VILNIUS - The Internet's rumor mill has got into full swing over the unlikely subject of Lithuanian milk.
Announcements encouraging consumers not to buy Lithuanian dairy products for the rest of the week appeared on various Internet sites on Monday and quickly spread to email messages.
The purpose of the attempted boycott is to reduce prices, by means of a rather basic manipulation of supply and demand. If consumers reduce demand for dairy products, producers will have to reduce their prices - at least, that's the apparent logic behind the campaign.
"Dear people of Lithuania, if we stand together dairy companies will feel the results of our unity as early as the middle of the week," the anonymous advertisement suggests.
However, capitalism rarely works in such a straightforward and predictable manner.
Linas Sasnauskas, executive director of one of the country's largest dairy companies, Pieno Zvaigzdes, said he was not aware of the boycott but stated that the protests would not reduce prices, which are results of changes in the global market more than fluctuations in local demand.
Zilvinas Silenas, senior expert of the Lithuanian Free Market Institute, said that success of such protest actions was only theoretical.
"If consumers indeed changed their consumption habits and chose other products instead of milk, that would reduce the demand for milk and should theoretically reduce prices. On the other hand, dairy processors could compensate lower demand by bigger exports. That is why even if dairy products were not bought for a long time, that does not mean prices to be reduced," said Silenas.
Even if the campaign did force prices down and people started to buy milk, cheese and butter again, by the same logic, prices would rise once more as demand increased.
