Did you know ...
... that there is such a thing as the Global Strategic Maple Syrup Reserve? What, do you think I'm lying or something? Click the link. Via Dealbreaker. It's 7.7 million kilograms, all told, which is about six million litres on the basis of a quick google search for the density of maple syrup. Two and a half swimming pools' worth, or about fifty Routemaster buses. Canada is genuinely the Saudi Arabia of maple syrup.
Is this like the shortest midget contest or whatever? "Strategic maple syrup reserve". Perhaps next we'll find out about a Strategic Global Beaver Pelt Reserve.
ReplyDeleteTallest midget*
ReplyDeleteI presume it's just the natural residual consequence of a garden-variety agricultural (arboricultural, all right then you fucking pedants) sunsidy program. But the International Strategic Reserve is what it's called.
ReplyDeleteI suppose Vermont must be "the Iraq of maple syrup" or something.
A little-known codicil to the Carter Doctrine threatened the deployment of the Second Fleet to Hudson Bay upon any threat to the flow of syrup across the US border.
ReplyDeleteSurely the maple syrup situation is much less strategically serious than the oil situation because there IS a synthetic alternative made in the USA?
ReplyDeleteIt is probably on such details that peace along the border has depended over the last hundred years.
ReplyDeleteHowever, the synthetic alternative tastes like ass.
ReplyDeleteHowever, the synthetic alternative tastes like ass.
ReplyDeleteHow would you know what ass tastes like?
Bizarrely, crude oil and maple syrup both have ersatz domestic replacements made of corn (respectively ethanol and "pancake syrup" - which, as Ben W rightly points, out is rank).
ReplyDeleteThe US is clearly embarking on an across-the-board corn-based import substitution strategy. Next up: cars, T-shirts and iPads all made out of Iowa's finest.
I'm sick of this constant bickering about corn
ReplyDeleteIt's amaizeing the corny jokes people make about it.
ReplyDeleteVermont is actually the Iraq of yuppie coffee. K-Cups are made by Green Mountain Coffee Roasters.
ReplyDeleteIn a similar vein, the US is still winding down its strategic zeppelin-preparedness reserve of helium ...
ReplyDeletehttp://www.nzherald.co.nz/world/news/article.cfm?c_id=2&objectid=10668231
That one's seriously bad news, like most laws passed by the US congress.
ReplyDeleteI didn't know that there is a strategic maple syrup reserve but now that I do I find it oddly comforting.
ReplyDeleteI wonder if they've got a little boat for the giant reservoir of maple syrup, like the one on the water tank under NORAD?
ReplyDeletelike the one on the water tank under NORAD?
ReplyDeleteWhat?
I have, in a moment of idle curiosity now I am back from holiday, checked annual production of maple syrup, and the strategic reserve is about 20% of annual production (assuming that maple syrup is not produced anywhere other than the USA and Canada, and that I have converted correctly from the massively unhelpful US statistics which are all in gallons). Maple syrup is about eight quid a litre, so we are talking about a reserve worth about £50m.
ReplyDeleteSince maple syrup production can't be increased rapidly (and so the strategic reserve is the only source of supply flexibility) it would seem to me to be eminently possible to engineer a "corner" in the world maple syrup market. The only snag I can see is that maple syrup futures are not traded on any exchange in the world, nor are there any even tentative plans to do so.
You can trade corn syrup futures, but I suspect that they are just as unsatisfactory a substitute as the actual syrup.
Since maple syrup production can't be increased rapidly (and so the strategic reserve is the only source of supply flexibility) it would seem to me to be eminently possible to engineer a "corner" in the world maple syrup market.
ReplyDelete[From a layman] I think a lot of people would be happy to switch to whatever substitute were there a massive supply shock. It's not an essential product. But yeah, corn syrup futures aren't likely to be very cross-elastic.
But where the demand to be inelastic, you could presumably take a shot at one of several ways, all of which are imperfect and risky. You could try to choke the supply of critical parts for specialized production machinery. If certain key parts are produced by only a couple very small firms (or even just one) you can buy them up. I don't know, however, whether this would be illegal. Presumably were this legal you can persuade maple syrup to buy the cornered companies off your hands.
You could also try cornering the supply of inputs, i.e. map sap. It would probably never work, though.
The wilder plan would be to instigate employees of syrup factories to walk out. Even better would be if you could find the bottleneck employees, for example the relevant technicians and engineers, and manage to get them to go into your employ. If key factories (or even just one) are knocked out (like the Eggo shortage due to Kellogg's Atlanta factory being knocked out while its Tennessee factory was undergoing repairs), you have basically cornered the market. That is probably illegal.
However, if it isn't illegal to corner syrup production employees, you can probably extort the relevant trading gains (were there to be actual maple syrup futures) from the syrup companies. Probably illegal again.
All of this is just a layman's guess.
Somewhere at the bottom of the tank, perfectly preserved and extremely sticky, are the bodies of the last people to try cornering the maple syrup market.
ReplyDeleteSomewhere at the bottom of the tank, perfectly preserved and extremely sticky, are the bodies of the last people to try cornering the maple syrup market.
ReplyDeleteThat can be generalized to most speculators who attempted to corner markets. Corners are rarely successful, and quite reliably ruinous to people who attempt them.
'Somewhere at the bottom of the tank...'
ReplyDeleteCould someone do the "coming to a sticky end" gag please? Or I will, and no-one wants that to happen.