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Posts tagged with coffee

I can afford to consume each of

  1. chocolate
  2. cheese
  3. tea/coffee
  4. fruit

multiple times per week. I think that qualifies me as Pretty Goddam Lucky.




Fair Trade cocoa price, 1996-2006 You can see from the above graph that fair trade certifiers aim not just to raise, but to raise and stabilise the price a farmer or cooperative receives for produce. Fact: There are many fair trade certifying bodies, this data comes from Flo-CERT GmbH, a non-profit based in Bonn. Flo-CERT pays X employees to verify that cocoa, coffee, and other popular consumption products are farmed and sold according to Fair Trade standards. How much extra are you willing to pay these people (their efforts are part of the extra cost of fair trade goods) so that the farmers are guaranteed predictable revenues? Fact 2: The loathèd corporation Starbucks has been paying stable above-market rates for their coffee for years. Fact 3: The charts above depict a one-dimensional price. Of course each coffee/cocoa bean is unique; so is every farm and every farmer. For a commodity to be traded from hand to hand to hand, it needs to be standardised. But a big buyer like Starbucks which deals through its own channels with farmers might pay a higher price simply because it’s also requiring a higher grade of beans — thus leaving the middle quality ones to be sold at the regular market rate. Conclusion: Nothing is as simple or clear-cut as it at first seems.

Fair Trade cocoa price, 1996-2006

You can see from the above graph that fair trade certifiers aim not just to raise, but to raise and stabilise the price a farmer or cooperative receives for produce.

Fact: There are many fair trade certifying bodies, this data comes from Flo-CERT GmbH, a non-profit based in Bonn. Flo-CERT pays X employees to verify that cocoa, coffee, and other popular consumption products are farmed and sold according to Fair Trade standards.

How much extra are you willing to pay these people (their efforts are part of the extra cost of fair trade goods) so that the farmers are guaranteed predictable revenues?

Fact 2: The loathèd corporation Starbucks has been paying stable above-market rates for their coffee for years.

Fact 3: The charts above depict a one-dimensional price. Of course each coffee/cocoa bean is unique; so is every farm and every farmer. For a commodity to be traded from hand to hand to hand, it needs to be standardised. But a big buyer like Starbucks which deals through its own channels with farmers might pay a higher price simply because it’s also requiring a higher grade of beans — thus leaving the middle quality ones to be sold at the regular market rate.

Conclusion: Nothing is as simple or clear-cut as it at first seems.


hi-res





hi-res




From nature to hardware to software in less time than it takes to drink a Starbucks Trenta. I love this.

In about seven minutes (5:00 to 12:00) he goes from

  1. Maxwell’s Laws, to
  2. lumped circuit elements, to
  3. simple circuits, to
  4. processors, to
  5. operating systems, to
  6. programming languages, to
  7. video games.

Also to toasters and spaceship control modules.

(Source: ocw.mit.edu)




The diction is pretty bad in this book, and (thumbs down) the preface is by Nassim Taleb.  Apparently Hélyette Geman was his thesis advisor, and now he’s surpassed her in fame. Despite the poor writing style, this book has lots of useful info.  The first half of the book is full of Itō calculus and other Black-Scholes voodoo math.  The second half talks about many, many commodity markets—agricultural, oil & gas, metals, even the budding emissions markets. Book was finished in 2005 and it feels a little dated—but not too dated. I look forward to reading more of it.

The diction is pretty bad in this book, and (thumbs down) the preface is by Nassim Taleb.  Apparently Hélyette Geman was his thesis advisor, and now he’s surpassed her in fame.

Despite the poor writing style, this book has lots of useful info.  The first half of the book is full of Itō calculus and other Black-Scholes voodoo math.  The second half talks about many, many commodity markets—agricultural, oil & gas, metals, even the budding emissions markets.

Book was finished in 2005 and it feels a little dated—but not too dated.

I look forward to reading more of it.