On Sat, 09 Aug 2003 00:09:15 GMT, "Gordon Couger"
wrote:

Torsten Brinch wrote:
Gordon Couger: "I will agree with you about the cheese in the supermarket.
But you can get good cheese you have to order it or go to a specitly store
if you are in a city. We do pay a price for having the cheapest food on
the planet. Aged cheese and beef are expensive and not avilble in
every grocery store."

I would be interested in knowing how you understand 'cheapest' in this
context, noting that you do not read it as a reference to the relation
between the price of food in USA and the price of food in other
countries on the planet.

To get cheap food an other items we have more or less made uniform
commodities of them. Unless you are in a city where there are shops that
cater to people that know better and are willing to pay for it the
supermarkets have a sameness in food that is sold with advertising and
buying preferential shelf space in the store.

The cost is the choice in cheeses is limited to some that are aged a very
short time and meat that is too lean for my tastes. Everything has been
vertically integrated. There are 3 major produce wholesalers in the state
and they can pretty well dictate what the grocery stores get. Over the last
15 years we have gone from 1 chain grocery store and 5 locally owned ones to
1 locally owned one and 3 chain stores. Two of them big chains. That have
what they stock and tough if you want something else.

The gains are the cost of food is about 7% of disposable income snip

OK, since you keep returning to this statistic, food cost as
percentage of disposable income, I must assume that is the basis
for you saying, that USA has the cheapest food on the planet.

Firstly, to use this statistic measure to indicate that food is
'cheap' is _misuse of statistics_. If anything, that measure
can be used - with some caution - as an indicator of affluence.

Secondly, the number you present [food costs ~7% of disposable income]
is itself not correct. E.g. for the year 2000, total disposable income
in USA was 7,120 billion US$, and total food expenditure was 825
billion US$. That is: ~12% of total disposable income.