Is Thanksgiving a Poverty Trap?
And monkey labor!
We have become pretty detached from the original meaning of Thanksgiving: to thank God for our harvest. That’s because I don’t actually harvest my own food. But that’s because I live in a rich country where I can easily buy food from the grocery store.
But when we’re thinking about poverty traps, the harvest can be really important. In this week’s video, I talk about how the harvest affects cognitive resources for the poor.
Farm value
Speaking of harvests, here’s an interesting GIF of US farm values over time.
Turkey or chicken?
Last year for Thanksgiving I did a video about how a Chinese smuggler made billions of dollars. One of his techniques was importing chicken but saying it was turkey. He was exploiting some loopholes with tariffs.
Wine Economics
Continuing our food and tariffs theme, let’s talk about wine. The U.S. put higher tariffs on wine with 14% alcohol or less. What do you think happened?
Well, most economists would say that when you build a 20-foot wall, you create a market for 21-foot ladders. If you arbitrarily increase the price of alcohol for certain characteristics, that means you just need to avoid those features. And so they have! A wine maker is now making his bottles with 14.02% alcohol, allowing him to sell in the U.S. for $153 instead of $191. Economics!
Monkey Labor
Which brings me to one of my favorite economics stories of the year. Costco dropped a brand of coconut milk from its shelves. The problem? The coconut farmers were allegedly using trained monkeys to harvest their coconuts.
Rather than recognize how awesome this is, some groups protested and said it was animal cruelty. My best guess is that instead of being gainfully employed, these monkeys are now collecting unemployment checks and binge-watching Netflix.
Upon further reflection, I realized this was probably a good thing. It’s going to be a long time before robots can do my job, but I’m worried that it wouldn’t take that long to train a monkey to be my replacement.