GRE Argument 范文 Topic 75

　　Arg-75

　　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."

　　This editorial recommends that Batavia's government regulate milk prices to reduce supplier profits and guarantee an adequate supply of milk for consumption. To support these assertions the author cites the fact that over the past ten years the number of dairy farms in Batavia has increased by 25% while at Excello Food Market milk prices have doubled. The argument is nonsensical. Let’s explore.

　　First of all, the speaker offer’s only Excello's milk prices, a local store, and hopes an audience to accept that the price, which doubled, reflects prices throughout Batavia. Basic laws of economics indicate that when supply goes up, prices fall. It is highly probably that Excello’s prices are a unique peculiarity and that the high price can be attributed to a local issue: transport, convenience, and so on. To the extent that Excello's milk prices are correlated with national averages, the speaker makes no effort to mention.

　　In the second place, for the sake of argument, let us assume that Excello's milk prices do reflect those in Batavia. The speaker claims that milk prices are particularly "excessive" and assumes that milk-sale profits are going to milk producers. This has not been proven to be the case. Returning to basic laws of economics, if supply goes up profits go down. There is strong evidence that there are alternative causes for the rise in price and there is a great possibility that the producers of milk are not the beneficiaries of profit.

　　In the third place, the author assumes that an increase in milk prices results in increased profits. It is reasonable to conclude that while prices have gone up, profits have actually remained the same and the price itself is the result of increase production cost. Thus the strength of the author's claim of excessive milk-sale profits is totally unfounded.

　　In the fourth place, based on the fact that the number of dairy farms has increased, the author infers that the supply of milk has also increased. However, this is not necessarily the case. It is possible that dairy farm production has shifted away from milk to other dairy products, and that the supply of milk has actually declined over this time period. This scenario would make far more sense and would certainly find itself in accord with the basic laws of economics.

　　Finally, in asserting that price regulation would help ensure an adequate supply of milk the author overlooks the possibility that milk producers would respond to the regulation by producing less milk or even stop producing milk altogether, especially because the profit motivator is absent from the process.

　　In conclusion, the recommendation for regulation of milk prices is a seriously bad one and the evidence to support is equally as poor. To convince an audience that the proposed regulation is needed to ensure a reasonably priced milk supply, the author must provide clear statistical evidence that Excello's milk prices reflect nationwide milk prices and that profits from milk sales are in fact excessive. To better evaluate the recommendation, the audience would need to agree with socialist political doctrine and ignore the most commonly accepted laws of economics on the planet earth. The recommendation should be ignored