Quote: (05-12-2015 05:31 PM)The_e_man Wrote:
Libertas - surely you must understand that if products were labelled GMO then sales for the product would diminish because people are misinformed as to what GMO truly means.
I am all for transparency but when sales are being diminished due to misinformation then we have what in economics we call imperfect market distortions. As a result of people thinking GMO = unnatural = bad = Jesus would not approve, the demand for GMO products decreases. Because food has a low elasticity of demand (there are essentially no substitutes to food), then the demand for other food items that are non-GMO would increase. This would increase the price of non-GMO food past the healthy, "natural" (hehe) free-market price equilibrium. This is actually happening today. Prices for "organic" and "all-natural" food is much higher than it should be. You are essentially paying for over-priced foliage because it is "natural."
What I'm trying to get at is if monsanto labelled their food GMO, they would - in my opinion - unfairly lose sales for no other reason then consumer misinformation. Misinformation in the sense that they think GMO = satan and natural = take my money!
Not to try and sound like a smart-ass but my minor was in Economics so I am not pulling this out of my ass. And yes, I have a strange degree where my major is in the hard sciences and my minor is in a totally unrelated field of the soft/social sciences.
Why does it matter to me if they lose sales? It's about consumer choice and transparency in the marketplace. Let them try to educate the public as a good company should instead of concealing their practices.
The demand for GMO products is already artificially inflated anyway due to federal agricultural subsidies if you want to bring up market distortions.