OFF: Re: Foot & Mouth

[M Holmes]

Carl Edlund Anderson writes:

> At 12.54 +0000 22.3.2001, M Holmes wrote:

> >A country with
> >endemic disease loses export markets which adds losses on top of the 20%
> >assuming that the local populace doesn't absorb all output.
>
> Though why the UK exports produce when it doesn't produce enough to
> feed itself is equally mysterious to me -- thank heavens I'm no
> economist! :)

An economist called Ricardo covered that one a while back. Basically he
said that even if one country produces absolutely everything cheaper
than another country, they'll both get richer if both specialise and
trade. It always looks like there has to be some kind of cheating
involved, but the math works out.

> Since farming is such a tiny part of the UK's economy,
> the real damage seems to be to the tourist industry, which just adds
> an extra layer of surrealality to the whole thing.

That's if the tourists actually stop coming. If they just stay in the
towns then there's no reason to suppose they'll just sit in their hotel
rooms rather than go out and spend money.

Why farmers are treated like royalty pretty much everywhere but Zimbabwe
is another mystery, but it's possibly related to national defence and
worries about blockades.

> And, of course,
> farmers don't usually vote Labour, so perhaps that explains the
> gov't's haphazard approach to the whole thing ;)

You have something there I suspect.

> Luckily, no one confiscates your computer and burns it if it
> contracts a virus, even if it temporarily slows down your
> productivity :)

Yet.

FoFP