Pentagon Quake Nightmare: Fukushima on the Mississippi
More on the Opacity of Bank of America’s Financial Statements
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Category Archives: Money
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Lost Incan City of Machu Picchu: 100 Years after Discovery by ‘Indiana Jones’
A Bridge to Somewhere (but in the wrong place)
Thanks for the doctors, New York
WHEAT AND TRADE: Primarily interesting because of this comment….
Even if the US eventually signs the agreement, wheat growers will not be able to capture that market from the Canadians, who are by far the best wheat growers in the world. The ordinary farmer in Saskatchewan or Manitoba cleans his grain to seed grade before it ever leaves the farm. Downstream from there it might be cleaned up even more, right down to zero weeds and zero foreign matter.
American export standards allow up to 3% foreign matter and 1% weed seeds. There’s no reason for an American farmer to clean his grain because he knows that once it gets to the river terminal the consolidator has tanks of sand and bins of weed seed available to ADD to the grain in order to get right up to the export limits. As a general rule, once foreign buyers have experienced Canadian quality, they don’t care about American price.
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Coincidental beneficial parallel decisions
Parcel carriers are penalizing customers who attempt to use consultants to negotiate lower rates.
This is flagrantly anti-competitive.
I don’t think the government should be involved, however. Parcel freight customers are choosing to allow carriers to overcharge them. They are aware of what is happening (so it is not fraud) and they can always accept the higher cost of working with another organization–forming their own logistics network, or using USPS.
But the freight carriers are pretending this is not collusion, it’s just coincidence:
“At an industry conference in late 2009, UPS and FedEx executives went public with their intent to minimize their dealings with consultants. In separate internal policy memos the following spring, they codified that intent, essentially forcing shippers to negotiate directly with them or risk having their contracts canceled and all the pricing benefits associated with the contract eliminated.”