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U.S. Reels to a Meat Shortage and Prices Are Getting Weird

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Re: U.S. Reels to a Meat Shortage and Prices Are Getting Weird

#71

Post by _y5hn »

CWuestefeld wrote: post #65
throwlaplace wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Luckily, this kind of supply shock isn't possible with produce. Vegetables have a longer shelf life than meat and grains a longer shelf life still. So you're just wrong.

And you're still making the mistake of focusing on one particular facet of the economy. Whether it's meat or vegetables or surgical masks or electricity or water or what-have-you, the economy is vastly interconnected. The way that tugging on one piece of that network may cause failures in other areas is all but unknowable. It's just wrong to shrug off one particular shock saying that you're ok with an alternative. Yo…

Your lack of faith in the free market, is disturbing.

Re: U.S. Reels to a Meat Shortage and Prices Are Getting Weird

#72

Post by eesmith »

mlyle wrote: post #60
vkou wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>. I mean, switching products from B2B to B2C (toilet paper, milk, flour, etc) is obviously something that can't happen instantly, but must be taking place as fast as humanly possible, right? No, because half the business world thinks that we're going to all re-open in two weeks, and isn't willing to spend money on any kind of retooling/restructuring for such a short period of time.

Certainly it is happening. My local stores have small amounts of yeast in little beverage cups with improvised seals, made by yeast manufacturers that usually sell large quantities to restaurants and industrial bread producers. They've also briefly had shitty 1ply commercial toilet paper with big plastic bag and twist-tie packaging.

But is it "taking place as fast as humanly possible"? I believe vkou's comment is that 1/2 of the companies are not switching products, not that none are.

Re: U.S. Reels to a Meat Shortage and Prices Are Getting Weird

#73

Post by eesmith »

bsder wrote: post #41
ZainRiz wrote: post #23

More stories about how covid19 is really screwing up other parts of the supply chain Farmers being forced to pour milk down the drain: https://twitter.com/freshairfarmer/status/124787620556452659... Retail toilet paper manufacturers not setup to handle load from people pooping at home instead of work (and corporate TP factories don't know how to sell to grocery stores): https://marker.medium.com/what-everyones-gettin…

Maximally efficient is minimally robust.

I think you mean something more like "maximally profitable is minimally robust"?

After all, we could use robustness as our optimization criterion.

Re: U.S. Reels to a Meat Shortage and Prices Are Getting Weird

#74

Post by sneak »

bsder wrote: post #46
mlyle wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree totally, but I don't think that provides guidance here. The meat plants have largely stayed open as essential businesses, only closing or even putting in controls when there's a number of employee cases that can no longer be ignored. So in this case, we're not looking at the trade-off between closing companies preemptively to save lives and economic output, but instead the trade-off between closing companies…

> Instead we won't even talk about it until May 4th, and I worry we'll either take too much of a step at once or make a tiny movement much later than we should have tried it. The problem is we STILL don't have enough equipment for healthcare workers if that ICU starts filling up. Part of the reason for the lockdown was to give time for all the equipment industries to spin up. Unfortunately, the US federal government…

> Part of the reason for the lockdown was to give time for all the equipment industries to spin up. Unfortunately, the US federal government squandered that.

It wasn’t an accident. The equipment was stolen (“seized”) by the DHS en route to hospitals and then funneled to friends of those in the federal government to be resold on the open market: look up “blue flame medical” if you want to know more.

https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/skbaer/coronavirus-ppe-...

Re: U.S. Reels to a Meat Shortage and Prices Are Getting Weird

#75

Post by vkou »

missedthecue wrote: post #18
vkou wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

1. We would need to print quadrillions of dollars to get hyperinflation. Hyperinflation is a boogieman, unless this administration completely loses its mind. 2. Recessions cause the destruction of money (Due to defaults, and lack of new loans). This causes deflation. If the new money created by the printing press does not exceed these deflationary pressures, you won't even get inflation, let alone hyperinflation. 3.…

>1. We would need to print quadrillions of dollars to get hyperinflation. Is there actually a mathematical equation that proves this or is that your conjecture?

Look at the MZM, which is a good proxy for 'all the money in the economy'. [1]

There's ~20 Trillion of it.

Hyperinflation is, by definition, 50% monthly, ~600% annual inflation.

The Fed has, so far in this crisis, printed ~2 Trillion that is staying in the economy (The rest goes into very short term liquidity). It's not a hyperinflationary scenario, even if they print another 2, or 4, or 6 trillion.

If they printed 20 trillion, that would be another story.

[1] https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/MZM

Re: U.S. Reels to a Meat Shortage and Prices Are Getting Weird

#76

Post by hackeraccount »

amalter wrote: post #52
mlyle wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Right now in the SF Bay Area, ICUs are below typical seasonal usage and the usage has been declining slowly for 3 weeks. I'm not saying we should "relax", but I think we have evidence that the slightly looser controls employed from mid-March to early April were effective-- that would be a good first step to go to now. Odds are that results in continued reduction, but if it results in slow growth instead we'd be OK in…

ICUs are below occupancy, but hospitals even in the Midwest are declining to do elective procedures because they can’t get enough PPE to handle run of the mill stuff. The US had been losing actual Hospital capacity every week, even with empty beds. When those beds fill in wave 2, get ready to donate your rain ponchos and industrial garbage bags.

* everyone likes a disaster * you're doing a service by making everyone worried about what might happen - so you're helping that not happen * when it doesn't happen no one will call you on it anyway * better safe then sorry

Re: U.S. Reels to a Meat Shortage and Prices Are Getting Weird

#77

Post by csomar »

empath75 wrote: post #3
hpoe wrote: post #2

This is what concerns as many people have acted like the economy only effects rich people, or any move that trades the economy for lives is inherently immoral. Food falls under the economy, the economy isn't just the stock market or things rich people do rich people things in. The economy is the vast network stretching across the globe that works to supply goods and services in the places they are needed, when the ec…

In fact, government stimulus will just cause hyperinflation as more money chases less goods and services.

Unless it's only given to the top 0.1%; then it'll make only stock prices higher and some studios in New York City.

Re: U.S. Reels to a Meat Shortage and Prices Are Getting Weird

#78

Post by robotron »

CWuestefeld wrote: post #50
throwlaplace wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Food falls under the economy, the economy isn't just the stock market or things rich people do rich people things in. i'm not a vegetarian but if the choice is between people living and me having access to pork i choose the former.

Luckily, this kind of supply shock isn't possible with produce. This isn't a problem specific to meat at all; the same kind of interruption to supply chains can occur anywhere through the economy. So you don't necessarily have the option of falling back on veggies.

Part of the problem with meat processing plants are the crowded conditions the workers are in on the clock and on breaks. I would guess this is a little different with produce since you don't need slaughterhouses etc.

Re: U.S. Reels to a Meat Shortage and Prices Are Getting Weird

#79

Post by robotron »

flukus wrote: post #62
flomk wrote: post #13

I wonder if a meat shortage that causes people who previously hadn't eaten plant substitutes, will be enough to let plant substitute companies take a bigger chunk of the meat market for good.

The problem is that when there is availability fake meat can't compete on price, even with high local meat prices (mostly due to drought) real meat is still a much cheaper option. In my area 500g of ground beef is $6-7, up from $4 a year or two ago, but 300g of fake ground beef is $9. It just doesn't make sense to pay 30% more to get 30% less of an inferior substitute. The question is why is the price so high, is it…

Guarantee its scale. I'm not a vegetarian but I've eaten meat analogues for decades - even before it was "trendy" - and they are actually better priced now than ever. The first few weeks of the panic buying had even my local kinda-small-town-turning-into-suburb grocery out of stock. Was hoping they would be a good alternative to have when my meat ran out. Guess I wasn't alone.

Re: U.S. Reels to a Meat Shortage and Prices Are Getting Weird

#80

Post by nradov »

0x8BADF00D wrote: post #37
mlyle wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Some stimulus measures are creating money to chase flour and ground beef-- the paycheck protection program, etc, are borrowing (and re-lending) in order to preserve pay to consumers. But I agree it's not most of it.

You won't see it until it's too late. Inflation is a backward looking measure. Expected inflation can be inferred by nominal interest rates. If you look at the corporate debt market those rates are already quite high. What happened in the oil market could easily happen in the gold market, but in reverse. Nobody wanted to take delivery on oil, but a lot of people are going to want to take delivery on gold, because the…

What exactly is the mechanism by which Comex would go bankrupt? Commodity delivery contracts are still legally enforceable through the court system, although some civil cases may be delayed several months.

Gold is a commodity, not a currency. I can't pay my tax bill in gold.

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