Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Eggs are 60% more expensive than last year in the US

semafor.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

351–360 of 389 posts

Re: Eggs are 60% more expensive than last year in the US

#351

Post by SECProto »

poulsbohemian wrote: post #193
SECProto wrote: post #159

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 15 dozen eggs from Costco Business Center. [...] Just last week it was $110. Might I suggest buying eggs from a normal grocery store or other alternative source? That's $7.33 per dozen and unless you have some very unusual situation, a dozen eggs can be had for less than half that price at a grocery store.

Where? I live in a poor rural area and every grocery store in town (and we ain’t talkin Whole Foods here) has even generic eggs for more than $5/dozen. Thank goodness I have my own chickens.

$5/dozen is still a lot less than the $7.33/doz at Costco that OP was mentioning.

Canada, under $4 cad per dozen which is about $3.20 USD. Saw about $4.39 when I was in San Francisco last month, I (perhaps wrongly) made the assumption that similar would be available elsewhere.

Re: Eggs are 60% more expensive than last year in the US

#352

Post by WarOnPrivacy »

seneca wrote: post #346
WarOnPrivacy wrote: post #336

Earlier quoted context omitted.

These sound like things that can be done by someone who has resources when and where they need them. They do not sound like something that can be done consistently by someone without regular transportation or pay.

> These sound like things that can be done by someone who has resources when and where they need them. > They do not sound like something that can be done consistently by someone without regular transportation or pay. If someone has transportation to go to a fast food restaurant, they have transportation to go to a corner store and buy a can of beans. If they have money for one, they have money for the other. It's ac…

> If someone has transportation to go to a fast food restaurant, they have transportation to go to a corner store and buy a can of beans.

There's a number of ways this wouldn't be true and they aren't difficult to come up with.

Beyond that, the discussion is encapsulating somewhat broader points - the resources it takes to eat consistently healthy vs eating cheaply. It wouldn't make sense to only include fast food in the poor diet options.

Your seem to be asserting this: That someone living in a healthy-food dessert and without reliable access to transportation has no excuse to not consistently eat a healthy diet.

I counter that 60 seconds of thinking it thru would produce any number of scenarios that clearly speak against that assertion.

> Reality is that most poor people eat junk food because it's less effort, and because the high amounts of salt, fat, and sugar that make it so unhealthy are nearly addictive and act as a comfort.

This is meaningfully related, though it's a bit over declared. Some with limited access to resources may be able to put a healthy meal together if they're playing their A Game. But A Games are hard to come by for folks condemned to survival mode - maybe the sort where 5 hours sleep is the norm along with caregiving multiple people while working multiple jobs.

Re: Eggs are 60% more expensive than last year in the US

#353

Post by throwaway9870 »

airstrike wrote: post #76
throwaway9870 wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because bird flu might be a very unpredictable supply disruption.

As opposed to other, predictable supply disruptions?

For example, feed prices and electric prices to heat the coup are generally more predictable than a raging virus.

Re: Eggs are 60% more expensive than last year in the US

#355

Post by barbazoo »

amalgamated_inc wrote: post #311
NineStarPoint wrote: post #150

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe the majority of the citizens wants to live in a society that is kinder to animals? (That said citizens might not fully appreciate the knock on effects that will have on costs is a separate question. Do people actually want to be kinder to animals if it means eggs cost twice as much?)

Well those people can already buy free-range chickens. This is preventing people who'd rather pay less for cruelly-treated chickens from making that choice.

Given that it's a democratically elected government that made the regulation I don't think there is anything the "people who'd rather pay less for cruelly-treated chickens" can do here other than try to lobby for the rule to be reverted or moving somewhere where animals can be treated "cruelly" without repercussions. It's not always only a question of free market.

Re: Eggs are 60% more expensive than last year in the US

#356

Post by mint2 »

User23 wrote: post #337
mint2 wrote: post #334

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Actually thats not correct. even if they have environmental regs on paper countries like that don’t have them in practice due to lack of enforcement. What is the purpose of those comments?

I assume it was to make me laugh, which it did. Nobody actually thinks "regulations are bad." The point that is being humorously made is that these things have significant trade-offs and you're pretending not to get it. And I have to compliment you on playing the straight man in the exchange, it wouldn't have been nearly so funny without your participation! We saw the same thing in early LAN engineering when Ethernet…

Literally half the political commentary in the nation talks like all regs are bad, not just a matter of trade offs.

Thanks for the negging, makes for intelligent comments just like posting one line regan slogans for “humor”

Re: Eggs are 60% more expensive than last year in the US

#357

Post by amalgamated_inc »

User23 wrote: post #347
amalgamated_inc wrote: post #341

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I assume it was to make me laugh, which it did. Sure let's go with that :) I'd summarize it like so: while it is theoretically possible fore regulation to be net-positive, it is vastly net-negative on average and especially cumulative. And we aren't able or willing to figure out which ones are positive/negative beforehand, so zero new regulation would be the optimal strategy.

I think for the sake of the Science we should try random regulation too. Maybe one state could use USDA regulations and another could use whatever ChatGPT comes up with and we A/B test.

Exactly.

Plus, we need to hold all other variables equal, so we can be sure what the causation is. And best of all we should use the gold standard, randomized controlled trials. With this method, some states/countries get randomly selected to implement a policy, but they don't even know about it, and to make it double blind, we also don't know about it until after the trial.

Anything less is unscientific, frankly.

Re: Eggs are 60% more expensive than last year in the US

#358

Post by amalgamated_inc »

barbazoo wrote: post #355
amalgamated_inc wrote: post #311

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well those people can already buy free-range chickens. This is preventing people who'd rather pay less for cruelly-treated chickens from making that choice.

Given that it's a democratically elected government that made the regulation I don't think there is anything the "people who'd rather pay less for cruelly-treated chickens" can do here other than try to lobby for the rule to be reverted or moving somewhere where animals can be treated "cruelly" without repercussions. It's not always only a question of free market.

This argument I'll classify as "might makes right."

Re: Eggs are 60% more expensive than last year in the US

#359

Post by barbazoo »

amalgamated_inc wrote: post #358
barbazoo wrote: post #355

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Given that it's a democratically elected government that made the regulation I don't think there is anything the "people who'd rather pay less for cruelly-treated chickens" can do here other than try to lobby for the rule to be reverted or moving somewhere where animals can be treated "cruelly" without repercussions. It's not always only a question of free market.

This argument I'll classify as "might makes right."

Not a big fan of democracy then I'll take it?

Re: Eggs are 60% more expensive than last year in the US

#360

Post by metadat »

WalterBright wrote: post #315
WarOnPrivacy wrote: post #284

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I've heard the same thing, and I usually respond with prices of decent, filling food at the grocery store - like potatoes, a can of beans, a bag of apples, etc. As for cooking, you can buy a used microwave at the thrift store for about what a soft taco costs at Taco Time. You may want to factor in that the 20 minutes they have to acquire and prep a meal is already coming out of the 6 hours they have allocated for s…

Takes me 2 minutes to microwave a $2 can of chili. The can is worth about 2 meals. The trip to the store, once a week. Driving to Taco Time every day takes time, gas, and costs $20 for a meal. Ironically, I microwave meals and such not because I'm poor, but to save time. I dislike going to restaurants and even McBurger because it takes too much time. Another meal I like takes less than a minute. Pour some oats in a b…

FYI, half-decent Chili at Safeway is now more like $3.50-5.50. The days of canned food being cheap are over, even the tiny cans of super high sodium 200%+ DV Campbell's Chicken Soup costs like $2-3.

What are the poor people supposed to live off of? Potatoes, beans, and rice 24/7?

That diet is a tough sell. Especially since people in a low socioeconomic position are frequently quite busy trying to hold life together between 2-4 jobs and a family which includes children. I can understand why someone in this position would spring for something quick, easy, flavorful, and requiring as little expenditure of mental and emotional energy as possible.

The lack of empathy demonstrated throughout this thread for less well-off folks is not surprising but still a disappointing non-deviation from the HN stereotype. Why is it so hard to imagine being in someone else's shitty position? Being poor obviously sucks, it wears people down and disrupts and interferes with making optimal long-term decisions. This is obvious and I can't say I've ever truly been in this exact situation.

Post reply on HN