
The butter shortage in France - briandear
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/10/30/world/europe/france-butter-shortage.html
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briandear
From the story: "But only France has seen shortages, because of the way its
food supply chain is organized. In France, Mr. Calbrix explained, prices
between suppliers and big retailers are negotiated once a year, in February...
...many retailers were refusing to pay the increased market price for butter."

It feels like a big problem with the French economy is simply a failure to
understand how supply and demand works. I live in France and my local SuperU
was completely out of butter. I would have been willing to pay €10 or more for
butter -- if they only had it. Instead everyone hoards it when it's €2,
causing shortages and people with freezers full of butter they don't even
need.

The failure to understand supply and demand extends to labor law as well -- an
increased cost of labor results in a decreased demand, yet here people are
wringing their hands over why unemployment is almost 10%, while just over the
border in Germany, unemployment is 3.7%.

