Monday, August 07, 2006
AN OILY ALLEGORY
In a mythical town in Alaska, there is a bakery. Let's call it BP -- Bakery Products…LLC.
And suppose that, one sunny day, the baker there discovers that he has left the lid off the flour buckets and that some worms had gotten into the flour. Or maybe he discovers that the flour has been dumped out on the factory floor, ostensibly ruining his supply. This writer expects that, in the latter case, the owners of BP would, instead of getting new flour, scoop the old stuff up and continue with the baking. Then they'd tell you that there had been a hurricane or something and that, due to unforeseen circumstances, the price of bread would go up exponentially and apologize in a written statement read on CNN by the bakery's CEO. But, I digress.
The baker, having discovered the worms, would say "Oops, I have made a mistake." The baker's superior would, no doubt, be upset when he realized he would have to shut down production of the bakery until the problem was sorted out. And, if in the process of cleaning up the plant, the manager discovered that the lids on ALL the flour buckets were defective, the plant would need to be shut down for some time. Who would pay for the new lids at the bakery? If this WAS bread-making, the manufacturer would probably, ahem, eat the cost of the lids. If they tried to pass the costs on to the consumer and, instead of $1.29, BP bread now cost $4 a loaf, there would be no French Revolutionary riots. People would simply switch brands or go on another Atkins kick and stop eating bread altogether.
And what if, sometime before that, BP had begun adding crack cocaine to their bread to make it irresistible to their customers. People would become addicted to the stuff. They would HAVE TO HAVE their BP Bread. People would be lining up around corners to get it. People would be dying for it. And, in the same breaths with which they decried the cost of a loaf, people would say that we should be thankful. People in Europe pay a much higher amount for a kilo of bread, they'd say in grave tones, though they really don’t even know how much a kilo is. But all the while, they would grow more bloated and gassy from the bread they have already eaten, while plotting from whence their next loaf would come.
If bread were that addictive, would there be any limit to how much BP could charge us for a loaf? A slice?
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Are you crossing over into "long emergency" territory?