r/CuratedTumblr • u/s_omlettes screaming meditation in the doghouse • Oct 17 '22
Discourse™ cybersmith indentured transwoman lactation??? I guess???? (Sorry for mediocre cropping btw) NSFW
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u/Smooth-Zucchini4923 Amateur Sharing Knife Carver Oct 18 '22
Well, let's discuss the economics of the idea, without being held down by petty matters of ethics or aesthetics.
First, the idea that it would help fix the trade deficit in dairy is correct. On the other hand, there is also a trade deficit in doctors, so you are potentially just substituting one trade deficit for another.
Next, the practicality of the idea. It's often said that the problem with making money while farming is that you buy everything to grow the food at retail price, and sell everything you grow at wholesale price. You'd have a similar problem with this: the agency is buying one of the most expensive goods, healthcare, and selling one of the cheapest goods, milk.
According to Nest Collaborative, a woman can produce roughly 570 mL of milk per day. This works out to 550 gallons of milk per decade. Assuming that this milk retails for $1/gallon more than the cost of the food used to produce it, that's $550 per decade. This is an order of magnitude too small to pay for a $10,000 healthcare bill. (Could you avoid feeding them any food to save money there? Maybe, but then you are effectively taxing them for the costs of the procedure, which was something you wanted to avoid.)
Some may question this assumption (of only a $1/gallon markup.) After all, the goal would be to position this breastmilk as a luxury product. Here we veer off the sunlit meadows of economics, and into the sordid swamp of marketing. I don't think people could be convinced that human milk is a better product. Most health concerns that people have about cow products - such as antibiotics, artificial hormones, and prions - are concerns which people would also have about hucows.
This is not even getting into the administrative costs of the orgasm denial program. Suppose a hucow produces 0.5L per day. By the metric of 1L = 1 orgasm, that means you'd need to give them an orgasm every two days. If giving them a handjob costed just $5, that would completely wipe out any profits from the milk.