I think Mark Thoma nails this . What he describes is exactly the way I think about the issue but have been unable to articulate. To answer the question in the title of this post, it's useful to think of an island with only two goods. One of the goods is non-renewable, but highly desirable. The other good is less preferred, but it is renewable (thinking of renewable and non-renewable energy resources, for example). The key is to distinguish between changes in prices that reflect changes in the relative scarcity of the two goods, and changes driven by increases in the money supply. Over time, as the stock of the more desired good falls due to consumption, the price of this good will rise relative to the renewable good. Consumers will be hit by increases in the cost of living -- the same basket of the two goods purchased last year now costs more. But is this the kind of increase in prices the Fed should respond to? No, the price increase -- and the increase in the c
You muddy the waters by calling this "genetic modification".
ReplyDeleteTraditional crop breeding/improvement has virtually none of the downsides of GMOs.
Of course it could be argued that there are benefits to GMOs. Just don't call it all genetic modification.
Below from Human Genome Project Information
Controversies
* Safety
o Potential human health impacts, including allergens, transfer of antibiotic resistance
o Potential environmental impacts, including: unintended transfer of transgenes through cross-pollination, unknown effects on other organisms (e.g., soil microbes), and loss of flora and fauna biodiversity
* Access and Intellectual Property
o Domination of world food production by a few companies
o Increasing dependence on industrialized nations by developing countries
o Biopiracy, or foreign exploitation of natural resources
* Ethics
o Violation of natural organisms' intrinsic values
o Tampering with nature by mixing genes among species
o Objections to consuming animal genes in plants and vice versa
o Stress for animal
* Labeling
o Not mandatory in some countries (e.g., United States)
o Mixing GM crops with non-GM products confounds labeling attempts
* Society
o New advances may be skewed to interests of rich countries