Intermediation is the process in which people insert themselves into our economic life in order to take a cut of our funds. If you buy a jar of jam at the store the store adds to the price of the jam in order to profit from the transaction. The people who write the advertising for the jam are paid for their efforts and this increases the cost of the jam. The people who make the jam need to be paid wages and the company requires a profit on the transaction and this increases the cost of the jam. The people who haul the berries need to be compensated for their expenses and they too expect to make a profit. The farmer expects to make a profit on their berries and that may happen or not but having someone else raise the berries increases the final cost of the jam.
The same things happen with the sugar used to make the jam. All the way along the chain from the person planting the sugar cane to its eventual arrival in your jam, people need to be compensated for their labours and all of them expect to make a profit. At each stage of the progress of your jam, from raw materials to you, it is taxed by the government and various regulatory agencies must be placated which adds to your final expense in spreading the jam on your toast.
In case you have been in a coma for the past few years, the cost of groceries, building materials, manufactured good and everything else I can think of has gone up greatly. Wages and pensions are not following suit so every last one of us is getting poorer. My question is, do you think you can afford an ever-increasing cost of living?
We cannot change the external factors of our failing model of consumerism but we can get past at least some of the intermediation. Let’s take jam as an example again. If you grow some organic berries in your garden, you will need some sugar and some canning jars and lids. The canning jars can be used time and again until you die and your heirs inherit the jars and lids. Tattler lids are reusable so buying jars and lids represents an investment not an expense.
You can cook up a batch of jam with as little or as much sugar as you like. You can make the jam exactly the way your family likes it. Jam is actually a great place to learn to preserve food because it is so easy and the product is wonderful. So, with home-made jam, you only have to face the intermediation process with the sugar and that is still affordable, at the moment.
The possibility of tariff wars between the United States of America and many of their trading partners is going to make life more interesting. The Canadian Federal Government, under the leadership of Our Dear Leader, Justin Trudeau, has slapped a 25% tariff on goods coming to Canada from the States. This means all these goods will be 25 percent, or more, higher for a time and we don’t know how long this will last. When the tariffs come off, expecting the price of the goods to subside is probably wishful thinking.
In British Columbia, most of our fresh vegetables come from California. Most of the frozen or canned vegetables also come from California. In fact, we are stupidly dependant on other countries for the staples of life. Perhaps, we should start to buy and produce locally?
Alcohol is another example of intermediation. Beer, wine and cider are all cheaper to drink than store-bought milk if you make them at home. Most of the cost of alcohol comes from the huge amount of taxes the government puts on it. Governments around the world very cleverly caught up the production and sale of alcohol to better profit from its sale.
So, the Canadian Government set out to destroy family farms because so many people living on family farms were able to provide for most of their needs by the production of goods and services and trade with other farmers. Goods and services created in house escape the tax net that the government wants us all tightly captured in.
For example, a quarter of beef might vanish in one area and reappear in another as firewood or hay. None of this had a paper trail and the government could not benefit from it. So, they set out to destroy family farms. Denman used to be covered with little farms before 1945. They were destroyed by government regulation.
If we start now, to learn how to produce more consumables for ourselves and our families, I believe this will help us avoid intermediation and get through the coming storm more comfortably.
