer sell a 1lb(~1/2Kg) of tomatoes at the hieght of season for for $1 or less, much less in the off-season. And yet they do because of the distortions in correctly pricing the inputs, transport and labour as a result of wanting to remain on the crop insurance and subsidy program.
This is seen the World over in various ways too, in the EU farmers are paid to let their fields go fallow and orchids entirely neglected for seasons; it's one of the biggest reason why Farming as a profession has an average age of 60+ World wide as any younger person not born into the Lifestyle or from a Legacy Farming family will quickly see how impractical it is to operate with this system in what amounts to near subsistence levels of poverty. As an outsider going into the Industry for culinary and ecological activist reasons it's incredibly daunting when you realize that in 100 years we created a system in which less than ~2% of the World's population feeds the ~98% and how fragile this system is and how much of a miracle it hasn't blown up in our faces long ago.
It's maintained by fanciful economic machinations and make-believe accounting created by Nation-states to essentially keep a slave labour class in place and avoid peasant revolts due to mass hunger to the detriment of everyone--and that often breaks down, see EU dairy farmer protests in 2012/13/20, and the widespread Indian suicides in the early 2000s and now the farmer revolts happening in New Dehli. Not to mention the amount of subsidies there are for multinationals to sell processed junk into the Market and sold to children school programs at an inflated prices that have resulted in lots of disease and have actually made the average population shorter: a possible inference and consequence of undernourishment due to consuming nutrient deficient food.
The Tesla model, while only slightly relevant due to State and Federal subsidies for EVs, is not painting as good as a picture as an analogy for the reasons you think if you have an understanding of either or both Industries: I happen to have worked in both.
But suffice it to say that up until recently (Federal subsidy of $7500 expired in 2019) in the US where most Tesla deliveries take place--specifically CA-- and where most of the fruit in the US is grown in (Central Valley) it is safe to say that EXACTLY both of those things happened to a certain degree.