Who Pays for Your Coffee?
Note:Tema: il valore. Come si fanno i soldi sul mercato? Scarsità + richiesta...Il potere dela scarsità richiesta: sul mercato guadagnano solo consumatori e monopolisti...Vuoi sapere se sei sfruttata? Controlla di che genere è il monopolio che realizza quei profitti x cui paghi...Perchè i pop corn costano di più al cinema? Perchè è lì che i consumatori li vogliono mangiare! Location location location...Chi paga la regolamentazione sulla sicurezza? I consumatori + deboli (i prodotti ideali x loro nn si trovano) o + attenti (i prodotti ideali x loro costano di più). Premiato il consumatore facoltoso e distratto...Gang e Mafia: la violenza crea monopoli. la violenza può essere condannata x motivi etici oppure x' rovina il gioco della competozione e quindi dell'efficienza...Oltre alla violenza ci sono altri modi x eliminare la competizione. Per esempio attraverso i sindacati. Recentemente il metodo è entrato in crisi poichè la competizione è internazionale mentre i sindacati nazionali. Altre volte padroni donamici in espansione e monopsonisti distruggono i sindacati penalizzandoli. Ci sono forme occulte di sindacalizzazione: albi, formazione, patenti...Immigrazione. Gli immigrati ci rubano il posto? Di solito l'immigrazione è vista male dalla popolazione + rozza e bene dalla pop. + raffinata. E nn certo xchè i + rozzi giudichino rozzamente...L'analisi standard: il razzismo è frutto dell' ignoranza, tanto è vero che alligna tra le classi + basse che si oppongono all'immigrazione. L'analisi corretta: vista la matura migratoria è normale che ad opporsi siano le classi basse ma x una questione fi interessi nn di razzismo...La scienza economica è neutrale? Spesso no: il mezzo di analisi influenza il giudizio che diamo del mondo. Gli economisti lottano contro i protezionismi e i sindacati ma lo fanno in nome delle ipotesi sottostanti ai loro modelli...
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1@@@@@@@sfruttamento copetizione e monopolio...immigrazione
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According to economics professor Brian McManus, mark-ups on coffee are around 150 per cent
Note:MARK UP SMISURATI
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So somebody is making a lot of money. Who?
Note:MA I BARISTI NN SI ARRICCHICONO
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location, location, location.
Note:RIPETILO
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simply remember that there are thirteen coffee bar entrepreneurs on one side of the negotiating table and on the other side is a manager who owns a single, perfect coffee-bar site.
Note:CONCORRENZA E MONOPOLIO
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By playing them off against each other, the Network Rail manager should be able to dictate the terms,
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if there’s a profitable deal to be done between somebody who has something unique and someone who has something which can be replaced, then the profits will go to the owner of the unique resource.
Note:LA LEGGE
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Strength from scarcity
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Bargaining strength comes through scarcity: settlers are scarce and meadows are not, so landlords have no bargaining power.
Note:LA LEGGE DELLA SCARSITÀ
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Why is coffee expensive in London, New York, Washington or Tokyo? The common-sense view is that coffee is expensive because the coffee bars have to pay high rent. David Ricardo’s model can show us that this is the wrong way to think about the issue, because ‘high rent’ is not an arbitrary fact of life. It has a cause.
Note:XCHÈ IN CENTRO MILANO IL CAFFÈ È CARO
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prime coffee-bar locations will command high rents only if customers will pay high prices for coffee. Rush-hour customers are so desperate for caffeine and in such a hurry that they are practically price-blind. The willingness to pay top whack for convenient coffee sets the high rent, and not the other way around.
Note:LA SPIEGA....MONOPOLIO
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Portable models
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Economics is partly about modelling, about articulating basic principles and patterns that operate behind seemingly complex subjects like the rent on farms or coffee bars.
Note:COME RAGIONA L ECONOMIA...IL MODELLO DEL COFFEE BUSINESS
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Ricardo’s model is useful for discussing the relationship between scarcity and bargaining strength, which goes far beyond coffee or farming and ultimately explains much of the world around us.
Note:IL MODELLO VINCENTE
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A word of caution is appropriate, though. The simplifications of economic models have been known to lead economists astray.
Note:NELLA TRAPPOLA CADDE RICARDO STESSO
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A unified agricultural sector had nothing to gain from improving the land’s productivity with roads or irrigation, because those improvements would also reduce the scarcity of good land.
Note:APPLICANDO ALLA LETTERA IL SUO MODELLO...ES PERCHÈ COSTRUIRE AUTO SE HO IL MONOPOLIO SU CARROZZE E CAVALLI?
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Ricardo failed to realise that thousands of landlords competing with each other would make different decisions than a single one.
Note:CcccccccccRICCARDO FALLISCE NEL PREVEDERE L INNOVAZIONE NN DISTINGUENDO TRA CONCORRENZA E MONOPOLIO
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If applied correctly, it shows that environmental legislation can dramatically affect income distribution.
Note:COSA CI FA SCOPRIRE IL MODELLO DI RICARDO
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Different reasons for high rent
Note:TttttttttttttttIL MISTERO DEI POPCORN
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why popcorn is so expensive at the cinema – there was no popcorn shortage
Note:I MISTERI
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Let’s say landlords get together and manage to persuade the local sheriff that there should be what in the UK is called a ‘green belt’, a broad area of land around the city on which property development is very strongly discouraged by tough planning regulations.
Note:TORNIAMO A VEDERE COME SI CREANO LE RENDITE...PIANO REGOLATORE
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So we’ve found two reasons why rents might be high. The first is that it’s worth paying a lot for good land, because the grain that good land produces is so valuable. The second is that it’s worth paying a lot for good land because the alternatives that should be available are not.
Note:DUE FATTORI DI RENDITA...PRODUTTIVITÀ E REGOLE
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effect is to transfer a massive amount of money from London tenants to London landlords:
Note:UN EFFETTO DEL PIANO REGOLATORE
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it is important that when we are weighing the pros and cons of legislation like the Green Belt, we understand that its effects are more than simply to preserve the environment.
Note:QUESTA NN È UNA CRITICA AI PIANI MA...
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improvements in the quality and price of the commuter train services that bring people into London’s mainline stations,
Note:UNA MALEDIZIONE X I PROPRIETARI
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The answer is that improved public transport increases the alternatives to renting a place in the city.
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Are we being ripped off?
Note:Tttttc è mo nopolio e monopolio
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How can we tell the difference between things that are expensive because they are naturally scarce, and things that are expensive because of artificial means – legislation, regulation or foul play?
Note:NATURA E REGOLE
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Without perpetrating too much intellectual violence, we can replace ‘rent’ with ‘profit’
Note:RENDITA E PROFITTO
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a ‘sustainable competitive advantage’, meaning the sort of edge over the competition that will produce profits year in and year out.
Note:PROFITTO MERITATO SUL MERCATO
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The newspapers often point to high corporate profits as a sign that the consumer is being screwed. Are they right? Only sometimes.
Note:C È PROFITTO E PROFITT
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But high profits are not always earned so fairly; sometimes the newspaper outrage is justified. There’s a second explanation for high corporate profits. What if a kind of banking ‘green belt’ completely excluded Cornelius’s bank from the market?
Note:I PROFITTI DA REGOLAMENTAZIONE
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If I want to know whether I am being ripped off by supermarkets, banks or drug companies, I can find out how profitable those industries are. If they are making high profits, then initially I am suspicious. But if it seems that it is fairly easy to set up a new company and compete, I become less suspicious. It means that the high profits are caused by a natural scarcity: there are not many really good banking organisations in the world, and good banking organisations are much more efficient than bad ones.
Note:UN CRITERIO XGIUDICARE LO SFRUTTAMENTO
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Resource ‘rents’
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people who like to avoid competition
Note:IL CATTIVO
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Trade unions, lobby groups, people studying for a professional qualification
Note:CHI OPERA IN VISTA DI MONOPOLI
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‘rent-seeking’.
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It’s not easy to do this. It turns out that the world is a naturally competitive place,
Note:X FORTUNA...TUTTO COMPETE CON TUTTO
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farmland.
Note:I GRANDI MONOPOLI DEL PASSATO
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oil.
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Until 1973, the world’s oil supply was produced by ‘oil meadows’, largely in the Middle East.
Note:STORIA DEL PETROLIO
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The Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries, OPEC, which was sitting on most of the oil meadows, decided in 1973 to take some of its own meadows out of commission, by ordering each member country to restrict oil production.
Note:1974
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short run
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To keep prices high, OPEC was forced to accept a smaller and smaller share of the world oil market. Eventually Saudi Arabia broke ranks in 1985 and expanded production.
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FINE
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In the last couple of years we have been tripped up by a combination of unexpectedly high demand in China with disruptions in Saudi Arabia, Iraq, Nigeria and Venezuela,
Note:SVILUPPI DELL IMPENNATA RECENTE
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When does crime pay?
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people have to find other ways to prevent competition. One popular method is through violence,
Note:VIOLENZA E MONOPOLIO
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Drug dealers prefer not to have competitors driving down the price of drugs.
Note:ESEMPIO
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if you’re risking prison anyway, there is little point in using half measures.
Note:GIÀ CHE SIAMO CRIMINALI
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the ‘foot-soldiers’ sometimes take home as little as $1.70 an hour. Promotion prospects are good, considering the rapid turnover of gang membership (people leave, or get killed, quite often); but even considering these prospects, the average wage is less than $10 an hour. This is not much given that over a four-year period, the typical gang member can expect to be shot twice, arrested six times and has a one-in-four chance of being killed.
Note:SOLO LA PROSPETTVA DI UN MONOPOLIO FA TIRARE AVANTI
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Mafia groups often get involved in legitimate businesses, such as wholesale laundry, which can make big profits only if entry is deterred.
Note:DETERRENZA
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Mafia provides overpriced laundry services to restaurants as a way of extorting money.
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‘Conspiracies against the laity’
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it does not mean that people have not worked out other ways to keep competitors at bay. Trade unions are an obvious example.
Note:METODI LEGALI X ESCLUDERE
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Without unionisation, wages could be kept very low. With it, competition could be excluded and wages would rise
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anti-trust laws designed to prevent collusion between large companies were also directed against unions. But as the political climate changed, these laws were ruled inapplicable and trade unions grew in strength.
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When unions are perceived as making unreasonable demands, causing prices to rise to a level that’s deemed unacceptable by a large portion of the public, the public in turn puts pressure on politicians to regulate the unions.
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Sometimes the unions have their scarcity challenged by international competition,
Note:IL NEMICO DEI SINDACATI
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teachers’ wages were kept low for years – and declining relative to average earnings – in spite of the fact that there was a shortage of qualified teachers. This is because the government, the single employer, has massive bargaining power.
Note:INSEGNANTI
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And now for something controversial
Note:Ttttttttt immigrazione
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do immigrants steal our jobs?
Note:PROBLEMA
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Well-educated workers
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tend to welcome immigration as part of an enriching process
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poorly educated workers tend to reject any further immigration by unskilled immigrants on the grounds that ‘they steal our jobs’.
Note:SECONDO GRUPPO
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As one of those skilled workers I dislike resistance to immigrants and would like to see more immigration.
Note:CONFLITTO INTERESSE
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If the country is short of unskilled shelf-stackers, their wages will have to rise to attract people into the job. But if the country is short of skilled managers and full of unskilled shelf-stackers, I’ll be paid well for my scarcity value,
Note:DOV È LA SCARSITÀ RELATIVA?
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Some blame resistance to immigration on the racism of the unedu cated. An alternative, and more convincing, theory suggests that everybody is acting in his own self interest. New workers are good for people who have assets that become relatively scarcer,
Note:TESI SULLE SIMPATIE IMMAGRIZIONISTE
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In the UK, the salaries of nurses in the National Health Service have been kept low by the influx of thirty thousand foreign nurses;
Note:ES PRECLARO
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What should economists do?
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Some economists would claim that there is no difference between their analysis of coffee rents and their analysis of immigration. In an important sense, that’s true. Economics is in many ways just like engineering; it will tell you how things work and what is likely to happen if you change them.
Note:UNA VISIONE SEMPLICISTICA
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economists often step beyond their role as engineers of economic policy and become advocates. David Ricardo, for example, was an early campaigner for free trade.
Note:NN SEMPRE OGGETTIVI GLI ECONOMISTI
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repeal of the Corn Laws, which severely restricted the import of grain.
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