Chapter 2 Media Article
"When lobster was fertiliser", economist.com, Oct 27th, 2005
This article basically focuses on the price changes that have happened to lobster in the last few centuries. Tracking lobster back, they have found out that it was once, "so cheap that it was fed to inmates in prison and children in orphanages. Farmers even fertilised their fields with it, and servants would bargain with their employers to be given it no more than twice or thrice a week." That's right. Lobster was once consider not good enough for servants and orphans.
However, as time went on, our hard-shelled friends became harder and harder to find. And because of the decrease in supply, the demand for it sky-rocketed along with the prices. So now, a meal that would have costed $4(in todays money) back than, can easily go for $40-50. And food that was once prefered to be used as fertilizer than to be eaten, is now served as delicacies with pride in the most prestigrous of restaurants.
Relevance to Ch. 2 - Supply, demand, and Elasticity
The relevance is focused on Supply and Demand. As the supply of lobster decreased, the price of it increased. While the supply of lobster decreased, other substitutes were explored such as swordfish. However, fact still remained that because of a dramatic decrease in supply, it turned a common-day food into a rare delicacy.
This article basically focuses on the price changes that have happened to lobster in the last few centuries. Tracking lobster back, they have found out that it was once, "so cheap that it was fed to inmates in prison and children in orphanages. Farmers even fertilised their fields with it, and servants would bargain with their employers to be given it no more than twice or thrice a week." That's right. Lobster was once consider not good enough for servants and orphans.
However, as time went on, our hard-shelled friends became harder and harder to find. And because of the decrease in supply, the demand for it sky-rocketed along with the prices. So now, a meal that would have costed $4(in todays money) back than, can easily go for $40-50. And food that was once prefered to be used as fertilizer than to be eaten, is now served as delicacies with pride in the most prestigrous of restaurants.
Relevance to Ch. 2 - Supply, demand, and Elasticity
The relevance is focused on Supply and Demand. As the supply of lobster decreased, the price of it increased. While the supply of lobster decreased, other substitutes were explored such as swordfish. However, fact still remained that because of a dramatic decrease in supply, it turned a common-day food into a rare delicacy.
posted by Charlie at 5:34 PM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home