A10 永不言弃小组 第22次作业

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10.The following appeared in a letter to the editor of a Batavia newspaper.

"The department of agriculture in Batavia reports that the number of dairy farms throughout the country is now 25 percent greater than it was 10 years ago. During this same time period, however, the price of milk at the local Excello Food Market has increased from $1.50 to over $3.00 per gallon. To prevent farmers from continuing to receive excessive profits on an apparently increased supply of milk, the Batavia government should begin to regulate retail milk prices. Such regulation is necessary to ensure both lower prices and an adequate supply of milk for consumers."

The editorial recommends that the Batavia government should regulate retail milk prices because farmers are receiving excessive profits on an apparently increased supply of milk. And, the editorial also asserts that this measure would help ensure adequate supply of milk. To support these assertions the editorial cites the facts that the prices of milk increased by 100% while the number of dairy farms has increased by 25% over the past ten years. The argument presented above is relatively sound at first glance, however, this argument is unconvincing for several critical flaws.

First of all, the author assumes that the high price of milk is abound to result in increased and even excessive profits. However, common sense and experience tells us this is not the case. Considering that the 整体的物价水平 of B has increased during past ten years, it is reasonable for the milk farmer to rise the milk price. Moreover, perhaps profit margins from the sale of other goods are even grater than profits from milk sales. Besides, the author fails to provide other possible alternatives of the increase of milk price. Perhaps, the cost of producing and transporting mils had increased in the past ten years. In either event, the author could not conclude that the milk-sale profits are excessive merely rely on the fact that mill price have increased by 100%.

In the second place, the argument depends on the assumption that the number of dairy farms is representative of the supply of milk.

However, this is not the case. It is entirely possible that though the number of dairy farms increased, many of them decrease the supply of milk in order to alter their products structure from mono milk to other kinds of dairy products. As a result, the supply of milk actually declined during the past ten years. Also, it is possible that, due to the serious competition, lots of little dairy farms begin to decline the supply of milk as they can’t conquer enough market shares. Thus, without providing more information about the actual condition of milk market, the assumption is unconvincing.

In the third place, the author asserts that if government regulate milk price it would ensure the supply of milk. Actually, the common sense tells us that if the price decrease and the profit of produce and sale milk also decline there will be no person would like to supply more milk. Without ruling out this possible scenario, the author cannot convince me that the recommendation would help ensure a adequate supply of milk.

To sum up, the recommendation relies on certain doubtful assumptions that render it unconvincing as it stands. To bolster the recommendation the author must provide more evidences that the profits of milk sales are in fact excessive and the dairy farms are producing and supplying adequate milk, to better evaluate the recommendation, I would more information about the influence of regulating milk price.