Comments by "Mat Broomfield" (@matbroomfield) on "India PM Narendra Modi repeals controversial farm laws - BBC News" video.

"An emotional response" you patronising fool! Their concerns were 100% valid. Once you remove price guarantees, industrial farms can undercut everyone at a loss in order to drive them out of business before returning to whatever rates they want. That results in less farmers, less choice for consumers, and ultimately higher prices. That's not an "emotional response" that's economics 101 - the Walmart model. You only have to look at Australian cattle farming to see this in action.
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@rajesh2517 It's supply and demand, not "demand and supply". And that's not even the right example to use. Supply and demand suggests that where there is a demand, a supplier will arise to fulfill it - it says nothing about WHO that supplier will be. There is clearly a demand and multiple suppliers ALL of whom can make a fair living. There is NO competition when one party holds all the cards. It's like a boxing match between 25 year old superheavyweight and a 90 year old with a walking stick. Small farmers have NO chance against industrial farms in a deregulated market. That's why anti-trust, anti-monopoly laws exist in every first world nation on the planet. Competition is good - deregulated competition is appalling and destroys competition in the long term. You sound like a libertarian. Bro.
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@rajesh2517 "economic liberty is always good" No it's not. What a masssively simplistic assertion. Economic liberty is stifled by the capacity of a single player to capture the entire market. Just look at gas prices right now - only a very few mega players in the market, so when they decide to double the price, everybody just has to swallow it down. Look at electricity costs in Texas - a single supplier, and when they fucked up, they penalised their customers to the cost of tens of thousands of dollars each AND they still had no power! "oh why would u think a farmer will have to compete an industrialist? Won't there be competition between industrialists and benefit to farmers and consumers?" Industrial scale farming destroys small farmers. There is an economy of scale, and economy of purchase for seeds and feed, and the power to dictate prices to purchasers. Small farmers simply cannot compete with that. As for competition between industrial farmers, yes, that may be the case, but how does that help all the small farmers pushed out of business?
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@Keshav Jindal "Also, capitalism and privatization beats communism and excess red tape hands down." Moderated capitalism maybe, but corporations and oligarchs always power grab and ruin it. That's why 99% of the world's wealth is in the hands of less than 1% of the population, income inequality is rising, and poverty is rising.
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@rajesh2517 I know how capitalism works. It works more or less the same the world over. But you're right, I don't live in India, and you don't live in America but I'm sure you have opinions about events over there?
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Exactly. The country should not forget them at the polling booths.
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@gujarati16 Economics is economics the world over. The law may have have cut out the middle man but it would also have removed laws that ensure farmers always received a fair minimum rate for their products. In so doing, that would surely have enabled those who could afford to charge less to drive out of business, those who already charged the minimum required to make a living. I don't think you have to know much about Indian farmers to comprehend that, and snapping at people who showed compassion only makes YOU look like the bad guy.
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Nonsense. If there were no forthcoming elections, he would have done nothing. If 100s of deaths didn't sway him, what makes you think he cares?
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@hunniebunnies Where did I say anything about their relative wealth?
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@nishchoyghoshdastidar9701 No, I'm definitely not. So what did I say that is incorrect?
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@sneha-uj3fx This is not an area that I have any expertise in, but it appears that this is a complicated issue, where MSP was not applied unilaterally across all crops, and where MSP already gave them less than international prices, although still a 50% profit. On one hand, I am somewhat opposed to price fixing, but ion the other, I am totally opposed to complete deregulation.
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@ashwatimenon5481 I must admit, I'm surprised at how loyal they are to him when so many lives were lost. Perhaps they were not his fault, and India's police are not known for going gently. Is Mohdi a very beloved leader?
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@ashwatimenon5481 Ah really. Does he accomplish anything good?
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@ashwatimenon5481 Thank you for that perspective. Most interest. Sadly, it seems as though demagogues are rising to power across the planet.
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@agentnoobz5588 Deregulation is like boiling a frog - one small step at a time until they're all powerless.
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