40,000 pounds of weight.  1200 miles average distance. Then fuel costs.

7 miles per gallon.  $2.25 average for gallon.

These are good averages for you to use.

Flint: it is cheap to transport, but I agree with Xeno (for a change, and not because he is an idiot) it is still 'expensive' to buy, even if said expense is justified by the 'cost' of producing, suppliying and distributing said food.

All resources are scarce, for if they were not then we would all have said resource and the need for money and wealth would be negated, and thus there would be no rich and no poor. this is not to say that the rich are stealing from the poor, but that because there is greed and scarcity of resources this means that there will not be a equal distribution of said resources, and those that have more will be 'rich' and those that have less will be 'poor.' Thr problem is with the current model of distribution there are billions which live barely on the edge (or completly underneath) the poverty line, a theortical concept upon which it is the bare minimum one requires to survive.

of course everyone here is 'wealthy' in a way and most are young and can't see beyond their own idioticy to that which is the real world...

in terms of money spent by the individual.  Seeds are cheaper than the foodstuf and will produce more crop than i will eat. thus is 'cheaper' than buying the end product. There are other factors involved which even out the sides of the ledger, but in terms of money and the indivudual (the only way to talk with right wing idiots) the growing yourself option is 'cheaper' than the buying the end product option.

Hence why I classed my 'expensive' in terms of moeny and not the oppotunity cost of the action. yes it is 'cheaper' in some cases to buy rather than farm, but that requires outside factors to be introduced, and said factors can easily work in the opposite direction, which are obviously factors in rural areas where said farming occurs. I did say that the price is a reflection of the cost of producing the foodstuf, which also takes into account oppotunity costs. Obviously this is how the price point is determined, if it was higher than more people would take on the cost and time to grow their own food, if it was lower less people would take up farming.

I am probably more in agreement in regards to our thoughts on how it all works, however (at least with flint) I seem to be coming to different conclusions.

Flint uses this model to argue that scarcity of resources are not a prime factor in poverty and sticks with his deluded right-wing concept that poor people are inherantly lazy and that they are bleeding the system dry. My thought is that despite the fact we are probably doing the best with the systems that we are using the prime factor to which causes poverty is the inherant greed of humans and the scarcity of resources coupled with this greed creates the imbalance between rich and poor, in fact the whole concept is only created because of these factors. laziness does come into effect as a secondary factor, especially in inherantly rich areas. My counter-argument therefore is that since we are mostly rich, given the pure fact we are debating this concept on a forum for an internet browser based game (hardly an essential for spending money on,) that the main factor we see in our everyday life that seperates poor from rich is what some people intrepret as laziness. This however is not a global factor as it is only a factor in rich countries, and even then will be a minor factor, that gets high visability and thus gets to be a blanket reason for poverty.

Oh I wouldn't do that!

What flint means is that his distorted view of the poor in the States is that they own these things, mostly because if the poor live like that then that justifies his greedy selfish world view...

[appologies to flint and Zarf]

>>The three necessities of life; food, water, shelter. <<

yes these are the main necessities, and to ensure that a high standard of life is maintained these need to be of good or better quality. A balanced diet is needed, which requires multiple different nutrients, vitamins, etc... Water requires to be clean and shelter needs to be of good construction to withstand the climate involved. Then one moves onto secondary 'needs' which are needed in the society one lives in. In rural africa the 3 basic needs would probably be sufficient, in urban america these would not be.

>>First aand foremost scarcity is relative, and most scarcity is due to unwillingness to get the product or... worse... it is regulated to prevent the product from being as available as desired.

Some products are scarce, like shrimp, lobster, kobe beef, and the likes.

Some are not, like sand (glass can be made from it), wood, salt water, wheat, rice, and for sure... oxygen. <<

You are wrong in the conclusion of this, all resources are scarce, though as you say to different degrees. Some are regulated to be more scarce than they really are, though normally by companies/industry not government policy as you seem to be implying, though thats not to say that government regulation doesn't exisit, jsut look at the US's trade barriers and lack of free trade laws.

Also it is not laziness which limits people from using these resouces that may or may not exisit in a 'poor' persons backyard, but more likely it is the market forces at play on such resources. Lets take Zarf's example of food in an Urban setting. Food is a scarce resource because it is only produced on limited land. Now the lawyer in Zarf's example could increase the production of a food type, but would it be in his best interests? Thus it is not laziness that stops him producing food. Now he was earning a resonable wage in Zarf's example, but even if we reduce his wage it will still not be laziness that determines if he decides to produce food instead of be a lawyer.

The rest of your post does not even begin to respond to my postion and in fact is more of an example of your blind moronic adherance to a theoritical position that is incorrect. In any case, i am not avocating that everyone produce everything, nor that this is even remotely advantagous. What I am saying is that the prime reason for poverty is not laziness but greed coupled with scaricty of all resources (even O2.) The simple fact that everyone tries to get as much as they can of any one thing, and there is not infinite amount of any one resource, let alone the vast amounts of resources we consume daily, is the reason there is poverty. Laziness is but a secondary factor which is minor in a majority of cases and it is just the blind rhetoric of a moronic right that like to use laziness as justification for the selfish and greed driven idealogy they promote.

[appologies to flint and Zarf]

oh shh Zarf...

Maybe he's just offline. 

No sincere apology, edit still allows insight and reference to attack.

This ignoring will not have my soul balanced against it, but without seeing a redemptive action of highest standards and eggshell walking til I am gone it will be followed in full strength.