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The cartel that controls the US meat industry

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Re: The cartel that controls the US meat industry

#101

Post by corinroyal »

darth_avocado wrote: post #44
ceejayoz wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> But ... why now? Because "oh, it's the pandemic" gave them cover for the increases.

This is correct. Food companies cannot hike prices just because, especially when they are monopolies. If suddenly eggs cost $20/dozen, customers will ask why and if there are no good explanations, there will be a lot of noise. And politicians and regulators who are otherwise not willing to act on monopolies, do not like noise because it threatens their jobs. They will act, and that will not be great for the food comp…

> They will act

Citation needed. Anti-trust enforcement went out with Clinton.

Re: The cartel that controls the US meat industry

#102

Post by Zpalmtree »

bubsie wrote: post #37
myshpa wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But animal ag is far from sustainable, unfortunately. Climate change, resource depletion, deforestation, loss of biodiversity, pollution, overpopulation, soil erosion, and overfishing are all symptoms of ecological overshoot. Agriculture is a key culprit in most of those symptoms, and animal ag accounts for 80% of all agriculture. Animal ag is directly responsible for majority of deforestation, is a major driver of b…

Those sources are cool and all but I like cheese /s

this but unironically

Re: The cartel that controls the US meat industry

#103

Post by earth2jason »

b112 wrote: post #23
drewm1980 wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Same. This is about meat, although since a lot of our land is used to grow feed for livestock, subsidies for plant agriculture are indirectly subsidizing inefficient animal agriculture.

Calling meat agriculture inefficient makes no sense, when meat is a vital, and necessary food. Most of the world grazes meat animals, no crop feeding, and do so on land utterly unusable for crops. If you want to dive into weirdo anti-meat statements, at least be sensible. We could just eat raw vitamins and eat bacteria paste too, instead of "inefficient" fertilizer driven crops.

About 100% of the livestock land where I come from is capable of crops except for some edge cases. Not sure where you're getting the 'land used for animal meat is "utterly unusable for crops"' talking point. Could you provide some sources on that?

Every third or fourth plot is growing crops already. It seems to be a matter of choice and usually livestock farms here are based in heritage.

Re: The cartel that controls the US meat industry

#104

Post by corinroyal »

Trisell wrote: post #98

Amazing that they completely ignore the regulatory capture of FDA meat inspection. It is the largest barrier to disrupting the "big 4" for anybody to enter the market. Given the cost and complexity of running an FDA approved meat cutting facility, it makes it nearly impossible for small farms to enter the market and provide an alternative to the big 4. Instead small farms such as myself are forced to do stupid things…

I feel for you. You might enjoy a book from a small farmer called "Everything I Want to Do Is Illegal" by Joel Salatin. He talks about the absurdity of ag regulatory capture and it's effects on small farmers. It's an inspiring call to arms.

Re: The cartel that controls the US meat industry

#105

Post by myshpa »

dao- wrote: post #77
myshpa wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Vegans have cheese. Salty and fatty, melts. You should try it. There is no magic ingredient in cow (dog, giraffe, lion, bat, dolphin) milk that we couldn't get from plants instead. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UcN7SGGoCNI https://www.vegancheese.co/discover (1700+ cheeses from all over the world)

> Salty and fatty, Almost never protein though. You want good protein for a healthy diet. Of course you can get it through other ingredients, but most of the time, today anyway, you do lose something when just replacing cheese with vegan cheese, unfortunately. > There is no magic ingredient in cow (dog, giraffe, lion, bat, dolphin) milk that we couldn't get from plants instead. Agreed.

> Almost never protein though

True.

> You want good protein for a healthy diet. Of course you can get it through other ingredients, but most of the time, today anyway, you do lose something when just replacing cheese with vegan cheese, unfortunately.

That seems like a strange argument to me. Why insist on obtaining the protein specifically from cheese? Not that it would be hard to add some protein powder to it; why has the protein come from the cheese?

If it tastes good, it doesn't matter as long as you get enough protein from somewhere. We already get 63% of protein and 82% of calories from plants. It's not hard to go all the way.

Re: The cartel that controls the US meat industry

#107

Post by uoaei »

ceejayoz wrote: post #29
Michelangelo11 wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Right, but I don't know, that feels kinda thin ... couldn't they have conjured any number of other excuses before?

They've never had so clear an opportunity - what other excuse was available as widespread and impactful as a global pandemic? - and you see it across the board. Daily housekeeping at most hotels is gone forever, "because COVID". They were trying to get away with it pre-pandemic, but people pushed back on the reduced level of service.

Exactly. The common refrain from everyday people in idle conversation was 'global supply chain issues'. Easy to believe, organically supported excuses are the easiest ones to lean on because they become socially entrenched in ways that top-down explanations don't.

Re: The cartel that controls the US meat industry

#108

Post by HDThoreaun »

ceejayoz wrote: post #75
AnimalMuppet wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, OK, didn't that cartel exist in 2018? 2010? 2000? Why now (for values of "now" that include 2020)? The cartel explanation, by itself, still doesn't fit the timing.

Again , the cartel(s) existed (and they've long been accused of price fixing of various kinds; BigAg price fixing fines are not new; https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lysine_price-fixing_conspiracy as an example). The handy "it's the pandemic's fault prices are going up everywhere" excuse to get away with big price hikes was new.

They didn't need excuses to raise prices, this explanation still doesn't explain why they waited. Cartel's don't care what their consumers think since they've cornered the market on an inelastic product.

Re: The cartel that controls the US meat industry

#109

Post by ceejayoz »

HDThoreaun wrote: post #108
ceejayoz wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Again , the cartel(s) existed (and they've long been accused of price fixing of various kinds; BigAg price fixing fines are not new; https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lysine_price-fixing_conspiracy as an example). The handy "it's the pandemic's fault prices are going up everywhere" excuse to get away with big price hikes was new.

They didn't need excuses to raise prices, this explanation still doesn't explain why they waited. Cartel's don't care what their consumers think since they've cornered the market on an inelastic product.

> Cartel's don't care what their consumers think since they've cornered the market on an inelastic product.

They do care about attracting the ire of regulators, which can be triggered by consumers getting fed up with price increases.

Re: The cartel that controls the US meat industry

#110

Post by arrosenberg »

Michelangelo11 wrote: post #38
parrhesia wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The price of inputs is going up, but so are interest rates (and expected future interest rates). So where money was cheap, it's going to become more expensive. I suspect it's understandable a business would want to increase its margins given the expectation of higher rates -- as opposed to the personified "greed" narrative.

Thank you, that's actually the first interpretation that makes total sense to me. If you know that sources of financing are drying up and will stay that way into the foreseeable future, raising prices to make up for it does seem like the most obvious thing to do.

> Thank you, that's actually the first interpretation that makes total sense to me. If you know that sources of financing are drying up and will stay that way into the foreseeable future, raising prices to make up for it does seem like the most obvious thing to do.

* When you have a monopoly or cartel and you don't face pricing pressure from competitors. In a competitive market they would have to cut margins, not raise prices. Antitrust, now.

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