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The Egg Bandits Made a Thousand Times the Fine They Just Paid for Price Fixing

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Re: The Egg Bandits Made a Thousand Times the Fine They Just Paid for Price Fixing

#161

Post by tchalla »

JohnMakin wrote: post #149
JKCalhoun wrote: post #138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not disagreeing, but all I heard was Biden-flation (or whatever they called it) was why we needed a new President.

It could have been investigated. Even this article states prices went down as a likely result of the investigation. Turning a blind eye bears some culpability. All we heard during those years was that it was due to avian flu shortage, and if you mentioned otherwise, you got shouted down by politically connected people.

> It could have been investigated.

The investigation started during Biden’s term as president.

Re: The Egg Bandits Made a Thousand Times the Fine They Just Paid for Price Fixing

#162

Post by carimura »

unbalancedevh wrote: post #150
carimura wrote: post #133

Please invest in some happy backyard chickens if you are able. We did, and it's amazing.

> Please invest in some happy backyard chickens I guess that depends on your interpretation of "invest." I don't know of anybody who claimed to save money on eggs by raising their own chickens. It's more of a lifestyle decision than a financial one.

ya that is likely correct in most cases, but I bet one could sell their surplus at a discount from store and break even.

So that means "invest" the time and resources to take just a small piece of the food supply chain into your own hands.

Re: The Egg Bandits Made a Thousand Times the Fine They Just Paid for Price Fixing

#163

Post by toomuchtodo »

cholmdomsky wrote: post #113
toomuchtodo wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

American Bar: Prosecutors confront ugly repercussions of bias - https://www.americanbar.org/news/abanews/aba-news-archives/2... - February 3rd, 2023 > The pervasive problems with racism in our criminal justice system has been clear. Black Americans are incarcerated in state prisons at nearly five times the rate of white Americans. > The systemic racism in the system starts before the first contact and continues throu…

How do you respond when others use that information to instead assert "well of course they're incarcerated at a higher rate; they commit more, and worse crimes than -we- do!"

I ignore the feelings of others and trust the data of subject matter experts. Everyone has an opinion, reality is built on a foundation of data, evidence, and facts. Like flying a plane in IFR; ignore your senses and feelings, only rely on the instruments. “In God we trust. All others must bring data.”

Re: The Egg Bandits Made a Thousand Times the Fine They Just Paid for Price Fixing

#164

Post by JohnMakin »

tchalla wrote: post #161
JohnMakin wrote: post #149

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It could have been investigated. Even this article states prices went down as a likely result of the investigation. Turning a blind eye bears some culpability. All we heard during those years was that it was due to avian flu shortage, and if you mentioned otherwise, you got shouted down by politically connected people.

> It could have been investigated. The investigation started during Biden’s term as president.

Not sure where you’re getting this information, it began early 2025:

https://www.politico.com/news/2025/03/07/doj-investigation-e...

Re: The Egg Bandits Made a Thousand Times the Fine They Just Paid for Price Fixing

#165

Post by Ekaros »

geodel wrote: post #74
declan_roberts wrote: post #21

We really need to bring back corporal punishment, both for petty crimes and white collar crimes. The prison sentences don't make sense for the petty crimes, and the fines don't make sense for the white collar crimes. We need to legalize public caning and the stocks.

I'll start this punishment from elementary schools onwards. Early punishment will prevent later crimes.

Only effective way to protect victims from bullies is to imprison the bullies. No excuses. In todays 24/7 surveillance sufficient evidence should be reachable.

Re: The Egg Bandits Made a Thousand Times the Fine They Just Paid for Price Fixing

#166

Post by Aurornis »

CGMthrowaway wrote: post #91

I did not realize the egg crisis was found to be price fixing operation. As I recall during the whole thing the news was non-stop about how it was related to broad-based inflation, chicken culling for avian flu, etc. Seems like all that was a lie, or at least merely a half-truth.

The avian flu pandemic started in early 2022. I looked up old news articles and a lot of them are dated February 2022. It really did increase egg prices.

The collusion quotes in this article start in October 2022, though it doesn't say exactly when the collusion started.

As far as I can tell, avian flu did create a supply shock, which did raise prices. When the avian flu problem started going away, the egg companies started colluding to try to keep the egg prices high.

Re: The Egg Bandits Made a Thousand Times the Fine They Just Paid for Price Fixing

#167

Post by abeppu »

Ok here's maybe a dumb or maybe a crazy question or maybe not:

- the Fed has price stability as part of its dual mandate, and in its normal operation does this at the level of manipulating the money supply for everyone, through changing the interest rates given to large banks (IIUC, I'm def not an expert here)

- the FTC has as its primary mission anti-trust enforcement and consumer protection. During the last administration, the FTC tried to be more aggressive largely through legal action with specific firms.

Price stability and anti-trust enforcement are related. Would both goals be better served if a single public body with high independence could use both tools and levels of targeting? E.g. rather than being hit with a small-ish fine, should firms that collude to manipulate prices, or firms that consolidate to the point of approaching monopoly, be penalized with higher interest rates on all their financing?

Re: The Egg Bandits Made a Thousand Times the Fine They Just Paid for Price Fixing

#168

Post by eigenrick »

BrenBarn wrote: post #151

This is the perennial problem in our society with regulation. We're not willing to set the penalties high enough. The penalties need to be absolutely ruinous.

If we jack the financial penalties up, it will just screw over the consumers. We need to send people to prison. Bankrupting the company is an interesting strategy, but I think that'd just result in more consolidation.

Re: The Egg Bandits Made a Thousand Times the Fine They Just Paid for Price Fixing

#169

Post by kevin_thibedeau »

uejfiweun wrote: post #80
Taronar wrote: post #8

Things like this mainly occur in markets with little competition, killing of small business causes issues like this. Much of our grievances are caused by our high level of market concentration.

We were stuck in the Gilded Age for decades before Roosevelt came along and started big trust-busting efforts. I expect a similar situation to play out here. We're probably in the middle of it in retrospect.

Al Franken has related the difficulty he had convincing Democrats and Bernie Sanders to sign on to fighting the Comcast Time-Warner merger until they determined it was beneficial to themselves to oppose it.

Re: The Egg Bandits Made a Thousand Times the Fine They Just Paid for Price Fixing

#170

Post by failbuffer »

endemic wrote: post #152
JKCalhoun wrote: post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It was 100% due to Biden. (Or so I was told. Might even be the reason we have Trump 2.0?)

Yeah, he's definitely the cause of all our past and current problems.

Darn Biden for attacking Iran and causing these high gas prices!
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