Saturday, June 30, 2007

The Price of Milk

You may not know this, but California actually has a minimum price for milk. That's right, stores cannot sell milk below the minimum price set by government--and that price is soon set to rise by a dollar a gallon.

The minimum retail price for a gallon of low-fat milk, said the department, will be $3.10, compared to $2.10 in January.


This snip from the linked story takes the (dairyless) cake:

In California, the Department of Food and Agriculture sets the price of milk paid farmers by examining market prices of four commodities, said Kelly Krug, director of the Division of Marketing. These are butter, dry milk powder, whey powder and cheddar cheese.

"If it were a totally free market, the trading of these commodities could translate into the (figure) that farmers get,'' said Krug.

Got socialism?

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

California is making it really easy for me to accomplish that much-vaunted goal of believing several impossible things before breakfast.

After our recent changes to the US Postal Service, I've established the First Rule of Subsidies: If it can't compete, make it more expensive and more complicated.

Anonymous said...

Pennsylvania too--it's a dairy state. See here.