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

The cartel that controls the US meat industry

statecraft.beehiiv.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

71–80 of 171 posts

Re: The cartel that controls the US meat industry

#71

Post by gruez »

ben_w wrote: post #21
greenie_beans wrote: post #8

i thought centralized economies were communist?

Planned economies are associated with communism, but they're also basically what all corporations do internally, including government owned "corporations" like the police and militaries. Food gets massive subsidies in the west, because we really don't want shortages, and even massive subsidies are a really cheap way to do that, because most of the consumer cost of food is later in the supply chain than the production…

>then I'd go further and say the government should buy up the shares and take advantage of any dividends to (effectively) be a non-tax based revenue source.

Isn't that just a consumption/sales/value added tax with extra steps?

Re: The cartel that controls the US meat industry

#72

Post by AnimalMuppet »

ceejayoz wrote: post #52
AnimalMuppet wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

The first line of the article is "Since 2020, Americans have experienced rising food prices". The pandemic's effects largely started in March 2020. "Now" is scoped to "that last couple of years", not "last week".

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.

Re: The cartel that controls the US meat industry

#73

Post by slothtrop »

myshpa wrote: post #25
spacephysics wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You should see the cartel Monsanto has on agriculture This is just one more reason we should push for sustainable farming, including meat products. livestock naturally bring nitrogen and other nutrients back into the soil when grazing. Then use that land to grow plants, move the animals where plants pulled the nutrients from the soil, rinse and repeat. Also reduces the need for harmful fertilizers that impact the eco…

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…

Lack of sustainability is contingent on increased encroachment of land and emissions, and that is contingent on growing demand overtaking gains in technological efficiency. The demand is growing as a matter of policy: immigration to prop up the GDP. Growing demand for just about anything will increase emissions, pollution and land encroachment - some just exacerbate things faster than others. That does not mean all other products are "sustainable".

The only "sustainability" is where demand does not outstrip the effects of innovation. No one is moving to North America to eschew animal products, vehicles, detached homes, gadgets and other conveniences. Living as we do is what makes it a better life. It's certainly not for the healthcare. Notwithstanding, the bulk of the global increase in demand is coming from East Asia as they lift themselves out of poverty.

In the short-run, marginal changes in consumer habits can have some effect (which matters if there is a sense of urgency for staving off carbon emissions), but in the long run it's a moot point. Seaweed infused feed makes methane a solved problem, and land-use for cattle has been decreasing in the U.S. (it's increased in South America, which exports to China).

This is why govts are rolling out "greener home" grants and the like, there's low-hanging fruit to help lower emissions quickly in effort to meet whatever target they currently have. They could also disincentivize purchasing SUVs, which should not matter that much to manufacturers as they sell the alternatives anyway. More than one way to lower a carbon footprint, some of which are more palatable to consumers. Broadly speaking they are unwilling and unlikely to switch to veganism.

Re: The cartel that controls the US meat industry

#74

Post by gjsman-1000 »

r3trohack3r wrote: post #14

A reminder that Tyson is abusing the legal system to force people in the American south into working in their chicken plants for free: https://revealnews.org/article/they-thought-they-were-going-... I don't know every brand that uses Tyson products, but when I discover something is coming from a Tyson factory I stop purchasing it.

I find it more shocking that, despite the terrible reported conditions at the plant, most people stayed there because it was preferable to prison. If that is preferable to their prisons...

Re: The cartel that controls the US meat industry

#75

Post by ceejayoz »

AnimalMuppet wrote: post #72
ceejayoz wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The first line of the article is "Since 2020, Americans have experienced rising food prices". The pandemic's effects largely started in March 2020. "Now" is scoped to "that last couple of years", not "last week".

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.

Re: The cartel that controls the US meat industry

#76

Post by mikeyouse »

Sparkyte wrote: post #62
r3trohack3r wrote: post #14

A reminder that Tyson is abusing the legal system to force people in the American south into working in their chicken plants for free: https://revealnews.org/article/they-thought-they-were-going-... I don't know every brand that uses Tyson products, but when I discover something is coming from a Tyson factory I stop purchasing it.

If it was free how are the operating costs covered?

I think you misunderstand - prisoners and people that are "diverted" from prison to rehab are being sent to chicken processing plants as part of their sentences. The taxpayer is paying the bills to these institutions and then Tyson is getting labor for free.

Re: The cartel that controls the US meat industry

#77

Post by dao- »

myshpa wrote: post #51
bubsie wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

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.

Re: The cartel that controls the US meat industry

#78

Post by hospitalJail »

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…

>We need more anti-trust enforcement.

The medical field is the most urgent on this matter.

Food prices are manageable. Healthcare prices are far far far worse.

Re: The cartel that controls the US meat industry

#79

Post by jvm___ »

I read a story of a Latino immigrant Mom who worked the night shift cleaning a slaughterhouse every night. Wet, slick surfaces and sharp objects everywhere.

The Mom was hired as a contractor through a third party company. She fell and was injured at work, because she wasn't an employee of the bigger company she wasn't entitled to any compensation or help, just fired from the third party company which also provided no assistance.

Re: The cartel that controls the US meat industry

#80

Post by nerdponx »

AnimalMuppet wrote: post #48
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.

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

If you ran a cartel, what would your biggest fear be? If it were me, my biggest fear would be getting regulated out of existence, or maybe even being criminally prosecuted. So you want to keep a low public profile for your cartel activity.

If you start ratcheting up prices without an excuse, eventually people would notice, and at some point "people" would start to include state and federal legislators, who will start asking uncomfortable questions and whom you might not be able to buy off forever.

So instead what you do is set a comfortable minimum price industry wide and use your cartel power instead to aggressively cut costs, so that you have a credible threat of crushing any competition in a price war. This keeps potential competitors in check, thereby tacitly maintaining your preferred price floor.

When an external event does happen that actually raises supply costs, you are best equipped to eat those cost increases while your competitors struggle. Eventually, you sadly announce that you must raise your prices. This price becomes the new price floor for a while, until inflation catches up.

I'm not saying that's what they're doing, but to me that seems like a nice balance between maintaining industry dominance and not being portrayed in the media as Dr. Evil.

Post reply on HN