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

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

thebignewsletter.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

241–250 of 270 posts

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

#241

Post by camgunz »

It drives me bananas when progressives defend corporations, particularly around things insurance (everyone knows insurance companies screw their customers as a matter of policy) or price fixing foods during and immediately after COVID. All the incentives are to do this, it happens all the time, and governments don't really want to put the screws to companies for doing it because that hurts the stock market.

You should have to have a license to be in the c-suite of a company over 200 people, and if you do shit like this, we revoke your license. The incentive structure is built on the hope that when threatened with making merely minimum to median wage, you'll suddenly care about the cost of groceries.

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

#242

Post by makerofthings »

autoexec wrote: post #175

I've known about Cal-Maine's scammy practices for years. It's difficult to know which brands are associated with a group like Cal-Maine, but I did my best at one point to get a list which I still check before buying eggs. The brands I've been avoiding are: 4Grain Cage Free Egglands Best Farmhouse Eggs Land O'Lakes Fassio Egg Farms Southwest Specialty Eggs LLC Rocky Mountain Eggs Meadowcreek Foods Specialty Eggs LLC R…

That’s a lot of brands. You might have to buy a chicken.

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

#243

Post by bjourne »

stickfigure wrote: post #54
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.

This was addressed by Matt Levine in today's Money Stuff. The problem was not the presence or lack of competition, it was a technical failure of the market structure. Matt: This is a familiar story and you probably know the ending. There’s a big market (egg producers selling eggs to supermarkets etc.), and there’s a small market (egg producers selling extra eggs to each other on an electronic exchange). The price in…

That's just a cop-out. If there was no index the egg producers could easily have found other ways to collude to keep prices high. They do the same thing in Europe and there is no egg index to blame.

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

#244

Post by sixothree »

mikestew wrote: post #216
sixothree wrote: post #134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It was really John Ehrlichman who revealed the truth. Listening to the Nixon tapes, he (Nixon) spent the entirety of his days scheming against political enemies and people he simply didn't like. https://www.cnn.com/2016/03/23/politics/john-ehrlichman-rich... You really shouldn't need a citation for something so easily verifiable.

That’s not easily verifiable, it’s one person’s account after Ehrlichman is long dead, the interviewer having dug through “old notes” many years after the interview.

Sure but there is a lot of similar corresponding evidence in the nixon audio tape archives.

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

#245

Post by fragmede »

uejfiweun wrote: post #214
skeeter2020 wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe - or is this closer to the naked theft we saw out of the collapse of the Soviet Union? That's still playing out...

I think at the end of the day, we're still able to produce really effective technology and products. Like the economy is still functioning. I feel like this is different from the Soviet situation where the problems were more related to product quality and shortages and black markets.

> we're still able to produce really effective technology and products

There's a pipeline for that, and that pipeline has been broken, so that'll dry up. It's gonna take some years before we see the effects of it, but it ain't gonna be pretty.

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

#246

Post by someonebaggy »

gruez wrote: post #234
autoexec wrote: post #193

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> That's their job? Denying their customers claims for healthcare coverage they are entitled to under the plans they pay for is the opposite of their job. Healthcare companies just keep doing that anyway because it makes them more money when their customers are too sick, stressed, exhausted, or eventually dead to fight the wrongfully denied claims. People die because of this, but the insurance companies don't care be…

>Denying their customers claims for healthcare coverage they are entitled to under the plans they pay for is the opposite of their job. Can you provide some examples? The examples I heard of are never straightforward like "person has a broken hip, insurance refuses to pay for a hip replacement". There's always some complication like "the doctor thinks they need some special procedure/drug that costs extra". If it's i…

IIRC the one that got Kirked was about to start, or had recently started, denying more than a fixed amount of time for anesthesia. If the operation runs longer than expected, you won't be anesthetised for all of it.

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

#247

Post by ekjhgkejhgk »

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.

Please check out the investigation in 3 parts (linked from OP's link) where they explain all of it. Fascinating reading in my opinion.

https://www.thebignewsletter.com/p/hatching-a-conspiracy-a-b...

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

#248

Post by BrenBarn »

robocat wrote: post #204
eigenrick wrote: post #168

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Prison is expensive for the state, and in my limited experience prison has rather hideous personal costs (for the individual and their friends and family). Perhaps can fine the wealthy to pay for their own imprisonment, maybe within a luxury hotel?

> prison has rather hideous personal costs (for the individual and their friends and family).

I mean that's kind of the point.

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

#249

Post by BrenBarn »

eigenrick wrote: post #168
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.

I think both should be in play. The financial penalties should largely apply against the individuals running the company, not just the company itself. The CEO should be in danger of losing their home and being left penniless on the street.

But there are other options to consider to. Like "financial penalties" could include stuff like the company being dissolved and its assets distributed to its competitors.

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

#250

Post by [deleted] »

thephyber wrote: post #208
autoexec wrote: post #180

Earlier quoted context omitted.

According to one lawsuit, Cal-Maine wasn't impacted at all by the avian flu, they just jacked prices up 270% anyway while using the avian flu as an excuse. > Meanwhile, in context and during the class period, egg producers like Cal-Maine increased egg prices by as much as 270% in 2023 despite having zero Avian Flu outbreaks in their egg laying hen layers on Cal-Maine affiliated farms ( https://www.classaction.org/new…

“As an excuse” is a weird way of saying “responding to national supply and demand”. 100% of the suppliers who didn’t have to cull all of their chickens raised their prices.

[deleted]
Post reply on HN