It wouldn't even take the US to end hunger. The amount of food waste across the world is staggering. Trouble is getting the food from where it is, to where it isn't. That takes actual work and eeeewww work!
Actually, I've delivered food "waste" in the form of fruit that fell off bagging machines onto the floor. What stopped that was the warehouse manager threatening firings and possibly criminal charges for taking "product" out the door despite it being explained that in reality it was actually "food waste" that goes in the dumpster along with hundreds of others of it's kind every day. So no, it's not about "eeeewww work", it's more obstacles set in place by people in authority, whether that is corporate or government. In addition there is little incentive to encourage it financially in the business, who may see donating "waste" product as creating supply in a way that negatively impacts retail sales down the road. My suggestion would be a local/state authorized pickup service for food wasters -> food charities and corporate donative tax breaks derived therefrom. The second part for tax breaks exists already to some degree, but an official local/state delivery truck that can be counted on to arrive timely during the facility's machine cleaning and sanitation shift on it's route to collect the local donations so they don't require refridgeration space at the factory location would help.
Farm subsidies are not as simple to reduce as you'd think. To some extent it's worth paying them to ensure that there are always farmers producing food; you don't want them to quit when there are "short term" market disruptions that would otherwise put them out of business, which then would result in shortages later. Consider all the recent industries we *didn't* subsidize; COVID catalyzed the departure of supply from the market, and now there just isn't a supply at all, which means prices go up for what is left. We *could have* subsidized these industries, to keep them producing, so we wouldn't now have shortages. But no, subsidies are bad!
It's been a while since I've read much about agriculture, but you may be confusing crop insurances with subsidies. An argument against subsidies is that it drives the price of food up by paying large producers to not produce as much. As you said, this is useful to hinder unsustainably low prices. However when prices are high or there is a lack of supply it may be that subsidies could be temporarily reduced to encourage more planting. However that may be politically unviable as large agro producers are dominating the political scene for food producers, and besides lobbying, producers also have done such things as coordinated food dumping in the past over disputes regarding prices; for example milk producers dumping product onto the ground in protest over low prices, though I am unsure without checking if that was organizationally driven or individual acts. While that is less likely in a time of high prices I would assume, I can also assume there are avenues (including societal influence) for which large producers and agro organizations could negatively impact supply (thus raising price and pressure on government) and blame regulation, loss of subsides, etc and I would guess be completely in the clear civilly and legally. Thus there may be a social cost to lowering subsidies that raises prices even further during a price crunch, which the public would directly attribute to government action whether fair or unfair.
Another argument against subsidies is that small producers directly benefit far less from them and are greatly irritated by this, but that has even less to do with the recent price spike in global food prices I think.
In addition there were a number of covid related business payouts. If I may list an example favorable for the purpose and be excused for it not being a manufacturing industry, the airline industry received a large bailout and yet fares are very high right now. An economist or former regulator I read IIRC in an opinion piece around that time suggested they should sell some of their fleet as that may create competitors instead of a bailout, but they got the bailout after threatening massive layoffs of employees and of grounding their fleets for the pandemic instead. I am no expert and can't say whether it was necessary at the time, but when I read about high fares in an article recently that was what I thought of.
Also in an earlier post I recommended bringing the price of fertilizer down. What I should have meant was increase production of.
The issue I have with things like "public" anything is that you have to be careful to strike a balance of having the recipients of said public benefit have some kind of stake in it. If you just give things to people, but don't enfranchise them with it, they'll just let it devolve into squalor.
I would be curious how enfranchise would be defined in that quote.
I think the government could do more to discourage the increasing trend of real estate megacorps buying up housing. I think this could be applied to any industry: tax rates should be proportional to market share, not just to profit. This way you discourage consolidation. Consolidation is only good if it results in efficiency, typically only in manufacturing; consolidation in literal rent-seeking industries is anathema.
Yes indeed on your thoughts on consolidation of rentals. I also think public housing expansions would be a good idea; it may be I'd live in a concrete box+amenities with a small window in a big ugly building if it was possible to live in my concrete box paying rent by myself and if it did not require having me working 30 to 40+hrs a week yet with no savings for future investment in production capital of my own (I paid absurd rent for a one room the last time I did that which is why I'm complaining about saving while living on my own). NYC is doing some expansions for homeless shelters I read in the Times, but to me it sounds more like forced relocation to (for-profit?) facilities that ends with homeless individuals encouraged into signing a bank loan to escape curfew controls and other residency restrictions in the shelters. However that complete guess is a product of my own cynicism while reading some positive tone Times articles so I should clarify I don't know much about it besides those articles and it doesn't sound completely bad. Hopefully it's not an incarceration-lite system of profitable control that I'm making it out to be, but I also have read reasons to be skeptical of for-profit providers relying on government authority to pack them if that is what is being employed (articles were light on details, mostly an emotive piece, they followed politicians around to their events and what they did on day 1, 2 and 3 with positive quotes from a homeless person included).
I think a problem in your idea for taxation based on market share would be that it could be very bad for companies introducing absolutely new products, where they would have 100% or near the market share, as well as issues with patent right's exclusivity to production (unless that was scrapped recently and I missed it). Otherwise at first glance it seems worthy of discussion, such as how broadly the categories of products are demarcated as broad demarcations such as by beverage sector rather than by dividing soda pop from beer would significantly change market shares. However I would warn (especially if this is an emerging meme that isn't your idea) to study very carefully what companies would gain and lose in this, as well as whether they could simply break up into smaller affiliates or otherwise mostly avoid it but their competion cannot for some reason, or if market shares in their industry would generally end up low enough that it is effectively a broad tax reduction cloaked in virtue to disguise it.
I have some thoughts on your earlier post soliciting thoughts on inflation, but I would ask permission first as I may feel the urge to toot my own horn a bit by quoting an old post of mine from damn near a decade ago.
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Topic: Armchair Economics Thread - Re-Resurrection (Read 33980 times)