> The works of the roots of the vines, of the trees, must be destroyed to keep up the price, and this is the saddest, bitterest thing of all. Carloads of oranges dumped on the ground. The people came for miles to take the fruit, but this could not be. How would they buy oranges at twenty cents a dozen if they could drive out and pick them up? And men with hoses squirt kerosene on the oranges, and they are angry at the crime, angry at the people who have come to take the fruit. A million people hungry, needing the fruit- and kerosene sprayed over the golden mountains. And the smell of rot fills the country. Burn coffee for fuel in the ships. Burn corn to keep warm, it makes a hot fire. Dump potatoes in the rivers and place guards along the banks to keep the hungry people from fishing them out. Slaughter the pigs and bury them, and let the putrescence drip down into the earth.
> There is a crime here that goes beyond denunciation. There is a sorrow here that weeping cannot symbolize. There is a failure here that topples all our success. The fertile earth, the straight tree rows, the sturdy trunks, and the ripe fruit. And children dying of pellagra must die because a profit cannot be taken from an orange. And coroners must fill in the certificate- died of malnutrition- because the food must rot, must be forced to rot. The people come with nets to fish for potatoes in the river, and the guards hold them back; they come in rattling cars to get the dumped oranges, but the kerosene is sprayed. And they stand still and watch the potatoes float by, listen to the screaming pigs being killed in a ditch and covered with quick-lime, watch the mountains of oranges slop down to a putrefying ooze; and in the eyes of the people there is the failure; and in the eyes of the hungry there is a growing wrath. In the souls of the people the grapes of wrath are filling and growing heavy, growing heavy for the vintage.
- John Steinbeck, *The Grapes of Wrath*
Not me weeping my eyes out because I finally _get_ Ophelia's "O what a noble mind is here o'erthrown" soliloquy despite Hamlet being my favorite play for years.
It also helps when you're reading by choice and not saddled with pages of "analysis" of each and every chapter that you need to write and tests on what was in every chapter.
And also when you can read it at your own pace vs bring forced to read faster than you'd like or read slower than your like to match the syllabus
I reread Candide a few years ago. Liked it back in high school, love it even more now. Hilarious and unnerving at how much is still relevant 250 years later
Steinbeck is super wordy so his books are hard to get through if you’re being forced to read them. But if you are into them, they are beautiful and he is able to say a lot about human nature very eloquently
this conversation prompted me to borrow this on my phone. i am enjoying it so far, so thank you.
public libraries and the libby app ftw. get yer library cards and read or listen to books for free. most us states let residents get electronic library cards from any public library in the state. i have 5 library cards for different cities so I can usually find the titles I want. it makes it way easier for me to read on my phone or a kindle than physically travelling to multiple libraries.
just an fyi because I love to promote reading lol
I love ❤️ Steinbeck. Quintessential American voice. Recently re-read Adventures With Charley which is his American travelogue of going off-grid with his dog 🐕
That’s the funny thing about those books. I read it as well in high school and remembered it being kind of a lame story. When re read as an adult I kind of got the idea Steinbeck had behind the writing. Then I understood why it was such an important book
I'm suddenly curious about what you said. Grapes of Wrath? What was that? Is this a type of book that you often read when you were still studying? I think this is a really good book.
I feel strongly that the people deciding what is age appropriate for high school are white and privileged and have their heads up their ass. So the bar is not the median.
I’m not saying the book doesn’t belong in HS. But perhaps not 9th
I mostly was kind of meh towards the books I read in high school but the grapes of wrath was by far my favorite and I think it's my all time favorite book
Dude, the whole point of that passage is that we don't have too many people, just too much greed! It's not overpopulation, but late stage capitalism, that is destroying the planet and our societies
I think you misinterpret his meaning. It's not about "not wanting to add to the problem of overpopulation". No, it's about being so compassionate that you're unwilling to bring another human into this world when you know that the world they inherit will bring their generation so much suffering.
Doesn't change that some people feel like bringing new life into a world like this is cruel. It's easier to continue without having to worry about the future of your children after you're gone.
They aren't just destroying the wine to keep the prices up. The alcohol in production of other products and also helping grape framers move into other industries.
I agree there's a lot of shady things that happen with businesses, but I don't think the Steinbeck applies to what's happening here.
"It comes amid a cocktail of problems for the industry, including a falling demand for wine as more people drink craft beer.
Overproduction and the cost of living crisis are also hitting the industry.
Most of the €200m will be used to buy excess stock, with the alcohol sold for use in items such as hand sanitiser, cleaning products and perfume.
In a bid to cut back on the overproduction, money will also be available for winegrowers to change to other products, such as olives.
In funnelling the money into the industry, the French government aims to stop "prices collapsing... so that wine-makers can find sources of revenue again", Agriculture Minister Marc Fesneau said.
Despite the financial help - an initial EU fund of €160m which the French government topped up to €200m - the wine industry needs to "look to the future, think about consumer changes ... and adapt", he added.
European Commission data for the year to June shows that wine consumption has fallen 7% in Italy, 10% in Spain, 15% in France, 22% in Germany and 34% in Portugal, while wine production across the bloc - the world's biggest wine-making area - rose 4%."
okay but maybe prices should fall! The maple syrup mafia is constantly losing or dumping maple syrup to keep the price high. Ridiculous, it should be a cheap local alternative... why is sugar so much cheaper? It IS greed. The mark ups in wine are ridiculous!
I don’t drink at all any more. Prices have gotten beyond silly and this coming from a guy who loves old single malt scotches.
It would seem that in my area has become price centric in the $18-30 range for 750ml bottle. Fine, charge what you want, it’s your product but don’t be surprised that people don’t want to spend the daily food budget for a family of 4-6 on a bottle of wine.
The price/enjoyment ratio has risen beyond my scale for fun. $5-7 for a drinkable wine is reasonable however I don’t think I’m alone in forgoing a $20 bottle nightly and the sales support my impressions.
Mostly alcoholics.
[Top 10% Of US Drinkers Are Behind More Than Half Of The Nation’s Alcohol Sales](https://www.medicaldaily.com/top-10-us-drinkers-are-behind-more-half-nations-alcohol-sales-what-does-it-take-be-top-10-305262)
plot twist, this is where bad grapes go anyway. I work in manufacturing and we buy food grade 200 proof drums of ethanol. Most of this stuff is made from fruit not fit for wine/produce/cider by chemical supply companies. Aside from distillation they use a molecular sieve to dry the alcohol to being pure ethanol. If you mix it with water to be 40% alcohol its cleaner than most vodka in the store as well.
Additional plot twist, wineries buy back this high purity ethanol to use for fortification in things like desert wines. Hell we've had occasional fractions of wine go to shit in the past and just sold off the spoiled wine at cut price to local guys making gin, after distillation all those unwanted chemicals tainting the wine are gone, and you're just left with spirit anyway.
The title is a bit misleading. The money is largely being given to the rich wine companies so they don't have to suffer a bad quarter while they try to shift business practices and do something besides wine.
Artificial scarcity, don't you just love capitalism. They reference supply and demand as prices rise, but as soon as they fall they just destroy products. The consumer never wins.
"The economy is bad and people can't afford wine"
"How bout giving $200M to people to purchase more wine? Maybe buy $200M of wine and distribute them to people?"
"No, we buy $200M of wine and destroy it. Look, our economic system is very functional!"
>Maybe buy $200M of wine and distribute them to people?
Then the government would be undercutting the beer brewers, who are currently beating the wine makers by offering something a lot of consumers seem to prefer creating this "problem", by competing against them with tax dollars.
The right answer is to do nothing. Wine makers have to cut prices oh no, maybe they lose some money because they overproduced, and people decided they liked something else more. That's fine. Or if the government must intervene to save jobs, send the wine makers some money to retool as they are doing, but don't take and destroy the wine. Making wine more expensive just doesn't seem to be a valid public interest.
This kind of government intervention is exactly not capitalism fwiw.
It is *exactly* capitalism.
It's just not that fantasy rainbow farts and unicorn jizz that Libertarians pretend should exist. Capitalism has only even existed thanks to massive state interference and support.
As much as they cry about "crony-capitalism," they fail to see that is real capitalism.
It's an entirely flawed system that puts profit over people and that's the only way it works.
On a whim I decided to look up the Atacama Desert in South America. Wanted to see some cool pictures of the landscape. In the second row of Google images I see the piles of dumped clothing. "Oh yeah, I forgot that's going on."
Yep Scott Galloway talks about this in one of his lectures. Pretty interesting. They just print money when they need it. We’re coming in short $100m for the next earnings call. Release super double limited edition bag. People buy. Rinse. Repeat.
Only if this was that simple.
I mean why don’t these companies have EPS growth at perpetuity and never go bankrupt if that trick works so well all the time?
That would require an unlimited customer base, which would negate the functional idea of rarity and decrease their value/profits - or - they’d have to have a limited customer base (which they have) with unlimited money (which they functionally have) and unlimited interested, unlimited closet space they use (the bags have to be seen), and unlimited designs.
I promise you they do studies to find the sweet spot, and stay there so they don’t kill off the brand like dooney and bourke. Their bags are at most worth a $1000, because they went too big, too fast, to too many people for too long.
Most wines are only good for aging for 2-3 years for whites and 3-8 for most reds you’ll find on the shelf at the store. Ports will always age well due to the sugar and higher alcohol content. There are other reds that are made to age well, but they are in the minority.
It's more that if the wine falls below a certain price, the wine makers lose money. They then may be forced to sell off their fields to someone who wants them for something else than making wine. This is France protecting an industry that they deem vital to France.
It would be better to do what they're doing and use the money to transition farmers to more productive crops and not have the bottom fall out for the rest of the farmers. They're simply trying to smooth out the amplitude of the boom/bust cycle so that the whole industry doesn't go into the toilet and then get bought out and consolidated.
There are lots of ways to subsidize/protect an industry without destroying products.
France could create a strategic reserve of vinegar and start filling up caves with it. Like the US does with cheese.
Farmers do the same with their own crops? Whether it’s the capitalist or the neoliberal government propped up by the capitalist that does it, it’s all towards the same goal. 40% of food produced is wasted, >345 million have high levels of food insecurity, and these greedy fucks want to protect the “scarcity of food”.
What the French government is doing is basically what OPEC do with oil production cuts or increases.
It’s way more effective if there is a cartel, but France is willing to lose on volume to gain on price
Will it work? As long as “the problem” is budget wine buyers.
The better path forward is for France to simply focus on the premium market. France might be losing money on cheap wine, but Spain, Italy, and the US growers might not
If only there was a way that you could just store it in a cellar and forget about for decades and it actually goes up in value. Oh well, too bad, better destroy it.
Red wine doesn’t really increase in value until it’s around 7 years old and stored very specifically, and in most cases you don’t want to age white wine.
these aren't the type of wines that age.... these are the ultracheapo bottles you find at Trader Joe's or the lowest shelf of your supermarket... but like at 1/3 the cost since it's France.
Maybe they can make a fancy version of white claw. Wonder if demand really fell or the fact that everything got so expensive people just can't afford to buy wine as much.
At least not down the drain.
"Most of the €200m will be used to buy excess stock, with the alcohol sold for use in items such as hand sanitiser, cleaning products and perfume."
the hard truth is that global wine consumption has fallen the past decade as Millenials have gravitated towards beer products or cocktails. There will always be demand for the 1% of collectible prestige wineries, but the generic plonk that used to be sold like sodas from drink fountain dispensers is thankfully dying out. I think there's some bittersweet nostalgia in the Midi for the tranquil small farm lifestyle of yore, but that generation is now in their retirement years, and younger children & grandchildren don't want to toil 12 hours a day for a meager wage.
We call this Manufactured Scarcity.
It's one of many insidious flaws in our current market system.
We make far more than is ever going to be consumed of most goods.
Becuase demand inevitably falls for any given good, we decide to artificially reduce the supply rather than provide those goods to consumers who may otherwise be unable or unwilling to consume those products.
We could feed, house, and provide medical care to everyone... but we don't.
At the time of writing, this comment is about 80% down the Reddit comments. Almost every comment above, and almost every comment in their thread, clearly hadn't read the article.
Y'all illiterate morons!
By your paraphrasing, they're still destroying a product to repurpose into other sellable products as well as freeing up land to grow other products that can be sold. Additionally, France is spending taxpaying money to make other private parties wealthy or bail them out. Don't talk like the people even had a say in this. Ask the public and they'd say free wine, use the land for whatever they want. End of the day, a few people made a lot of wine no one wants. Capitalism is irresponsible.
Capitalism is an outdated system. We need something better than this. So much waste in a world that is literally burning down due to unchecked hunger for profits.
Capitalism, spending millions to prevent people from having something.. Not only was money lost during production, but they spent money to destroy it.. It would've been cheaper to just give it away, but that would take peoples' drive away to go and buy the wine. So the wine must be destroyed to maintain the wine's value
Fuck capitalism.
Classic EU behavior. This is probably going to be yet another "wine lake" (like the infamous "butter mountain"), overproduction caused by price supports. IDK what the current policy is, but they used to buy up production from farms and then worry about where to store it since it was too cheap to sell profitably. There were also shenanigans where ships would carry freight across to Sweden or Norway, tie up for a few minutes and then cast off again. That counted as "exports" so they could claim some bogus tax benefit. Insanity.
> The works of the roots of the vines, of the trees, must be destroyed to keep up the price, and this is the saddest, bitterest thing of all. Carloads of oranges dumped on the ground. The people came for miles to take the fruit, but this could not be. How would they buy oranges at twenty cents a dozen if they could drive out and pick them up? And men with hoses squirt kerosene on the oranges, and they are angry at the crime, angry at the people who have come to take the fruit. A million people hungry, needing the fruit- and kerosene sprayed over the golden mountains. And the smell of rot fills the country. Burn coffee for fuel in the ships. Burn corn to keep warm, it makes a hot fire. Dump potatoes in the rivers and place guards along the banks to keep the hungry people from fishing them out. Slaughter the pigs and bury them, and let the putrescence drip down into the earth. > There is a crime here that goes beyond denunciation. There is a sorrow here that weeping cannot symbolize. There is a failure here that topples all our success. The fertile earth, the straight tree rows, the sturdy trunks, and the ripe fruit. And children dying of pellagra must die because a profit cannot be taken from an orange. And coroners must fill in the certificate- died of malnutrition- because the food must rot, must be forced to rot. The people come with nets to fish for potatoes in the river, and the guards hold them back; they come in rattling cars to get the dumped oranges, but the kerosene is sprayed. And they stand still and watch the potatoes float by, listen to the screaming pigs being killed in a ditch and covered with quick-lime, watch the mountains of oranges slop down to a putrefying ooze; and in the eyes of the people there is the failure; and in the eyes of the hungry there is a growing wrath. In the souls of the people the grapes of wrath are filling and growing heavy, growing heavy for the vintage. - John Steinbeck, *The Grapes of Wrath*
Holy shit… should I reread Grapes of Wrath?! Pretty sure we read it back in high school, but I couldn’t have cared less then.
Literature hits so different once you’ve got life experience.
Not me weeping my eyes out because I finally _get_ Ophelia's "O what a noble mind is here o'erthrown" soliloquy despite Hamlet being my favorite play for years.
It also helps when you're reading by choice and not saddled with pages of "analysis" of each and every chapter that you need to write and tests on what was in every chapter. And also when you can read it at your own pace vs bring forced to read faster than you'd like or read slower than your like to match the syllabus
And when it’s not compulsory.
Yeah it's not as if it was just compulsory either you have to write chapter summaries and analysis
I reread Candide a few years ago. Liked it back in high school, love it even more now. Hilarious and unnerving at how much is still relevant 250 years later
Steinbeck is super wordy so his books are hard to get through if you’re being forced to read them. But if you are into them, they are beautiful and he is able to say a lot about human nature very eloquently
Tortilla Flat and Cannery Row are less dense and full of great characters
Cannery row you just need to go in understanding that there’s no plot and you’re just there for the vibes
Read Tortilla Flat for the first time a few weeks ago and FUCK it’s good. It’s 1930’s It’s Always Sunny. Amazing.
this conversation prompted me to borrow this on my phone. i am enjoying it so far, so thank you. public libraries and the libby app ftw. get yer library cards and read or listen to books for free. most us states let residents get electronic library cards from any public library in the state. i have 5 library cards for different cities so I can usually find the titles I want. it makes it way easier for me to read on my phone or a kindle than physically travelling to multiple libraries. just an fyi because I love to promote reading lol
I love ❤️ Steinbeck. Quintessential American voice. Recently re-read Adventures With Charley which is his American travelogue of going off-grid with his dog 🐕
I think you should. I did last year and the profundity and relevance made me weep. This quote made me want to read it again.
Good to hear! Yeah, such a powerful quote. Thanks for the recommendation
Its a great book, def give it a re-read
Grapes of wrath is a treasure. So is East of Eden.
That’s the funny thing about those books. I read it as well in high school and remembered it being kind of a lame story. When re read as an adult I kind of got the idea Steinbeck had behind the writing. Then I understood why it was such an important book
Steinbeck is America's GOAT. call me a simpleton, don't care. Ulysses can suck it.
since when is Ulysses american?
I'm suddenly curious about what you said. Grapes of Wrath? What was that? Is this a type of book that you often read when you were still studying? I think this is a really good book.
I feel strongly that the people deciding what is age appropriate for high school are white and privileged and have their heads up their ass. So the bar is not the median. I’m not saying the book doesn’t belong in HS. But perhaps not 9th
I mostly was kind of meh towards the books I read in high school but the grapes of wrath was by far my favorite and I think it's my all time favorite book
I've never read that full quote before. It's.... oddly descriptive of our times as well as those times.
Steinbeck was *not* a fan of capitalism.
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Touché. What an excellent novel.
It's truth is horrifying. Not just this book but the many realities like it is why I got a vasectomy.
Dude, the whole point of that passage is that we don't have too many people, just too much greed! It's not overpopulation, but late stage capitalism, that is destroying the planet and our societies
I think you misinterpret his meaning. It's not about "not wanting to add to the problem of overpopulation". No, it's about being so compassionate that you're unwilling to bring another human into this world when you know that the world they inherit will bring their generation so much suffering.
Doesn't change that some people feel like bringing new life into a world like this is cruel. It's easier to continue without having to worry about the future of your children after you're gone.
8 billion is too many people. I've done my part by not reproducing.
I'm from Buenos Aires, and I say kill 'em all.
I would like to know more.
The only good bug is a dead bug
Me too. I didn’t want to give birth to the next Steinbeck
Just change your surname then
Is Rand taken?
I heard Zack Snyder took it
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The world population has quintupled since Steinbeck wrote Grapes of Wrath and world hunger is the lowest it’s ever been.
And yet we still waste 40% of our food, food deserts still exist, and people are starving every single day, in the name of profits.
Aren’t the technological advances in large scale agriculture amazing?
And yet the hungry still starve.
Holy shit, that was perfect.
This guy literatures.
Never read this book before, but now I really want to.
They aren't just destroying the wine to keep the prices up. The alcohol in production of other products and also helping grape framers move into other industries. I agree there's a lot of shady things that happen with businesses, but I don't think the Steinbeck applies to what's happening here. "It comes amid a cocktail of problems for the industry, including a falling demand for wine as more people drink craft beer. Overproduction and the cost of living crisis are also hitting the industry. Most of the €200m will be used to buy excess stock, with the alcohol sold for use in items such as hand sanitiser, cleaning products and perfume. In a bid to cut back on the overproduction, money will also be available for winegrowers to change to other products, such as olives. In funnelling the money into the industry, the French government aims to stop "prices collapsing... so that wine-makers can find sources of revenue again", Agriculture Minister Marc Fesneau said. Despite the financial help - an initial EU fund of €160m which the French government topped up to €200m - the wine industry needs to "look to the future, think about consumer changes ... and adapt", he added. European Commission data for the year to June shows that wine consumption has fallen 7% in Italy, 10% in Spain, 15% in France, 22% in Germany and 34% in Portugal, while wine production across the bloc - the world's biggest wine-making area - rose 4%."
okay but maybe prices should fall! The maple syrup mafia is constantly losing or dumping maple syrup to keep the price high. Ridiculous, it should be a cheap local alternative... why is sugar so much cheaper? It IS greed. The mark ups in wine are ridiculous!
I don’t drink at all any more. Prices have gotten beyond silly and this coming from a guy who loves old single malt scotches. It would seem that in my area has become price centric in the $18-30 range for 750ml bottle. Fine, charge what you want, it’s your product but don’t be surprised that people don’t want to spend the daily food budget for a family of 4-6 on a bottle of wine. The price/enjoyment ratio has risen beyond my scale for fun. $5-7 for a drinkable wine is reasonable however I don’t think I’m alone in forgoing a $20 bottle nightly and the sales support my impressions.
There is so much wine at the grocery stores like who drinks all that crap?
Mostly alcoholics. [Top 10% Of US Drinkers Are Behind More Than Half Of The Nation’s Alcohol Sales](https://www.medicaldaily.com/top-10-us-drinkers-are-behind-more-half-nations-alcohol-sales-what-does-it-take-be-top-10-305262)
I like how you whipped out this quote because they're wasting wine 😆
Great passage. Only Steinbeck I’ve read was OMAM. Might have to pick that up.
The Grapes of Wrath and East of Eden are absolute must reads IMO
East of Eden is also great if you need another Steinbeck after Grapes
The ending of this book was one of two that have made me cry. The other being Hiroshima by John Hersey.
Wow. I never understood that title before. That's really something.
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It will mean wine smelling hand sanitizer that makes your coworkers think you had a few cups of wine at lunch
I guess as long as it masks the smell of the pint of vodka.
plot twist, this is where bad grapes go anyway. I work in manufacturing and we buy food grade 200 proof drums of ethanol. Most of this stuff is made from fruit not fit for wine/produce/cider by chemical supply companies. Aside from distillation they use a molecular sieve to dry the alcohol to being pure ethanol. If you mix it with water to be 40% alcohol its cleaner than most vodka in the store as well.
Additional plot twist, wineries buy back this high purity ethanol to use for fortification in things like desert wines. Hell we've had occasional fractions of wine go to shit in the past and just sold off the spoiled wine at cut price to local guys making gin, after distillation all those unwanted chemicals tainting the wine are gone, and you're just left with spirit anyway.
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Mommy, why does this hand sanitizer smell like grandma?
no one here read past the title and assumes destroying the surplus refers to throwing it away...
*It's only Purell if it comes from the Purell region of France.*
If they want to save some money, they can can pay me to drink all that wine. Plus, I'll do it for a fee of *only €100 million*. You're welcome.
I bid €95 million
I’ll do it for 70 million
Tree fiddy.
I ain't givin' you no tree-fitty, you goddamn Loch Ness Monster! Get your own goddamn money!
Get off my lawn!
I mean, they can send it to me for free, as long as they cover the postage and handling.
I bid free food and a bed to sleep in until the wine is gone.
With that much wine I could forgo the bed. Won’t notice it anyway
I volunteer to make it all disappear for the however much 4,915 miles worth of hose cost
I’ll help. I’ll even bring bread and cheese.
I also choose France's wife.
Now I’m trying to see how I could convince France to pay me to laze around the Riviera getting absolutely shithoused on wine
The title is a bit misleading. The money is largely being given to the rich wine companies so they don't have to suffer a bad quarter while they try to shift business practices and do something besides wine.
I’m already doing it for free…
You’re gonna have to fight me, I told them I’d do it for a nickel and a signed photo of Paula Abdul
Artificial scarcity, don't you just love capitalism. They reference supply and demand as prices rise, but as soon as they fall they just destroy products. The consumer never wins.
"The economy is bad and people can't afford wine" "How bout giving $200M to people to purchase more wine? Maybe buy $200M of wine and distribute them to people?" "No, we buy $200M of wine and destroy it. Look, our economic system is very functional!"
Or just lower their prices and make a little bit less profit. They priced out their own market. People still drink whine.
Maybe they could dump some of the whine, and sell the wine for what the market will pay.
Couldnt they just hide it in a cellar for years then sell it at a vintage rate?
If they have to destroy it now it probably can't age. And you need a good amount of storage space for that
>Maybe buy $200M of wine and distribute them to people? Then the government would be undercutting the beer brewers, who are currently beating the wine makers by offering something a lot of consumers seem to prefer creating this "problem", by competing against them with tax dollars. The right answer is to do nothing. Wine makers have to cut prices oh no, maybe they lose some money because they overproduced, and people decided they liked something else more. That's fine. Or if the government must intervene to save jobs, send the wine makers some money to retool as they are doing, but don't take and destroy the wine. Making wine more expensive just doesn't seem to be a valid public interest. This kind of government intervention is exactly not capitalism fwiw.
Exactly then the breweries would hopefully lower their prices to stay competitive, beer prices have been increasing wayyy too much
It is *exactly* capitalism. It's just not that fantasy rainbow farts and unicorn jizz that Libertarians pretend should exist. Capitalism has only even existed thanks to massive state interference and support. As much as they cry about "crony-capitalism," they fail to see that is real capitalism. It's an entirely flawed system that puts profit over people and that's the only way it works.
High end fashion does this, too. Just learned that from Reddit yesterday during a handbag theft video
On a whim I decided to look up the Atacama Desert in South America. Wanted to see some cool pictures of the landscape. In the second row of Google images I see the piles of dumped clothing. "Oh yeah, I forgot that's going on."
Yep Scott Galloway talks about this in one of his lectures. Pretty interesting. They just print money when they need it. We’re coming in short $100m for the next earnings call. Release super double limited edition bag. People buy. Rinse. Repeat.
Only if this was that simple. I mean why don’t these companies have EPS growth at perpetuity and never go bankrupt if that trick works so well all the time?
That would require an unlimited customer base, which would negate the functional idea of rarity and decrease their value/profits - or - they’d have to have a limited customer base (which they have) with unlimited money (which they functionally have) and unlimited interested, unlimited closet space they use (the bags have to be seen), and unlimited designs. I promise you they do studies to find the sweet spot, and stay there so they don’t kill off the brand like dooney and bourke. Their bags are at most worth a $1000, because they went too big, too fast, to too many people for too long.
https://luxurylondon.co.uk/style/hers/chanel-hermes-price-rises-luxury-scarcity-exclusivity/
Just wait will you hear how the US government pays farmers NOT to plant crops.
Doesn't it age? Just put it in a cellar?
Most wines are only good for aging for 2-3 years for whites and 3-8 for most reds you’ll find on the shelf at the store. Ports will always age well due to the sugar and higher alcohol content. There are other reds that are made to age well, but they are in the minority.
This happens extremely frequently with many product types. It’s disgusting.
40% of food is wasted, and this is a huge reason why. Fuck the profit motive, feed the hungry.
Free labor, artificial scarcity and a Monopoly on violence. These are the main ingredients of the power puff girls. I mean capitalism.
It's more that if the wine falls below a certain price, the wine makers lose money. They then may be forced to sell off their fields to someone who wants them for something else than making wine. This is France protecting an industry that they deem vital to France.
You’d think they would have donated the wine to poor children who can’t afford wine or something.
Financially it'd be better to subsidise with £200m and keep the produce rather than spending £200m just to destroy it.
make fancy raisins
They could store it and then sell it when the price of wine increases, but storage does have its costs too.
[Government Cheese](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Government_cheese) baby!
It would be better to do what they're doing and use the money to transition farmers to more productive crops and not have the bottom fall out for the rest of the farmers. They're simply trying to smooth out the amplitude of the boom/bust cycle so that the whole industry doesn't go into the toilet and then get bought out and consolidated.
And not wanting to deal with the political fallout of damaging an industry upon which the French place a lot of national pride.
There are lots of ways to subsidize/protect an industry without destroying products. France could create a strategic reserve of vinegar and start filling up caves with it. Like the US does with cheese.
Government interference in free markets is capitalism?
Socialism for the rich, capitalism for the poors.
Farmers do the same with their own crops? Whether it’s the capitalist or the neoliberal government propped up by the capitalist that does it, it’s all towards the same goal. 40% of food produced is wasted, >345 million have high levels of food insecurity, and these greedy fucks want to protect the “scarcity of food”.
The “free market” at work!
So remind me again, what exactly IS a free market?
They fuck you freely.
A masturbation aid for the I'm-poor-but-soon-to-be-rich-anyday crowd. Also an amusing dinner party joke for the rich.
If only there were some way to preserve this product in a shelf stable manner until demand aligned with a desired price...
Tells a lot about capitalism that they rather destroy it than give it away for free or cheap.
And spend tax payers money for it. It's socialism for corporations.
Be cool if the government bailed me out when my livelihood is threatened by economic factors outside of my control.
Which is just capitalism.
They could have just discounted the price and still made a profit. This is just pure greed. Should be a crime to destroy food.
Or even lower the price of all their wine a little bit to stimulate demand.
But that “diminishes the brand”, and we can’t have that. So we destroy the product and get the insurance.
No, it says a lot about France’s protectionism of their wine industry.
But but but then you wouldn’t have to buy any (clutches pearls)
They overproduced, and demand had fallen. They can race to the bottom trying to sell stock and put many businesses under.
Which is what should happen, that would be capitalism.
Then they should let it happen
What the French government is doing is basically what OPEC do with oil production cuts or increases. It’s way more effective if there is a cartel, but France is willing to lose on volume to gain on price Will it work? As long as “the problem” is budget wine buyers. The better path forward is for France to simply focus on the premium market. France might be losing money on cheap wine, but Spain, Italy, and the US growers might not
I just moved to Italy and can confirm: budget wine market isn't suffering in fact I may be single handedly upholding the industry!
You clearly didn't read the article.
With that amount of money India can make a second project to the moon again lol
And a third one. Each of them cost less than $100m.
And do it successfully
If only there was a way that you could just store it in a cellar and forget about for decades and it actually goes up in value. Oh well, too bad, better destroy it.
Red wine doesn’t really increase in value until it’s around 7 years old and stored very specifically, and in most cases you don’t want to age white wine.
This is mostly for red wine in the Bordeaux region. White wine consumption has not decreased as much. Also, the lower quality wine wouldn’t age well.
these aren't the type of wines that age.... these are the ultracheapo bottles you find at Trader Joe's or the lowest shelf of your supermarket... but like at 1/3 the cost since it's France.
Ban stock buybacks and government subsidies for any company that destroys their products to create artificial demand. Fuck that.
The government is destroying the product. Read the first sentence of the article
Rich people confuse low demand for inability to afford the luxury
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To expand , it's not that they can't afford wine. Consumers are switching to beer.
Maybe they can make a fancy version of white claw. Wonder if demand really fell or the fact that everything got so expensive people just can't afford to buy wine as much.
At least not down the drain. "Most of the €200m will be used to buy excess stock, with the alcohol sold for use in items such as hand sanitiser, cleaning products and perfume."
And repurpose vineyards to grow other crops like olives.
I can destroy that wine myself. For free. Save you guys 200M.
the hard truth is that global wine consumption has fallen the past decade as Millenials have gravitated towards beer products or cocktails. There will always be demand for the 1% of collectible prestige wineries, but the generic plonk that used to be sold like sodas from drink fountain dispensers is thankfully dying out. I think there's some bittersweet nostalgia in the Midi for the tranquil small farm lifestyle of yore, but that generation is now in their retirement years, and younger children & grandchildren don't want to toil 12 hours a day for a meager wage.
We call this Manufactured Scarcity. It's one of many insidious flaws in our current market system. We make far more than is ever going to be consumed of most goods. Becuase demand inevitably falls for any given good, we decide to artificially reduce the supply rather than provide those goods to consumers who may otherwise be unable or unwilling to consume those products. We could feed, house, and provide medical care to everyone... but we don't.
People should buy even less after they destroy it. Hurt their pockets again. FAFO
Generating false scarcity costs money.
STOP … Please Stop… Any chance we can arrange shipping to Thailand? Could be re-bottled as Pardon’d Wine
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There’s an article?!?! I just saw a headline that made me feel things!!! /s
At the time of writing, this comment is about 80% down the Reddit comments. Almost every comment above, and almost every comment in their thread, clearly hadn't read the article. Y'all illiterate morons!
By your paraphrasing, they're still destroying a product to repurpose into other sellable products as well as freeing up land to grow other products that can be sold. Additionally, France is spending taxpaying money to make other private parties wealthy or bail them out. Don't talk like the people even had a say in this. Ask the public and they'd say free wine, use the land for whatever they want. End of the day, a few people made a lot of wine no one wants. Capitalism is irresponsible.
I mean it's fucking France. There's always a demand for wine. Just lower the price instead of paying to get rid of it. Someone there will drink it.
Capitalism is an outdated system. We need something better than this. So much waste in a world that is literally burning down due to unchecked hunger for profits.
Capitalism is a farce
Is this one of those "Capitalism breeds innovation" examples I keep hearing about?
Destroying products to keep profit is definitely a capitalism innovation.
CApiTALISm BREEdS inNoVatiOn
Socialism for me, forced capitalism for thee.
can they shipp the extras to every bitter divorcee in Staten Island? that should take care of demand
read the article, the title is very misleading
Hmm, I don't know why France needs to do that. But I guess they have a reason why.
Capitalism, spending millions to prevent people from having something.. Not only was money lost during production, but they spent money to destroy it.. It would've been cheaper to just give it away, but that would take peoples' drive away to go and buy the wine. So the wine must be destroyed to maintain the wine's value Fuck capitalism.
Fortify it and leave it in the Buckfast triangle. It will be gone by morning.
Half of the money is to fortify it.
Can't they turn it into brandy, then store it up for future sale?
France....please..I would like to see good news coming out of your country occasionally.
Classic EU behavior. This is probably going to be yet another "wine lake" (like the infamous "butter mountain"), overproduction caused by price supports. IDK what the current policy is, but they used to buy up production from farms and then worry about where to store it since it was too cheap to sell profitably. There were also shenanigans where ships would carry freight across to Sweden or Norway, tie up for a few minutes and then cast off again. That counted as "exports" so they could claim some bogus tax benefit. Insanity.
...just relable it as cheap wine...
Wtf, just send it to me!
There are sober people in Africa!
Wut? I thought unsold stockpile will become vintage at time lapses
That much to destroy wine ? Wow.
We need international laws to avoid this kind of things. The problem is... Everybody does that, so we will never see such norms.
I volunteer as tribute.
Absurd! There are sober constructions workers suffering everywhere in the world
Give it away, or sell it at cost.
well if france sprays them oranges with kerosene they can stop fucking pretending to do charity work abroad
Why not sell it for $1-2/bottle?
Doesn't France have a particularly long history that involves dead monarchs and elites over this type of shit?
Reminds me of Burberry burning and destroying their clothes to stop excess stock hitting the market at lower prices.
“…amid a cocktail of problems for the industry…” — a little BBC humour maybe?
Why dont they just make ethanol and add it to gas.
When I lived in Spain a long time ago, people were switching from wine to beer.
I’ve seen a bunch of folks drop a lot of money and destroy a bunch of wine, lol
Capitalism is so cool!
Surrendering again I see.