#price parity

[awesome-casuallyfamouscollector]

[BREAKING NEWS!] EV sales hit tipping point; China's largest oil company says ICE is finished

EV sales hit tipping point; China's largest oil company says ICE is finished

[onsomekindofstartrek]

It’s crazy, the new Tundras are bigger than anything that you could drive without a CDL when I was a kid, and the new Tacomas (a compact pickup truck, maybe pushing the half ton rating) are about the size that F-350’s (a three quarter ton truck) was when I was a logger.

Americans bitch about the price of gas, and to be sure it’s worse than it was in like, 2014, but in this goddamned country it costs about half to 3/4 what it does in Europe, so people don’t see the problem in replacing their sedans with a goddamned 5.7 liter gasser pickup! Plus the smog laws are based on length so that companies find it cheaper to make longer trucks and SUV’s than to make the same size vehicles more efficient! There literally isn’t a true compact pickup in the sense that there was with the Rangers and OBS Tacomas!

(That was a truck that burned fuel like a compact car, emitted like a compact car, but had most of the utility of a half ton truck and could even do light towing or, if you didn’t give a shit about making your transmission last, normal ass towing! Heavy towing! You’ve seen the memes if you’re from the south! It’s a ford fucking ranger!)

People can drive whatever they want to drive but the US, under the influence of the oil lobby, has produced a situation fine tuned to bring the worst behavior out of the auto market. And I want to go back to the way it was in the early 2000’s like you wouldn’t believe. I don’t want AI crash protection or self driving or a car that gives me a blowjob and reports my movements to the interpol. And we haven’t even made good practical advancements in engine technology since the decade before last!

God, what a joke of a country.

[phoenixyfriend]

Ko-fi prompt from @liberwolf:

Could you explain Tariff's , like who pays them and what they do to a country?

Well, I can definitely guess where this question is coming from.

Honestly, I was pretty excited to get this prompt, because it's one I can answer and was part of my studies focus in college. International business was my thing, and the issues of comparative advantage (along with Power Purchasing Parity) were one of the things I liked to explore.

-----------------

At their simplest, tariffs are an import tax. The United States has had tariffs as low as 5%, and at other times as high as 44% on most goods, such as during the Civil War. The purpose of a tariff is in two parts: generating revenue for the government, and protectionism.

Let's first explore how a tariff works. If you want to be confused, then you need to have never taken an economics class, and look at this graph:

(src)

So let's undo that confusion.

The simplest examples are raw or basic materials such as steel, cotton, or wine.

First, without tariffs:

Let us say that Country A and Country B both produce steel, and it is of similar quality, and in both cases cost $100 per unit. Transportation from one country to the other is $50/unit, so you can either buy domestically for $100, or internationally for $150. So you buy domestically.

Now, Country B discovers a new place to mine iron very easily, and so their cost for steel drops to $60/unit due to increased ease of access. Country A can either purchase domestically for $100, or internationally for $110 (incl. shipping), which is much more even. Still, it is more cost-effective to purchase domestically, and so Country A isn't worried.

Transportation technology is improved, dropping the shipping costs to $30/unit. A person from Country A can buy: Domestic: $100 International: $60+$30 = $90 Purchasing steel from Country B is now cheaper than purchasing it from Country A, regardless of where you live.

Citizens in Country A, in order to reduce costs for domestic construction, begin to purchase their steel from Country B. As a result, money flows from Country A to B, and the domestic steel industry in Country A begins to feel the strain as demand dwindles.

In this scenario, with no tariffs, Country A begins to rely on B for their steel, which causes a loss of jobs (steelworkers, miners), loss of infrastructure (closing of mines and factories), and an outflow of funds to another country. As a result, Country A sees itself as losing money to B, while also growing increasingly reliant on their trading partner for the crucial good that is steel. If something happens to drive up the price of B's steel again, like political upheaval or a natural disaster, it will be difficult to quickly ramp up the production of steel in Country A's domestic facilities again.

What if a tariff is introduced early?

Alternately, the dropping of complete costs for purchase of steel from Country B could be counteracted with tariffs. Let's say we do a 25% tariff on that steel. This tariff is placed on the value of the steel, not the end cost, so:

$60 + (0.25 x $60) + $30 = $105/unit

Suddenly, with the implementation of a 25% tariff on steel from Country B, the domestic market is once again competitive. People can still buy from Country B if they would like, but Country A is less worried about the potential impacts to the domestic market.

The above example is done in regards to a mature market that has not yet begun to dwindle. The infrastructure and labor is still present, and is being preemptively protected against possible loss of industry to purchasing abroad.

What happens if the tariff is not implemented until after the market has dwindled?

Let's say that the domestic market was not protected by the tariff until several decades on. Country A's domestic production, in response to increased purchasing from abroad, has dwindled to one third of what it was before the change in pricing incentivized purchase from B. Prices have, for the sake of keeping this example simple, remained at $100(A) and $60(B) in that time. However, transportation has likely become better, so transportation is down to $20, meaning that total cost for steel from B is $80, accelerating the turn from domestic steel to international.

So, what happens if you suddenly implement a tariff on international steel? Shall we say, 40%?

$60 + (0.4 x 60) + 20 = $104

It's more expensive to order from abroad! Wow! Let's purchase domestically instead, because these prices add up!

But the production is only a third of what it used to be, and domestic mines and factories for refining the iron into steel can't keep up. They're scaling, sure, but that takes time. Because demand is suddenly triple of the supply, the cost skyrockets, and so steel in Country A is now $150/unit! The price will hopefully come down eventually, as factories and mines get back in gear, but will the people setting prices let that happen?

So industries that have begun to rely on international steel, which had come to $80/unit prior to the tariff, are facing the sudden impact of a cost increase of at least $25/unit (B with tariff) or the demand-driven price increase of domestic (nearly double the pre-tariff cost of steel from B), which is an increase of at least 30% what they were paying prior to the tariff.

There are possible other aspects here, such as government subsidies to buoy the domestic steel industry until it catches back up, or possibly Country B eating some of the costs so that people still buy from them (selling for $50 instead of $60 to mitigate some of the price hike, and maintain a loyal customer base), but that's not a direct impact of the tariff.

Who pays for tariffs?

Ultimately, this is a tax on a product (as opposed to a tax on profits or capital themselves, which has other effects), which means the majority of the cost is passed on directly to the consume.

As I said, we could see the producers in Country B cut their costs a little bit to maintain a loyal customer base, but depending on their trade relationships with other countries, they are just as likely to stop trading with Country A altogether in order to focus on more profitable markets.

So why do we not put tariffs on everything?

Well... for that, we get into the question of production efficiency, or in this case, comparative advantage.

Let's say we have two small, neighboring countries, C and D, that have negligible transportation costs and similar industries. Both have extensive farmland, and both have a history of growing grapes for wine, and goats for wool. Country C is a little further north than D, so it has more rocky grasses that are good for goats, while D has more fertile plains that are good for growing grapes.

Let's say that they have an equal workforce of 500,000 of people. I'm going to say that 10,000 people working full time for a year is 1 unit of labor. So, Country C and Country D have between the 100 units of labor, and 50 each.

The cost of 1 unit of wool = the cost of 1 unit of wine

Country C, having better land for goats, can produce 4 units of wool for every unit of labor, and 2 units of wine for every unit of labor.

Meanwhile, Country D, having better land for grapes, can produce 2 units of wool per unit of labor, and 4 units of wine per unit of labor.

If they each devote exactly half their workforce to each product, then:

Country C: 100 units of wool, 50 units of wine Country D: 50 units of wool, 100 units of wine

Totaling 150 units of each product.

However, if each devotes all of their workforce to the product they're better at...

Country C: 200 units of wool, no wine Country D: no wool, 200 units of wine

and when they trade with each other, they each end up with 100 units of each product, which is a doubling of what their less-efficient labor would have resulted in!

The real world is obviously much more complicated, but in this example, we can see the pros of outsourcing some of your production to another country to focus on your own specialties.

Extreme examples of this IRL are countries where most of the economy rests on one product, such as middle-eastern petro-states that are now struggling to diversify their economies in order to not get left behind in the transition to green energy, or Taiwan's role as the world's primary producer of semiconductors being its 'silicon shield' against China.

Comparative advantage can be used well, such as our Unnamed Countries (that are definitely not the classic example of England and Portugal, with goats instead of sheep) up in the example. With each economy focusing on its specialty, there is a greater yield of both products, meaning a greater bounty for both countries.

However, should something happen to Country C up there, like an earthquake that kills half the goats, they are suddenly left with barely enough wool to clothe themselves, and nothing for Country D, which now has a surplus of wine and no wool.

So you do have to keep some domestic industry, because Bad Things Can Happen. And if we want to avoid the steel example of a collapse in the given industry, tariffs might be needed.

Are export tariffs a thing?

Yes, but they are much rarer, and can largely be defined as "oh my god, everyone please stop getting rid of this really important resource by selling it to foreigners for a big buck, we are depleting this crucial resource."

So what's the big confusion right now?

Donald Trump has, on a number of occasions, talked about 'making China pay' tariffs on the goods they import into the US. This has led to a belief that is not entirely unreasonable, that China would be the side paying the tariffs.

The view this statement engenders is that a tariff is a bit like paying a rental fee for a seller's table at an event: the producer or merchant pays the host (or landlord or what have you) a fee to sell their product on the premises. This could be a farmer's market, a renaissance faire, a comic book convention, whatever. If you want to sell at the event, you have to pay a fee to get a space to set up your table.

In the eyes of the people who listened to Trump, the tariff is that fee. China is paying the United States for access to the market.

And, technically, that's not entirely wrong. China is thus paying to enter the US market. It's just the money to pay that fee needs to come from somewhere, and like most taxes on goods, that fee comes from the consumer.

So... what now?

Well, a lot of smaller US companies that rely on cheap goods made in China are buying up non-perishables while they can, before the tariffs hit. Long-term, manufacturers in the US that rely on parts and tools manufactured in China are going to feel the squeeze once that frontloaded stock is depleted.

Some companies are large enough to take the hit on their own end, still selling at cheap rates to the consumer, because they can offset those costs with other parts of their empire... at least until smaller competitors are driven out of business, at which point they can start jacking up their prices since there are no options left. You may look at that and think, "huh, isn't that the modus operandi for Walmart and Amazon already?" and yes. It is. We are very much anticipating a 'rich get richer, poor go out of business' situation with these tariffs.

The tariffs will also impact larger companies, including non-US ones like Zara (Spanish) and H&M (Swedish), if they have a huge reliance on Chinese production to supply their huge market in the United States.

If you're interested in the repercussions that people expect from these proposed tariffs on Chinese goods, I'd suggest listening to or watching the November 8th, 2024 episode of Morning Brew Daily (I linked to YouTube, but it's also available on Spotify, Nebula, the Morning Brew website, and other podcast platforms).

[level2janitor]

tactiquest structure

so i've posted a lot about tactiquest's classes and monsters and everything on here but i haven't really talked about the non-combat subsystems much yet and i wanted to go into detail about them, bc tactiquest has very different goals from most heroic fantasy systems.

tracking inventory, travel time, worrying about actually running out of your adventuring budget, are things a lot of big-damn-heroes fantasy systems throw out because they're just paperwork that gets in the way of your cool fights. that's not the case in Tactiquest! these systems are so core to the experience that removing them will make a lot of classes unusable. the game is built around them.

travel & exploration

tactiquest explicitly assumes you're running an open-sandbox hexcrawl and is designed to support that, including the fact the game is designed around random encounters. this is the sort of thing D&D 3e expected you to do, but people ditched random encounters because they thought they were boring and tedious. so classes balanced around that attrition of resources ended up with a huge spike in power other classes couldn't match.

the boring-and-tedious problem is mostly addressed by trying to make combat really good and resolve really fast. if i fucked that up the whole thing falls apart, but so far people are liking it

the second thing that helps with random encounters is your resources don't fully restore immediately at the end of each day like they do in 3e. resting is less effective in the wilderness and resources expended are a tomorrow problem, not just a today problem. so you don't have to have 3+ fights every single day just to maintain parity - 0-2 fights per day still adds up to difficult resource management.

because the game has such a focus on it, you can have classes like the ranger actually be good at travel and exploration instead of just giving them vaguely-naturey combat abilities.

economy

in most D&D-likes, even usually OSR ones, you accrue so much gold. just as a side effect of adventuring. to the point money no longer actually matters because you can throw piles of it at any problem. this is bad. it's a system that defeats its own purpose; there are no interesting choices involving money when you have so much the only real expense is like, 50,000-gold-piece magic items.

i don't just want players to care about money, i want them to worry about money, like a normal person. you're not batman who's a billionaire as a side hobby, you're spiderman who has to deliver pizzas in between superhero work because he's got bills to pay like everyone else. so a whole lot of effort has been put into actually designing prices and treasure amounts around this dynamic.

i also hate how games will usually go "oh adventuring gives you 900,000 gold for existing but a normal person's living wage is 2 gold a month". i don't want to be fantasy jeff bezos, thanks

inventory

this is something i just lifted from OSR games outright. you can carry ten things (and tiny things don't take up an item slot). that's the whole rule.

tracking inventory can add a lot of interesting decisions to a game and adds a new lever for abilities from classes and magic items. having a character play the merchant class which gets a bunch of extra inventory slots feels really impactful. finding a bag of holding that doubles your carry capacity feels so good when you actually have to watch your inventory.

supply

the only thing i felt was really unenjoyable when running games with strict inventory limits was tracking rations for each character that you eat every night; it felt too much like busywork with not enough payoff. so in Tactiquest rations are abstracted into a single Supply stat that's tied to the party rather than any individual character.

you can only restock Supply in towns, and it drops by 1 each time you rest. you can sleep without resting and this won't cost supply, but you won't regain any HP or other resources. this gives you the impactful decision-making of tracking rations without the annoyance of "okay it's been a day of travel, everyone make sure you dock a ration from your sheet" like twice per session

Supply is one of the things that slowly drains your funds and gives you a reason to keep seeking out treasure, tying back into the economy. it also gives merchants and rangers some extra mechanical levers for their class abilities to pull on.

Edit: in the time since writing this post, tactiquest's been released as a public playtest. if this sounds interesting to you, play it here!

[andmaybegayer]

Was like "oh sweet with discounts the simulation meat is almost as cheap as the real meat" and realized that we were pretty far off with the whole "poor people eating meat flavoured Soy Chunks while the wealthy have real meat" trope in cyberpunk. It feels like we might get animal tissue synthetic meat before vegan substitutes reach price parity with animal meat given how that's going.

I feel like a lot of that discrepancy is just demand though, like, there's no way this stuff is actually more expensive, it's not even the fancy stuff with careful synthetic flavours it's basically vegetable protein and wheat derived binders plus spices.

Factory farming fits in really well to Cyberpunk actually.

[soaps-mohawk]

LOVE THIS FIC! c:

since you've described betas as "the glue" of packs, i'm really looking forward to seeing how the first heat plays out! i'd imagine alphas are just as out of it during ruts as omegas are during heat. i want to see instincts take over!! (for better or worse).

i'd imagine alphas are incredibly possessive and aggressive during ruts? even someone as mentally strong as price. could a fight break out? is nobody other than price allowed in or even near the nest for the first heat? could a heat go horribly wrong? as in, the alpha losing control completely and not letting the omega rest, eat or drink enough? or do one/both parities have way more control of themselves than i'm imagining?

Hi anon!!! Thank you!!! 🥰

I've touched on this a bit here and there already, but yeah, alphas do get pretty out of it when omegas go into heat. Heats trigger an alpha's rut and they kind of lose themselves to those instincts and just want to mate, mate, and mate. Alphas are very possessive during heats (even if they don't know the omega) and the presence of another alpha nearby will make them aggressive and fights are very common during heats if the alpha and omega aren't confined and kept away either from the rest of a pack or just from the world outside. Even the most highly trained alphas can lose themselves to those instincts quickly so that's why it's vital that either the omega is quarantined (for lack of a better word) or the alpha and omega are shut somewhere that's not easily accessible. Alpha fights are nasty and often come at the expense of the omega unintentionally.

That being said, the alpha still has that instinct to care for an omega to a point. I'm larger packs, that's where the betas come into play, though if a pack is just an alpha and omega, the alpha will still care for the omega. Betas help both the omega and the alpha during heats, making sure they're fed and hydrated and also to ensure that there's no harm to the omega (I'll get into that in a second.) They'll keep things stocked in the room, make sure the alpha's doing his part, and they're really essential for after the heat as well.

I did touch briefly (in chapter 10 I think?) on things that can happen during a heat, including omega injuries. Obviously the omega is very out of it, to the point where a lot of it just kind of blurs together. The alpha will remember most of it, but there is a risk of the alpha losing control at some point and hurting the omega unintentionally. That can range from bruises and scratches to things like broken bones and permanent internal damage as well. I'll be touching a bit more on things like that in chapter 11, but yeah. It can be a very dangerous situation if it's not handled properly.

So yeah, the first heat will be Price helping the reader, and Gaz helping take care of both of them.

[aviyinglet]

Pixel Yinglets 0.975 is now out for PC!

Hello, everyone! Hefty update today with a bunch of changes and customization options, getting closer to making this presentable as a cloneable public avatar. The Quest version will be live in the next few hours; you can buy this model for $30 on my fascinating Gumroad page, as early-access pricing before it hits 1.0. Details and changelog after the jump!

I finished 0.96 thinking "Ah, time to relax!" and then it was made clear to me during a meeting with friends that the leg rigging couldn't wait any longer -- so I devoted the entire week of working hours (and then some) to releasing 0.97 -- and the following night of experiences made it clear to me that some bugs needed fixing and more work was needed to improve the new-user experience, so now we're at 0.975. The model now has full digitigrade leg rigging on PC, but also a whole bunch of customization options for character creation, including face/body sliders and separate hue sliders for the body and eyes. In retrospect I'm embarrassed as hell that I waited so long to rig the legs properly, but I like to think I went through my hard knocks fixing it.

Because this is now cloneable, I can confirm that this is very functional in six-point full-body tracking. Putting this in the hands of experienced FBT users (my life-partner and several good friends) was revelatory, and has convinced me to get a set of trackers myself right after Vancoufur. Body language changes a lot!

The next update will probably not come as quickly as this one, but it will feature retopologized hands/feet and toggleable clothing. We aren't done with body customization yet, but I consider this a pretty good start!

The public version of this is currently in the wild, but I'll be waiting till .98 to buy Furhub ad space for it. I'm committed to maintaining feature-parity between the free and paid versions of this, with greater customization through production files as the draw for the paid version. Any questions or concerns, please let me know. <3

CHANGELOG:

02/28/2024 & 03/02/2024

VERSION 0.97: THE "LET'S DIGRESS" UPDATE and VERSION 0.975: THE "LET'S DIGRESS" HOTFIX

(PC-only currently, will have Quest version added in less than 24 hours.)

Feature additions:

Radial menus for body characteristic customization:

Hue sliders! Only visible on PC, since it requires the Poiyomi shader. Body and eye colors can be customized independently.

Shelltooth length.

Snout length.

Snout width.

Snout roundness.

Ear roundness.

Ear length.

Belly size.

Chin height.

Hip width.

Underfluff density.

Digitigrade leg armature on PC version, using constraints. Your hip bones should no longer completely dislocate when you crouch! :D

Front and back fur patterns! In the "Base Fur" layer category in the .psd is a "Patterns" subcategory, with "Front Pattern" and "Back Pattern" subcategories that can be toggled, recolored, and customized as you please.

Credits page, accessible from the main circle menu! Tell all your friends!

"Read this first!" page, which summons a plane containing helpful tips for first-time users.

Geometry tweaks:

Raised feet slightly to prevent them from clipping into the ground.

Adjusted shelltooth angle to prevent it from clipping into the lower lip.

Retopologized legs! Now significantly less boxy, and they stick out less far in front of the body (I used Valsalia's "Anatomy of a Yinglet" as reference).

Retopologized ears. The inner part's concave now!

Added blendshapes for all the customization sliders.

Added a bit more volume to the breast size blendshape.

Tweaked waistline to be more yinglet-y.

Tailtip now tapers more to a point.

UV/texture tweaks:

Added front and back fur-pattern layers, toggleable in the PSD.

Repainted legs and ears.

Repainted the weird transparent pixels bordering the tops of the hard black sections of the legs.

Made eyebrow anti-aliasing pixels actual transparency instead of the default fur color.

Changed credits page to use pixelated fonts.

Condensed color legend on texture.

Added "Read this first!" UI elements to texture. (Will be cleaned up when I expand the texture canvas for clothing.)

Armature tweaks:

Re-weighted feet. Still not ideal, but hands and feet will be retopologized for the next update.

Constrained feet to plantigrade ankles.

Added glasses bone. This and the skirt bones will factor into the next major update.

Added bones for individual whiskers.

Other tweaks:

Assigned default values to most properties between 0 and 1.

Radial menus have been reorganized. All customization sliders are nested in a Customization submenu.

Fixed default lid minimizer not firing in eyelid animations.

Restored eye sparkles on Quest.

Known issues:

Feet rigging is passable but could be better; I'll throw myself at it after feet receive the hand retopology.

Can't yet toggle front and back fur-patterns. (There's an issue with decals that causes them to not retain the hard edges of the rest of the model's pixelated texture.) Will be fixed in a later update.

[fostersffff]

Doing the first of my twice yearly "Big Blu-ray Sale" posts, with as much advance notice as I can possibly manage:

Tomorrow (7/16/2023), all three volumes of Revolutionary Girl Utena will be added to RightStuf's Birthday Sale. Volumes 1 and 2 (Eps. 1-13, 14-26) will be $25 each, and Volume 3 (Eps. 27-39 + Adolescence of Utena) will be $40. That's a teensy bit more expensive than the "One Day Sale" price they sometimes do, where all together they cost about $80, but still, <$100 for all of Utena is pretty good in my book, especially for the jump in quality versus what's on YouTube:

Also: The Big O will be on sale for $15, which is a steal!

And if neither of these are up your alley but you are interested in picking up physical copies of anime, set a reminder to check the website again at the end of the month. Typically, they re-run all of their big "One Day Sales" all at once, plus anything that's on normal sale is still available to pick up, so that would be the best time to check.

Also, Sentai Filmworks is having their own sale, which is largely at parity or better than RightStuf's sale (but only for stuff Sentai Filmworks has licensed), such as Ore Monogatari/My Love Story for $5.

That's even more of a steal than The Big O!

[handweavers]

if i ever sell my work again i've been trying to figure out which payment model makes the most sense for me without being too complicated. i like the idea of sliding scale pricing for several reasons but it doesn't address one of my main concerns which is purchasing power parity regarding currencies, which is an issue important to me esp if i plan to move back to malaysia where the ringgit is the lowest it has been in my memory compared to the USD (we are currently sitting at rm1 = 21 cents usd which is by no means the worst exchange rate out there but it is pretty bleak) because i don't feel right selling my work to westerners for RM prices and i don't feel right selling my work to malaysians (& others in the global south) for USD prices.

for instance, from my research an average selling price online for a beaded glass brooch with gold fill findings similar to what i've been making is about $90 CAD (or $68 USD) but that is equivalent to fucking 300 ringgit. in a country with a minimum hourly wage of rm7.21 ($1.54 USD) that is not a price i feel comfortable asking any malaysian to pay. but rm90 is less than $20 USD, and i know my labour is worth more than that and the thought of a westerner buying my work for $20 when i know it's worth $70 just because i'm malaysian makes my blood boil lol (and this goes for global south labour in general, not just when it's my labour, i am not special). so the only way i think i could feel comfortable selling anything would be to offer two tiers of prices, depending on what country they're from, but i have no idea if that's even enforceable or how that would work either unless it all goes thru me manually or it's an honour system thing. and it doesn't address the issue that is economic barriers among the population regardless of nationality, which is addressed by sliding scale (ie. even within canada $90 means vastly different things to different people, rm90 means different things, etc.) but i feel offering both would just make it all too complicated and confusing

maybe i'm just overthinking this entire thing and making it more complicated than it needs to be but like. it is important to me that my work is not made solely for the consumption of people from the global north lol especially if i am not even living there!!! i have no idea i hate money i hate having to attach a monetary value to my work and it sucks so bad but i have bills to pay

[allthebrazilianpolitics]

Canola gains ground in southern Brazil

Oilseed known as the “winter soybean” is attracting farmers for its efficiency in crop rotation, profitability, and pre-set prices

Canola, an oilseed with bright yellow flowers developed through genetic improvements from Canadian rapeseed, is emerging as the top choice among winter crops in Rio Grande do Sul. Farmers in the state increased the planted area by more than 75% this year, attracted by the crop’s efficiency in rotation, profitability, and pre-arranged purchase prices at planting.

According to estimates from Emater-RS, the planted area of canola—also known as the “winter soybean” due to its price parity with Brazil’s most produced crop—reached a record 135,000 hectares this season, up from 77,000 hectares last year. Production is expected to rise from 134,000 tonnes to 226,000 tonnes, a 68.7% increase.

Alencar Paulo Rugeri, a state technical assistant at Emater-RS, notes that one of canola’s appeals is its near-closed production chain, similar to barley. Farmers plant knowing who they will sell to and with an idea of the price, which in 2024 is better than in previous years.

According to Mr. Rugeri, there’s no competition between winter crops in Rio Grande do Sul due to the availability of land for expansion. The state plants 7 million hectares in summer and 2 million hectares in winter. “Canola is a good option for producers because its production cost isn’t as high, and it has more favorable phytosanitary conditions than wheat, for example,” he said.

Continue reading.

[linesonscreens]

Let's Read Peanuts (Only 45 more years to go!) – February 1955

There are lots of great strips I just don't have room to comment on. I strongly encourage everybody to read the full month at the official GoComics page. Today's month starts HERE.

February 1, 1955

And that's the last we see of Charlotte Braun.

I feel like she might have worked as a character if Schulz had actually played up the angle of them looking so much alike. He could have used those parallels to draw attention to the ways that Charlie Brown interacts with the world and why he struggles so much (and why Charlotte doesn't). Or he could have played up the similarities in their personalities in order to make Charlie Brown deal with his own bullshit from the other side of things. It could have been a really good angle in the right hands.

Oh well.

February 5, 1955

I was going to say something or other about how Snoopy is talking out loud here but then I got completely sidetracked by the fact that Charlie Brown's house is canonically purple.

February 9, 1955

Hank Hill voice: “That boy ain't right...”

February 15, 1955

...the hell?

~googles~

OK, so apparently "parity" is a term in agriculture for a guarantee the government makes ensuring that a farmer will make back a certain percentage of their expenses. The government sets a “parity index” based on how much certain commodities cost to make at a certain point in time and then sets rules on minimum prices based on a percentage of that index price (in Charlie Brown's case, 90%). Doing this protects smaller farmers from getting undersold into extinction by larger organizations or regional cost differences.

And now you know!

February 22, 1955

There will be ~so many~ strips of Snoopy pretending to be various animals. I hope you're prepared.

February 27, 1955

Lucy, the Beethoven shrine should really be a wake up call that you might be dodging a bullet here.

February 28, 1955

Holy shit, look at his eyes. She crushed this poor kid's soul.

Thoughts:

RIP to a real one.

She will be missed. By somebody. Probably.

[awesome-casuallyfamouscollector]

Putting numbers to the table, the Chevy Bolt was the clear winner for lifetime cost in this group, at about $51,171, with the Toyota Corolla coming in $15,672 more at about $66,843. The Tesla Model 3 came in third at $7,000 more than the Corolla, and the Prius came in $1,160 more than the Tesla at $75,000. The gas BMW was $109,500, which was $35,700 more than the Model 3 LR and $58,350 more than the Bolt(..)

P.S. Big, heavy and badly overpriced “luxury” ICE vehicles are keeping people in poor houses...

[probablyasocialecologist]

The purchasing power parity (PPP) exchange rates that undergird the WBPL [World Bank’s poverty line] are calculated on the basis of prices across the entire economy – including commercial airfares, sports cars, and meals at high-end restaurants – rather than the prices of goods that people need in order to meet basic needs, such as food and shelter. When it comes to measuring poverty, what matters is not income as such but rather what that income can buy in terms of access to essential goods; in other words, what matters is the welfare purchasing power of income. Allen (2017) analyses commodity prices around the world in 2011 and finds that the cost of meeting basic needs, measured in PPP terms, changes depending upon the price of food and shelter relative to prices across the rest of the economy. In Zimbabwe a person’s subsistence needs can be met with $1.74, PPP. But purchasing a similar basket would cost $3.19 in Egypt, and $4.02 in France. Because the WBPL does not account for the variable cost of meeting basic needs in different countries, it cannot be used to establish meaningful estimates of poverty.

The problems with the WBPL become particularly acute when comparing socialist states like pre-reform China to capitalist states such as India or Brazil. Socialist states tend to invest in public provisioning systems to provide people with access to essential goods . In such cases, the cost of meeting basic needs is generally quite low. In capitalist states, with high levels of commodification or privatisation, the same goods may be significantly more expensive. Therefore, a dollar of income (in broad-gauge PPPs) is likely to have a stronger welfare purchasing power in socialist states than in capitalist states.

Capitalist reforms and extreme poverty in China: unprecedented progress or income deflation?

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[poweredbytiktik]

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[spite-and-waffles]

You did a little explanation on how rich the Wayne’s are right here: https://at.tumblr.com/spite-and-waffles/i-always-wonder-whether-batfam-fans-really-get/0ctrzj4qhiww

Now I was wondering if you could do a part 2 explaining how rich the Al Ghuls are, it’s be amazing 🤩 to see how everyone reacts to Dami being an Al Ghul which is essentially royalty, and Damian being idk the prince of Nada Parbat and the Batfam’s reactions to it please

The discussion on that post went a lot into how rich Ra's might be, and whether he was richer than Bruce. (I made an edit about it, which I later moved into reblogs, which is why you'll see it in different places in the reblog chains.)

@rasalghul777 made a more involved post about Ra's in this reblog. It's a very well considered response, and I'm not very economically literate, but I didn't agree about the gold. Gold prices crash all the time, being subject to the same supply and demand as other goods. It's supposed to be a safe haven in times of inflation and economic downturn, but it's gone down 20% these days.

And I think the bit about counting income in expenses didn't account for purchasing power parity, which means that a basket of essential goods can be exponentially cheaper in the Global South. Especially if you're buying them, even weapons, at grate price.

This reblog goes into the comparisons between the cumulative wealth of individual billionaires vs. foreign debt of entire countries (the results will make you want to start killing people yourself). I think Ra's wealth in maintaining his assassins would function like a feudal economy, and I wanted to research that a little more before I responded, but then I...forgot. Lol.

As for the Al Ghuls being "royalty" – no. They're warlords with delusions of grandeur. Well, Ra's is. Both Nyssa and Talia just wanted out, and Dami is just parrotting what he's been made to believe. Nanda Parbat is the headquarters of a cult, that functions as a citadel. Royalty entails control of a country, that interacts with other rulers and nations. Ra's's idea of interaction is probably keeping a whole bunch of blackmail on everyone in his back pocket and culling favours by bribing and terrorizing them from the shadows. He's had centuries to build up his mystique, Illuminati-style, and rich and powerful people tend to be superstitious, especially in Asia and Africa. A myth is always more powerful than a man. The trouble with Ra's is that he buys his own hype, which always an Achilles heel. (And just tacky, tbh. But then so is royalty.)

Damian has been raised on all of Ra's's delusions about himself and his place in the world, and probably thinks of himself as a prince, because he's still a child. However, between his grandfather and his father, he can leverage the kind of power and influence that actual modern-day royalty can only dream of, because today's monarchies are answerable to their parliaments and the international community. (Granted, the complete lack of oversight and accountability checks around the Bats in general is a consistent cause for fridge horror). In terms of money, he stands to inherit one-fifth of Bruce's estate (one-sixth now? What's Duke's adoption status again?) as well as Ra's's fortune, so his personal wealth would be on par with or higher than the richest monarchs today (the current richest monarch in the world, King Vajiralongkorn of Thailand, is worth $43 - $30 billion). But like I said, royalty are the representatives and political leaders/ figureheads of a country, that existed either in the present or the past. The Al Ghuls aren't. So they're no more royalty than Bruce is. You could make the case that the Al Ghuls and Waynes are "aristocrats", the criteria for which is fuzzier but has something to do with noblesse oblige.

(Opinions have possibly been coloured by writer's extreme distaste for royalty and rich people, even in fiction. 😂 Dami will hopefully grow to share it. I mean, his favourite person is a carnie boy, and his Batgirl a working class girl and queen of dollar store scrunchies. His first friend was disabled orphanage child Colin Wilkes. Children are so much more than moulds their forebears want to cram them into.)