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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

#41

Post by sct202 »

prepend wrote: post #12

I was really interested in the figure that shows prices going up while input costs decrease. But this doesn’t reflect all inputs just the price of meat procured. There are many other input costs, mostly labor. So this diagram is really frustrating as it makes me want to reach a conclusion (wtf, what an unnatural difference) without giving me enough information to know anything. It would be like showing that household…

The author arbitrarily picked an outlier looking peak to start the graph vs consumer pricing to severely bias the graphs. May 2020 (graph 100 index) has a price index of 265, but April 2020 is 185 and Jun 2020 is 194.

https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/WPU0221

*edit April not Feb

*Edit2: Linked wrong graph, but correct graph is like the same trend. Thank you for the correction.

Re: The cartel that controls the US meat industry

#42

Post by myshpa »

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.

> meat is a vital, and necessary food

Not true at all.

Plant-based diets were protective against cancers of the digestive system, with no significant differences between different types of cancer, a meta-analysis based on 3,059,009 subjects

https://www.dutchnews.nl/2023/04/meat-tax-would-boost-health...

Meat tax would boost health and cut healthcare spending: research

https://www.foodingredientsfirst.com/news/over-17000-doctors...

Over 17,000 doctors call on White House to shape nutrition policy on plant-based diets

"It is the position of the American Dietetic Association that appropriately planned vegetarian diets, including total vegetarian or vegan diets, are healthful, nutritionally adequate, and may provide health benefits in the prevention and treatment of certain diseases. Well-planned vegetarian diets are appropriate for individuals during all stages of the life cycle, including pregnancy, lactation, infancy, childhood, and adolescence, and for athletes." - American Dietetic Association

"A vegetarian or vegan diet can be suitable for everyone, regardless of their age." - NHS UK

"[I]t is possible to follow a well-planned, plant-based, vegan friendly diet that supports healthy living in people of all ages, and during pregnancy and breastfeeding." - British Dietetic Association.

"For adults, protein from two or more plant groups daily is like to be adequate. " - World Health Organisation

> Most of the world grazes meat animals, no crop feeding, and do so on land utterly unusable for crops

Yep, on deforested lands. 50+% of those pastures used to be forests. That's why we have droughts and climate change ... removing carbon sinks and destroying biodiversity just to have steaks on the table.

No crop feeding? 80% of grown soy is fed to animals. Half of the grains. 35-40% of corn (rest is biofuel, another stupidity). What about alfalfa, the reason why Colorado goes dry?

Re: The cartel that controls the US meat industry

#43

Post by Buttons840 »

The word "monopoly" implies one dominant company ("mono-" meaning one), but industries with 2 or 3 companies are still unhealthy for a few reasons.

First, it's pretty easy for 2 or 3 companies to price fix, which is against anti-trust laws.

Second, a healthy market requires that it be easy for new companies to enter the market and compete, and if there's only a few dominant companies, then clearly new competitors are not succeeding.

We need more anti-trust enforcement.

Re: The cartel that controls the US meat industry

#44

Post by darth_avocado »

ceejayoz wrote: post #15
Michelangelo11 wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> In general, I don’t know if they answer properly if profits increased because of inflation or if inflation increased because of inflation. Since the cartel existed before the shift, I would like to know what they think made companies suddenly get greedier. That's my big question too with all this "greed driving inflation" discourse. I don't doubt it at all, in fact, from everything I see it seems like the likeliest…

> 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 companies.

Re: The cartel that controls the US meat industry

#45

Post by Michelangelo11 »

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.

Well, another comment in the thread said it's probably because funding sources are drying up and this is an attempt to make up for it, and that sounds likeliest to me now.

Re: housekeeping, in that specific case (and this applies to many other service occupations too), my money is without hesitation on a much sadder cause, i.e. COVID killing people or giving them long-term disabilities, which strongly shrank the workforce.

Re: The cartel that controls the US meat industry

#46

Post by myshpa »

rm206 wrote: post #39
b112 wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

It is still unclear if the land that is used for grazing could be suitable for growing crop that could be used for human consumption. Where do you think the grazing land comes from? Clearing natural habitat. And no, except for extreme conditions (like people living in extreme cold), meat is not a necessary food. An average human living in a city/village with moderate temperatures (especially when most of their time i…

We don't need those grazing lands for growing food (some nuts forests would be cool, though). We should afforest/rewild it to store maximum carbon in those lands, repair water cycle, enable biodiversity to return (70% of species is lost in the last 50 years or so), and use land for animal feed crops to feed humans instead.

If we'd switch to plant based diets, we'd free an area the size of Africa to return back to nature, storing enough carbon to return to 280ppm, stop biodiversity loss, while feeding comfortably 10+ billion people.

https://ourworldindata.org/land-use-diets

If the world adopted a plant-based diet we would reduce global agricultural land use from 4 to 1 billion hectares

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/26231772/

Biodiversity conservation: The key is reducing meat consumption

https://www.eurekalert.org/news-releases/917471

Feeding 10 billion people by 2050 within planetary limits may be achievable

A global shift towards healthy and more plant-based diets, halving food loss and waste, and improving farming practices and technologies are required to feed 10 billion people sustainably by 2050, a new study finds.

Re: The cartel that controls the US meat industry

#47

Post by acover »

Buttons840 wrote: post #43

The word "monopoly" implies one dominant company ("mono-" meaning one), but industries with 2 or 3 companies are still unhealthy for a few reasons. First, it's pretty easy for 2 or 3 companies to price fix, which is against anti-trust laws. Second, a healthy market requires that it be easy for new companies to enter the market and compete, and if there's only a few dominant companies, then clearly new competitors are…

Is there a way to detect price fixing?

For example in a competitive market everyone has the same price. But the same is true with price fixing.

Re: The cartel that controls the US meat industry

#48

Post by AnimalMuppet »

ceejayoz wrote: post #27
HDThoreaun wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's not a better excuse than what they had before. The question is why didn't competition undercut them to keep prices low as it had before. Food company excuses don't matter, people will continue to buy the product they perceive as having the best value.

> The question is why didn't competition undercut them to keep prices low as it had before. This question is answered by the title of the article.

Didn't that cartel exist in 2020? So, once again, why now?

Re: The cartel that controls the US meat industry

#49

Post by ceejayoz »

HDThoreaun wrote: post #32
ceejayoz wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The question is why didn't competition undercut them to keep prices low as it had before. This question is answered by the title of the article.

Not really. The article doesn't have any evidence of collusion at all. 4 competitors should be more than enough to prevent abuses of market power.

There's certainly evidence of collusion in the meat industry even pre-COVID.

https://www.atg.wa.gov/news/news-releases/ag-ferguson-s-pric...

> The Attorney General’s Office asserts Tyson Foods and 18 other chicken producers drove up the price of chicken since at least 2008, causing consumers to overpay by millions of dollars. The lawsuit asserts a widespread illegal conspiracy to inflate and manipulate prices, rig contract bids, illegally exchange information and coordinate industry supply reductions to maximize profits.

> The Attorney General’s Office investigation found a coordinated, industry-wide effort to cut production through the exchange of competitively sensitive information, signals during investor calls and direct coordination between players in the industry.

Re: The cartel that controls the US meat industry

#50

Post by [deleted] »

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.

[deleted]
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