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"The islands will only have a healthy economy when we sever our addiction to airfreighted goods and strive to feed ourselves"
Doesn't most food come here by ship? Anybody who wants to grow here is free to do so, and compete with producers who have to charge for transportation costs. And yet nothing happens, probably because land is too expensive and wages too high. That's how a free market economy works. To try and force anything else will result in less prosperity for everyone.
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That's how a free market economy works.
Exactly!
The only problem is, we don't really have a free-market economy.
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Doesn't most food come here by ship?
Amazing how all that fresh stuff can swim all the way here and still be so pretty on the store shelf.
More amazing is that we import, by air, over 100 million dollars worth of meat and fish alone per year.. when we could produce all of that locally..
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There's this thing called refrigeration.
"when we could produce all of that locally"
So what's stopping that from happening? Go ahead!
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Sugar died because the cost of importing fertilizer rose higher than the amount congress was willing to subsidize the industry (corporate welfare).
More amazing is that we import, by air, over 100 million dollars worth of meat and fish alone per year.. when we could produce all of that locally..
...
So what's stopping that from happening? Go ahead!
How can we produce all of our meat & fish locally, when according to the comment above, all it takes is one simple factor, the price of fertilizer (imported) to put an entire industry out of business.
Farming is hard work. You can work seven days a week, then hit a bad stretch of weather and you’ve got nothing. Or an insect population could wipe out your crop because no one wants a vegetable with a bug bite, There’s fungus, weeds, workers who don’t show up on harvest day, broken water lines...
As Tom Hanks said in A League of Their Own:
“If it were easy, everyone would do it.”
It’s hard, that’s why no one is doing it.
On Tuesday night, 9/18/2018 Hawaii Senator Mazie Hirono had another message for the Republican senators on the Judiciary Committee “Just shut up and step up. Do the right thing.” She added in another related comment, “Bull$hit.”
"I'm at that stage in life where I stay out of discussions. Even if you say 1+1=5, you're right - have fun." - Keanu Reeves
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In the meantime, despite the best efforts and a lot of money from the MK observatories for education, there is a defiant group of people that want the island to go back to the nineteenth century. I can't think of anything more important than giving students opportunities to learn and develop their skills that will help the island, but a minority group wants to destroy those opportunities.
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a minority group wants to destroy those opportunities.
They would not be nearly so effective without all the support they get from the State.
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There is no actual economy as there is no will to have big business (only big landowners). Hawaii does not produce (and monetize) anything with actual uniqueness that is competitive on the world stage because big business is frowned upon. Nothing is actually exported or any unique service provided. Hawaii's views on the tourist is we have magical beaches "your welcome". There is a lot of uniqueness in the location and geography that could make for sizable non tourism industry complete with professional corporate jobs and all but there is no interest in any commercial development especially outside of Oahu. While I don't have interest myself why is pot not a viable global export industry for instance. My understanding is it is not dissimilar from coffee in unique attributes to Hawaii. Perhaps prepacked pot products can be sold nationally or internationally? Shouldn't local politicians by pushing for laws to enable those industries. Why not Puna Pot next to Kona Coffee on the world stage. Why not a significantly larger Big Island Candy (perhaps 10k employees) to export Big Island Brownies at a Hershey size? No interest in those things of course. Just mom and pop shops and mainland corporate branches.
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Some people on this forum want us to return to a subsistence farming past, and they get on the internet to tell us this. No thanks.
For the mainlanders here who are against tourism in general and air travel in particular, I wonder how they got here. Swimming?
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With remote working becoming more accepted, Hawaii has an opportunity to provide a very desirable location for people who can now live (and work) anywhere. I can't think what the luddites will dream up in order to try to put a stop to this but I'm sure they'll think of something. Expect a County bill to prevent telecommuting from Ag lots as well.
