[火箭 小组]第四次作业 A10

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The author tries to illustrate that farmers continue to receive excessive profits, because during the past ten years the number of dairy farms has increased by 25 percent while now the price of milk is 1.50 dollar higher than it was at that time. In addition, the author recommends that local government should regulate retail milk prices to make sure lower prices and an adequate supply of milk for consumers. As far as I am concerned, this assertion suffers from at least three logical flaws.

Firstly, a problem in this assertion is that the author simply equates the increase in the number of  dairy farms with the increase in the supply of milk. Moreover, the author fails to provide any information about the current production of dairy farms.  Without this information, it might be possible that now dairy farms produce more other dairy products than milk, and that the supply of milk has declined during this time period. In short, lacking enough evidence, the author cannot conclude the increase in the number of dairy farm will lead to the increase supply of milk.                                                                                             

Secondly, the price of milk at local EFM may not be representive. The author fails to provide any evidence that EFM's milk prices reflect those throughout Batavia. It might be possible that the current price of milk at EFM exceed nationwide averages. Then, the author's claim that milk prices are excessive is unconvincing. Even assuming the price of milk at local EMF reflect those throughout B, it dose not necessarily indicates that farmers are continuing to receive excessive profits. The author provides no information about the cost involved in milk production. Perhaps the cost of producing milk is much higher than it is 10 years ago, and it prevents farmers from earning a profit. In short, without the detail information about the production costs the author's notion is premature at best.

Finally, the author falsely recommends that B government should regulate the retail milk price for lower price and an adequate supply of milk. If regulation has the effect of lower prices, it might be possible that the milk producer will produce less milk to respond to the regulation, and that consumers cannot get an adequate supply of milk. The author needs to provide more information about how the proposed regulation would effect both the supply of milk and the demand for milk in B.

In sum, the author fails to substantiate the claim that B government should regulate the retail milk price for lower price and an adequate supply of milk, because the evidence cited here could not led strong support to what the arguer maintains. To make this argument more appealing, the author should offer more information with regard to the regulation of B government.