ADVFN, where will the Shareprice go now (part II)..

UK; personally I believe in regulated capitalism. To give a couple of examples:_During the last war food became short and so what was the fairest solution to the problem? Let food prices rocket under a free market, supply and demand system or to ration it fairly to all members of the population, rich or poor? I think that 'rationing' was the best solution but obviously required political interference in the food chain.
Prior to the second World War there had been a relatively free market in food supplies and the merchants of the day; eg the Tooley Street Butter merchants etc had driven prices down to such a level that British agriculture became largely uneconomic and many farms were abandoned or ceased production. Then when war broke out and German U Boats sank many of the food supply ships from the US Canada, Australia and NZ then the British Farmer suddenly became important again! Politicians said 'Never again must we allow British Farming to decline in the way it did in the 1930's' and they put in place public bodies to regulate a minimum price for agricultural commodities via The Milk Marketing Board, Potato and meat MB's etc that also regulated production. Good idea? I think so but then we joined the EU in the early 70's and the support system for agriculture changed to different forms of subsidy that has led to overproduction and crazy payments for growing tobacco, leaving land 'set aside' etc. Now many farmers believe that these subsidies are about to be phased out leaving farm commodity prices in the hands of? The Tooley Street Merchants? No Tesco, Asda and Morrisons and where will that lead us? Right back to the 1930's with British farms ceasing business because they are loosing money on every litre of milk produced whilst the supermarkets who are able to source milk products from Poland or Vietnam squeeze prices down to uneconomic levels make huge profits? Roll on the next World War! No, I don't really mean that.