To earn the maximum amount of points, I recommend responding in a 275-word response. You can use your own experience to reflect on how the articles relate to.
Relate the following article(s) to the law of supply and demand.
The reasons behind 2020’s national Christmas tree shortage (Chapter 2)
By Dean Balsamini (Links to an external site.) and Paula Froelich (Links to an external site.) December 5, 2020
O Christmas tree, o Christmas tree, how pricey are thy branches!
Fewer tannenbaums are being offered for sale on the streets of New York City this holiday season and whether you are naughty or nice, it’s going to cost you more than in years past, vendors and experts say. Manhattan vendor SoHo Trees, which last year hawked the city’s most expensive (Links to an external site.) conifer — $6,500 for a single 20-foot Fraser fir — is sitting it out this season due to the pandemic. “The safety of our customers and staff are of utmost importance to us. It is with a heavy heart to inform you that SoHo Trees will be taking a break from the 2020 holiday season,” reads a website message (Links to an external site.) to “our loyal customers.” David Neville, who manages NYC Tree Lady (Links to an external site.), which sells “hand-picked” exotic trees (like Nordmann and Korean firs) for up to $1,000 at five locations in Manhattan — including Astor Place — acknowledged “there’s a lot less Christmas tree stands in the city this year.”
Neville believes COVID-19 and the California wildfires caused a “ripple effect” that contributed to a tree shortage. The nationwide supply could not satisfy the demand, which means higher prices across the board. “There’s only a certain amount of five to six foot Christmas trees planted five years ago. A fire wipes those out. The next thing you know, the vendors are calling every farm in the country to try and fill their orders,” he said. “All of the vendors that are selling Christmas trees this year purchased them 20 to 30 percent higher than they did last year,” Neville said.
Neville suspects that Soho Trees and other vendors might also be taking 2020 off because a portion of their wealthy clientele were among those 300,000 who bolted the Big Apple (Links to an external site.) over the last nine months. “Selling Christmas trees in Manhattan is mayhem. Anything that can go wrong — does. It’s a very tough business,” he said. Neville said there’s a market for the “smaller, cheaper” trees from North Carolina and Canada that he would sell in Chelsea, but they aren’t making it to the Big Apple. “We would buy them in bulk, one thousand at a time, and we’ve had a few of those loads canceled without explanation,” he said.
Hans Heep, 75, who lives in Greenwich Village, paid $75 for a “slim, but beautiful” 5-foot Fraser fir from Tree Riders NYC (Links to an external site.) at St. Marks Church. Last year, a similar conifer cost him $28. Heep, who hails from Austria, said back home he’d pay $110 for his holiday tree, “but it was 10 feet tall!” Erika Lee Sengstack, the managing partner at Tree Riders NYC, theorized that “people who come down from Canada are less likely to sell trees this year if they are going to have a hard time getting back. It’s a hassle because of COVID.”
Canadian tree farmer Jimmy Downey, who is also a spokesman for the Canadian Christmas Tree Growers Association, explained “the market was very hard for the growers 10 years ago. … We went from 300 growers to 100 growers in Quebec. People were planting a lot less trees, so we have a lot less now.” Downey said with demand high and supply low, farmers might simply be diverting their trees to wherever they can get top price.
A 52-year-old West Village woman lamented her “go-to places” for Christmas trees weren’t in business this year and noticed that south of 14th Street, trees were more expensive than ever — with even “deli trees” going for over $100. However, she sniffed out a score on Sixth Avenue while walking her dog one early morning. “I found a stand where a guy working the graveyard shift gave me a deal. Sold me a $140 (6-foot Balsam) tree for $80 cash!” Customer Hans Heep looks at a Fraser fir tree at Tree Riders NYC in the East Village. Helayne Seidman. Said the satisfied customer: “We get a fresh tree every Christmas and this year it felt particularly important because there’s been so much change and upheaval.” Manhattan tree vendor Neville said although the year has “been bizarre,” the city is beginning to feel a lot like Christmas. “People are coming out and they need a break from 2020 and they want to forget politics and everything that’s going on and the tradition of a Christmas tree seems to be filling that,” he said. “One person just bought a bunch of trees and said to give them to the poor.”
https://nypost.com/2020/12/05/the-reasons-behind-2020s-national-christmas-tree-shortage/
The science of salmonella
The deadly bacterium, responsible for recent pistachio and peanut recalls, can live in many wild animals and in almost any climate. And it’s thriving in our modern lifestyle.
This is salmonella’s world. We’re just living in it. The bacterium appeared on the planet millions of years before humans, and scientists are certain it will outlast us too. It’s practically guaranteed that salmonella will keep finding its way into the food supply despite the best efforts of producers and regulators.
Since breaking off from its close cousin E. coli more than 100 million years ago, salmonella has evolved into more than 2,500 strains. Some, such as Typhi, sicken humans but have no effect on other animals. Others sicken animals but not humans, with certain strains unique to a single species.
The bacterium is in so many wild animals that scientists have no hope of controlling it.”There won’t be a world without salmonella, period,” said Eduardo Groisman, a molecular microbiologist at Washington University in St. Louis. “I haven’t kept track recently, but 15 years ago when I last checked in detail, there were at least 100 different animal species in which salmonella had been isolated, from camels to cockroaches.”
Salmonella’s goal in life is to find its way into an animal’s gut, where it can burrow in and multiply. Then, by triggering episodes of diarrhea and vomiting, the bacterium makes sure it is spread far and wide in the environment again, the better to find new hosts.
It can hitchhike its way into the gastrointestinal tract on cigarette butts, pens or anything else that goes into the mouth.Animals that live in close proximity to their feces can wind up with an invisible coating of salmonella. The adorable baby chicks ubiquitous on Easter are known to transmit salmonella to their handlers.
A Komodo dragon at the Denver Zoo sickened dozens of people — and sent eight to the hospital — almost 15 years ago by licking handrails in its exhibit area, which were then touched by visitors, who later ate without washing their hands. The baby turtle craze of the 1970s caused so many cases of salmonellosis among children that the Food and Drug Administration banned the sale of pet turtles with shells shorter than 4 inches.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says there are 40,000 reported cases of salmonellosis in the U.S. each year. That’s just the tip of the iceberg. Epidemiologists estimate that for each case that is reported, there are 38.6 additional patients who become ill but aren’t formally recognized by the medical system.
Kaplan, K (2009)
https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2009-aug-10-he-salmonella10-story.html
Ford shuts factories over tire crisis
Ford Motor company is to temporarily close three US truck assembly plants temporarily to help it deal with the Bridgestone/Firestone tire crisis.
The car giant said that 70,000 tires which were due for use on Ford Explorers and Mercury Mountaineers would be diverted to dealerships to replace faulty Bridgestone tires. The three plants will close for two weeks from 28 August, with the result that 25,000 trucks will be cut from Ford’s third quarter production schedule.
Senior vice president Martin Inglis said: “Clearly this will impact earnings.” Ford will be able to recoup most of the lost production of the 2001 Ford Ranger – about 10,000 units – during the remainder of the year. But lost production of about 15,000 2001 Ford Explorers, at the centre of the recall, will be pushed into next year, he said. The recall earlier this month of 6.5 million Bridgestone/Firestone tires was prompted by safety fears.
Workers paid The move has created a nationwide shortage, with the plant shutdowns seen as a way of speeding its resolution. The recall came as the US National Highway Traffic Safety Administration investigates the tires in connection with 62 deaths and more than 100 injuries.
The tires in question were mounted mostly on Ford trucks and sports utility vehicles, including the Explorer. The 15-inch tires at the three plants were earmarked for use on new vehicles, but will now be sent to dealers and installed on existing Ford trucks and sports utility vehicles. The plants employ about 6,000 workers, who will be paid during the shutdown. Monday, 21 August, 2000
Russia sets minimum vodka price
Russian authorities have brought in new measures imposing a minimum price for all vodka sold in the country. The move is part of Russian President Dmitry Medvedev’s plan to tackle alcoholism. The cheapest bottle of vodka on sale will now be 89 roubles ($3;£1.80) for half a litre. An average Russian earns just under 18,000 roubles ($600; £367) per month and illegal vodka can be found for as little as 40 roubles.
Experts estimate that sales of bootleg vodka in Russia make up almost 50% of all vodka drunk by Russians. As an average Russian drinks 34 bottles a year, that adds up to a lot of bottles. Mr Medvedev is determined to cut that by a quarter by 2012 – a brave target considering the lack of success his predecessors have had. The problem is that historically, whenever Russia has tried to combat excessive drinking, sales of illicit alcohol have risen.
Homemade vodka in Russia is highly dangerous and contributes heavily to the country’s 35,000 deaths a year from alcohol poisoning. The most draconian anti-alcohol campaign was virtual prohibition under former Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev in the late 1980s.
That resulted in people drinking perfume and industrial alcohol which in turn led to widespread death and injury. The worry is that, at best, this gesture is just a token effort and at worst may even encourage the production of illicit vodka. 01/01/2010 By Daniel Fisher
Apple offers $100 credit to iPhone owners
Apple’s Steve Jobs on Thursday said he would offer previous iPhone customers a $100 store credit (Links to an external site.) toward purchase of any product at an Apple Retail Store or the Apple Online Store (Links to an external site.), following thousands of emails and feedback from angry customers (Links to an external site.). Backtracking on his previous hard-line stance (Links to an external site.), Jobs also acknowledged the role of early adopters in the evolution of a product, while emphasizing that price continues to decline over the life of any technology product. Customers, he said, could expect a $100 credit some time next week. In an open letter to customers, the CEO reiterated that the company was making the right decision with its price cut (Links to an external site.) ahead of the holiday season, but noted that trust was an important factor in customer relationships.
“If you always wait for the next price cut or to buy the new improved model, you’ll never buy any technology product because there is always something better and less expensive on the horizon,” Jobs said. “The good news is that if you buy products from companies that support them well, like Apple tries to do, you will receive years of useful and satisfying service from them even as newer models are introduced.”
Jobs conceded that while the technology road is a bumpy one, Apple should have done a better job of taking care of early iPhone customers, many of which make up the company’s most faithful. “Therefore, we have decided to offer every iPhone customer who purchased an iPhone from either Apple or AT&T, and who is not receiving a rebate or any other consideration, a $100 store credit towards the purchase of any product at an Apple Retail Store or the Apple Online Store. Details are still being worked out and will be posted on Apple’s website next week. Stay tuned,” he wrote.
The Cupertino-based company aggressively deleted anti-Apple threads (Links to an external site.) after announcing its price cut yesterday morning. Upset iPhone owners posted their frustration in droves, and one user claimed Apple had deleted upwards of 2,200 posts throughout the day. Dozens of posts and readers from around the Web called on fellow iPhone owners to contact media organizations and send emails to Steve Jobs himself. http://gizmodo.com/297182/breaking-apple-offering-100-store-credit-for-all-iphone-owners. Thursday, September 6th 2007
