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High beef prices and the destruction of independent cattle ranching

mattstoller.substack.com

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Re: High beef prices and the destruction of independent cattle ranching

#211

Post by robocat »

lotsofpulp wrote: post #177
jdhn wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

AT&T fiber in a rural area? What's the closest major city?

I find fiber to be most rare in recently developed suburbs (1980s to 2000s) with buried utilities. It is too costly to dig and lay new fiber to the home underground. Stringing it along existing poles is cheap, and installing it in new underground utilities is cheap.

> It is too costly to dig and lay new fiber to the home underground

Digging is not required in many locations. Citywide rollout in Christchurch (400k people, low density) mostly used horizontal underground drilling: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TzGZl0jKRS8

New Zealand (similar size & population to Oregon) with a population ~5 million, used a lending model to fund a national fibre rollout in a private-public partnership. The Government lent money, but expected the project to have a final cost of ~$500M USD after loans repaid in 15 to 20 years. https://archive.vn/20170807221541/http://www.stuff.co.nz/bus...

84% of NZers can access fibre, and uptake is 64% and rising.

Re: High beef prices and the destruction of independent cattle ranching

#212

Post by xboxnolifes »

seoaeu wrote: post #187
narrator wrote: post #155

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I never said it was good or bad. It's interesting that you would assume that.

Nah, 'intentional destruction' just doesn't have a very positive connotation

How would you say intentional destruction without using the words intentional or destruction?

Re: High beef prices and the destruction of independent cattle ranching

#213

Post by zmix »

voakbasda wrote: post #10

As a small farmer, I can tell you: independent small-scale farming is not profitable in any meaningful manner. Government is actively killing it, by giving away every possible concession to Big Ag. The food in stores is pretty much all garbage compared to food raised on small farms. It sickens me to see things go this way, but this is the reality that we have created.

It's interesting to note, how all these "Competition is Good for the Business(tm)" folks, in reality, do not want any competition, at all.

Re: High beef prices and the destruction of independent cattle ranching

#214

Post by lotsofpulp »

robocat wrote: post #211
lotsofpulp wrote: post #177

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I find fiber to be most rare in recently developed suburbs (1980s to 2000s) with buried utilities. It is too costly to dig and lay new fiber to the home underground. Stringing it along existing poles is cheap, and installing it in new underground utilities is cheap.

> It is too costly to dig and lay new fiber to the home underground Digging is not required in many locations. Citywide rollout in Christchurch (400k people, low density) mostly used horizontal underground drilling: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TzGZl0jKRS8 New Zealand (similar size & population to Oregon) with a population ~5 million, used a lending model to fund a national fibre rollout in a private-public partne…

That is awesome, I having no idea what Anerica’s excuse is then.

Re: High beef prices and the destruction of independent cattle ranching

#215

Post by robocat »

yurishimo wrote: post #108
programmertote wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I highly recommend you to visit third world countries and sample food from there. I grew up in Burma and have been living in the US for almost 20 years. Every time I went back to Burma, I buy milk, egg and chicken from local markets. I boil the milk and egg, and make curry out of the chicken. The milk is super creamy and if you boil it for 2-3 times, you get like 1-cm creamy foam on top. I tried the same with Costco…

If your chicken smells/tastes fishy, then it's going bad. The fat oxidization causes that smell if I'm not mistaken.

Things that eat fish, taste of fish. For example muttonbird in New Zealand is a seabird that tastes as strong as anchovy. The chickens are possibly being fed on fish processing waste, or ocean-caught “inedible” species like krill https://www.google.com/search?q=alibaba+krill+chicken+feed

Re: High beef prices and the destruction of independent cattle ranching

#216

Post by biztos »

xyzzyz wrote: post #205
jdavis703 wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why is all the pasture raised, permaculture, organic blah blah stuff all so expensive if it’s not profitable? If I’m paying $12 for a dozen eggs when I can get non-sustainable, conventionally raised eggs from some megacorp for $3 then where is all the money going? Any consumer paying $12 for eggs certainly wouldn’t mind $13, which could then be profit.

It is expensive precisely because it’s not profitable. Imagine if you were a builder, selling artisanal houses built without use of any power tools, only with organic manual labor, using materials prepared with organic manual labor only. You’d be building one deck in the same time it takes normal builders to build an entire house. The only way you could make a living this way would be if you charged multiples of what…

> I like good eggs, but I’m not paying $1/egg

It looks like Whole Foods charges about half that for fancy organic eggs.

However, if you sold them at the Ferry Building in San Francisco and had a good story about why your eggs were special, I think you could get $12 a dozen.

How many of us are going to balk at $1/egg after we just paid $5 for an espresso and are ogling the $50 bottles of olive oil? Especially if we've been conditioned to not eat too many eggs because "cholesterol."

Re: High beef prices and the destruction of independent cattle ranching

#217

Post by hn_throwaway_99 »

shaklee3 wrote: post #204
hn_throwaway_99 wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Don't know about grass-fed beef, but the taste of grass-fed milk compared to regular is night-and-day to me. I don't often splurge on organic but for milk I do solely for the taste.

organic milk mostly tastes different because it's pasteurized at a higher temperature. this makes it last longer and gives it a more of a cooked taste. it's personal preference if it tastes better.

No, I'm not just talking about organic milk. I think there is a huge taste difference even between grass-fed organic milk and "normal" organic milk. (Note I've never seen non-organic grass-fed milk). Normal organic milk doesn't actually taste all that different compared to conventional milk to me.

For me the biggest taste difference is from the grass, not the organic.

Re: High beef prices and the destruction of independent cattle ranching

#218

Post by lettergram »

kurthr wrote: post #127
voakbasda wrote: post #10

As a small farmer, I can tell you: independent small-scale farming is not profitable in any meaningful manner. Government is actively killing it, by giving away every possible concession to Big Ag. The food in stores is pretty much all garbage compared to food raised on small farms. It sickens me to see things go this way, but this is the reality that we have created.

I'm not sure the government is actively killing it... they just aren't doing anything about the oligopolies and collusion that have always developed in these sort of situations. That may seem subtle, but many argue that we want to make the government do less to "keep them off our backs". Well, guess what these are the consequences. These markets may be "free", but they are not efficient, in fact they are arguably cor…

> I'm not sure the government is actively killing it... they just aren't doing anything about the oligopolies and collusion that have always developed in these sort of situations.

They are implementing regulations that put smaller butcher shops out of business. That said, the regulations may be good, but if the burden is too high .... well you have a problem.

Re: High beef prices and the destruction of independent cattle ranching

#219

Post by lettergram »

sanp wrote: post #151
kurthr wrote: post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not sure the government is actively killing it... they just aren't doing anything about the oligopolies and collusion that have always developed in these sort of situations. That may seem subtle, but many argue that we want to make the government do less to "keep them off our backs". Well, guess what these are the consequences. These markets may be "free", but they are not efficient, in fact they are arguably cor…

And it's many of the same constituents (i.e., farmers in red states) voting for the party of "small government".

The federal government sets the higher and higher standards for butchers. It’s not the smaller local governments causing the issue.

Re: High beef prices and the destruction of independent cattle ranching

#220

Post by xster »

IronWolve wrote: post #26

Lots of small farmers are selling their cows at a profit, selling to local people, and having a butcher cut the meat. You just need to be able to have freezer space for a 1/2 or whole cow. The problem with 4 major meat packing plants, 2 owned by china, they control the market, pay less to the farmer, and get more from the consumer. Some States in turn, are allowing producers to pack their own meat, making more money…

> The problem with 4 major meat packing plants, 2 owned by china

Do you have a source? My google-fu doesn't seem to be strong enough

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