Inuit organize widespread protest over hunger, food cost - Polidicks

[URL]http://www.ctv.ca/CTVNews/Canada/20120608/inuit-food-prices-protest-120608/#ixzz1xKWAJkGe[/URL] [quote] IQALUIT, Nunavut — A head of cabbage for $20. Fifteen bucks for a small bag of apples. A case of ginger ale: $82. Fed up and frustrated by sky-high food prices and concerned over widespread hunger in their communities, thousands of Inuit have spent weeks posting pictures and price tags from their local grocery stores to a Facebook site called [URL="https://www.facebook.com/groups/239422122837039/"]Feed My Family[/URL] Read more: [URL]http://www.ctv.ca/CTVNews/Canada/20120608/inuit-food-prices-protest-120608/#ixzz1xKWAJkGe[/URL][/quote] [IMG]http://24.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_m5daa49PHY1rqsaj9o1_500.jpg[/IMG] holy shit this is fucking disgusting.

And I thought the prices were horrid up in Labrador. jesus christ

Maximal profits don't equal maximal production quantities (and therefore lower prices). This is the nature of the piece of shit capitalistic system.

[QUOTE=Marbalo;36264302]This is the first time Ive heard of the Inuit in the news ever. Ive read about them several times and always assumed they're pretty much one of the most out-of-touch, forgotten and overlooked indigenous people. Nice to know they've caught wind of protesting as well.[/QUOTE] there are no savages, only different cultures.

Bloody hell, that's expensive. Can they build a reliable road/railway up there to reduce shipping costs? [QUOTE=Drsalvador;36264443]there are no savages, only different cultures.[/QUOTE] Not too sure what you are referring to about these Eskimos and all, because I didn't see him post anything about savages.

[QUOTE=GenPol;36264258]Maximal profits don't equal maximal production quantities (and therefore lower prices). This is the nature of the piece of shit capitalistic system.[/QUOTE] Food is scarce there, hunting is very costly and the cost of shipping goods to the area is very high. [quote]He tells of one southern Inuit family that tried to send food north to relatives. Shipping $200 worth of groceries cost $500. Nunavut's larder of "country food" -- caribou, seals, fish and other animals -- is there for the taking, but only if people can afford the snowmobiles, gas, rifles, ammunition and gear needed to travel safely. Elliott estimates hunting costs about $150 a day.[/quote] If there is a low supply and a high demand, prices will generally be high. This is simple economics and is in no way a weakness of capitalism. A business isn't going to be able to operate by selling something for $2 which costs them $50 to stock, on top of paying for upkeep and wages.

[QUOTE=Marbalo;36264456]what? i've never said they're savages[/QUOTE] it was a quote, i should have put it in quotes, my mistake. but the point is there's no "out of touch" or "forgotten" cultures, just ones of different status.

End the whaling moratorium.

[QUOTE=Capitulazyguy;36264591]End the whaling moratorium.[/QUOTE] Or improve local infrastructure and employment opportunities for Eskimos.

[QUOTE=Capitulazyguy;36264591]End the whaling moratorium.[/QUOTE] Inuit and Eskimos are exempt from the Moratorium and their whaling is regulated by the country. [editline]9th June 2012[/editline] (Although the regulated catch is really, really low for Canadian Inuit)

[quote][img]https://fbcdn-sphotos-a.akamaihd.net/hphotos-ak-snc7/579248_4002736477139_51627946_n.jpg[/img] Price on the right is the same thing but from Ontario [img]https://fbcdn-sphotos-a.akamaihd.net/hphotos-ak-snc7/599838_10151690468850616_2063409403_n.jpg[/img][/quote] Jesus christ.

[QUOTE=Noble;36264567]Food is scarce there, hunting is very costly and the cost of shipping goods to the area is very high. If there is a low supply and a high demand, prices will generally be high. This is simple economics and is in no way a weakness of capitalism.[/QUOTE] "If there is a low supply" - here you go. In the capitalistic system, the production quota is set at the profit maximizing quantity, or max{q | TR(q)-TC(q)}, given a price level p (for the TR function). TR and TC are the Total Revenue and Total Cost functions. The production quota could be reallocated to higher quantities in an economy which doesn't seek profit maximization. In fact, even without any external funding to a given enterprise, the production quota could be lifted to a higher level, with the maximal quota requiring no external funding being the point where no economic profits are present, or TR - TC = 0. If there are several points which meet such conditions, the highest output point is to be chosen. What you've stated sounds like this: Someone poured hot water on their hand and got a burn. You come in the room and scream "You didn't pour the fucking water on your hand, because it's just basic common sense - you get burns from hot water". No offence, but this is how it sounded.

How does that even work. The store keeper knows he won't sell anything and people will starve. Fuck prices, these people need food aid.

[QUOTE=sami-pso;36265499]How does that even work. The store keeper knows he won't sell anything and people will starve. Fuck prices, these people need food aid.[/QUOTE] Well if he is the only vendor, then people don't have a choice. They have to buy what they can to survive. Either way it is ridiculous and the owner (unless people further up the lines are causing the issues which I doubt) should be forced to lower costs.

I wonder if its because of how much it costs to ship food there. . .

[quote] [IMG]https://fbcdn-sphotos-a.akamaihd.net/hphotos-ak-snc7/579248_4002736477139_51627946_n.jpg[/IMG] [/quote] That's kind of retarded.

[QUOTE=sami-pso;36265499]How does that even work. The store keeper knows he won't sell anything and people will starve. Fuck prices, these people need food aid.[/QUOTE] I think it's more that shipping stuff up is expensive as hell due to lacking infrastructure up there. the store owners basically need to charge that much to keep the business open in the first place it's a shitty situation, and yeah people up there do need food aid if things have gotten this bad

Maaaan, This is such a long debate, On one side, you have people living in the middle of no where where infrastructure is poor, where they can't hunt like they used to because in a modern society, you need "money", which they don't have because the only way to make money in the north is through resources such as lumber, oil, diamonds, and animal pelts. (All of which damage the environment in most cases, so Canada isn't as environmentally friendly as the world thinks). So in general the native population are all poor in the first place, so they can't really move. And they can't really live like they used to because they were pushed off of good land when Canada was settled, they were told to go to other places. But the other places were really bad for trying to live off of, because it was useless land, THATS WHY the settlers/Canadian government did it in the first place. Because it was bad land, why give away good land for free to an uncivilized people," we can use it better than them, we're smarter" mentality. And so as a result, Canadian natives are stereo typically seen as alcoholics (some valid truth) [URL]http://www.essortment.com/alcohol-among-native-americans-63687.html[/URL] And they are poor, [URL]http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/story/2006/11/24/child-poverty.html[/URL] Stats from 2006 [quote] One aboriginal child in eight is disabled, double the rate of all children in Canada. Among First Nations children, 43 per cent lack basic dental care. Overcrowding among First Nations families is double the rate of that for all Canadian families. Mould contaminates almost half of all First Nations households. Almost half of aboriginal children under 15 years old residing in urban areas live with a single parent. Close to 100 First Nations communities must boil their water. Of all off-reserve aboriginal children, 40 per cent live in poverty.[/quote] also from 2011 [URL]http://www.campaign2000.ca/reportCards/national/2011EnglishRreportCard.pdf[/URL] [quote]Poverty is a critical issue for First Nations communitiesand for urban Aboriginal people, who now comprise more than half (54%) of the Aboriginal population.[/quote] Anyways, my point to this topic is that, Canada has fucked up with the Aboriginals, but, it's really hard to send stuff cheap from thousands of kilometers away because our world is like that.

I'm curious as to how it compares to the cost of food for folks living in Northern Alaska. I know they have shitty prices, but I'm not sure it is as bad as this. Which would beg the question of why. The difficulty in reaching Northern Alaska is pretty high and is on the far edge of what humans can really live in regarding climate.

Wait, there are Eskimos in the cities whom live in poverty as well as outside of them? Sound kinda bad.

[QUOTE=GunFox;36266132]I'm curious as to how it compares to the cost of food for folks living in Northern Alaska. I know they have shitty prices, but I'm not sure it is as bad as this. Which would beg the question of why.[/QUOTE] Population of Northwest Territories PLUS Yukon : 75359 Population of Alaska: 722,718 Alaska has a population times greater of 9.590334266643666

holy [img]https://fbcdn-sphotos-a.akamaihd.net/hphotos-ak-ash4/487097_10151820164185612_1177853920_n.jpg[/img]

Yeah you wanna eat meat tonight? It'll cost you a days pay. Its just an expression, i'm sure they earn more than that in a day. But i'm also not sure lol.

[QUOTE=bull3tmagn3t;36266163]Population of Northwest Territories PLUS Yukon : 75359 Population of Alaska: 722,718 Alaska has a population times greater of 9.590334266643666[/QUOTE] The overwhelming majority live in Southern Alaska. A full half living in or around Anchorage and another 30k living in Juneau alone, nevermind the other settlements in the south.

[QUOTE=GunFox;36266303]The overwhelming majority live in Southern Alaska. A full half living in or around Anchorage and another 30k living in Juneau alone, nevermind the other settlements in the south.[/QUOTE] True, but if theres 30k living in one city alone compares to an entire province, thats WHY they can get cheap stuff

[QUOTE=GenPol;36264752]"If there is a low supply" - here you go. In the capitalistic system, the production quota is set at the profit maximizing quantity, or max{q | TR(q)-TC(q)}, given a price level p (for the TR function). TR and TC are the Total Revenue and Total Cost functions. The production quota could be reallocated to higher quantities in an economy which doesn't seek profit maximization. In fact, even without any external funding to a given enterprise, the production quota could be lifted to a higher level, with the maximal quota requiring no external funding being the point where no economic profits are present, or TR - TC = 0. If there are several points which meet such conditions, the highest output point is to be chosen.[/QUOTE] I'm saying this has little to do with profit or capitalism though, it has less to do with profit and more to do with the fact that it takes a lot of resources to get food to these people because of the area they live in. There just isn't a cheap source of food for them because the only available methods of getting food (such as hunting or shipping it in) are highly expensive endeavors that need resources like fuel and transportation, or in the case of hunting: rifles, snowmobiles, etc. Even in a socialist system it would still take the same amount of resources to get food to these people which would ultimately have to be provided by someone or a group of people.

People why the Canadian north isn't less rural than it is now. This is why.

Considering that the prices vastly fluctuate due to the seasons (ice roads in the winter, helicopter/bushplane in spring/summer/early fall) I really hope the government would do something for this. Maybe have some kind of blimp system where you send food up north in giant blimps. That or move all their asses down south where it's warm :p

In the northern communities people basically stockpile all kinds of items for the entire year during summer when supply trucks can come.

[QUOTE=MIPS;36266958]People why the Canadian north isn't less rural than it is now. This is why.[/QUOTE] Actually the reason the north is so rural is because the population of the region is much lower than the rest of the country. This is due to the fact that it's bloody freezing compared to the southern areas of Canada.