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An investigation into egg prices

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Re: An investigation into egg prices

#71

Post by SoftTalker »

rekabis wrote: post #49
almosthere wrote: post #15

It's like with anything else. You can SAY monopolies are illegal, but if you allow them to exist, then owning and controlling the market is, legal. Any small competition that eventually gets large enough will just be bought out by the next one up in the food chain (literally).

And yet, this is the inevitable end-game of unfettered capitalism: to monopolize a market and prevent new entrants so as to eliminate competition and lock-in customers to a single producer that can set prices to whatever they want. If the orange Cheeto was truly interested in combatting corruption, he would break apart this entire industry clear down to individual factories and processing plants, and implement laws t…

Do you work in tech? Do you hope your startup is acquired? I think a lot of people here would not favor the idea of companies not being able to buy other companies.

Re: An investigation into egg prices

#72

Post by Dban1 »

genewitch wrote: post #54
gerdesj wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"The big suppliers can ratchet up prices with zero consequences. What are you gonna do about it?" If I was that bothered about eggs, I'd simply grow my own. Americans on average have way more space to mess around in than say most Europeans - the place is fucking huge. Chickens are very easy to "grow your own". I'm not an American and clearly you have managed to get your collective knickers in a twist over a non issue…

I have my own and I don't even like eggs that much. I do however like their noises, and for pest control, so I keep getting new birds. $33 for 6 birds, last month. They're not fully feathered yet.

noise control?

Re: An investigation into egg prices

#74

Post by SoftTalker »

paulddraper wrote: post #68
jmyeet wrote: post #34

We see this all the time. There is some shock or reduction to supply and the price goes up but it always goes up way more than the supply change would necessarily warrant. Then it takes forever to return to normal (if it ever does). Interestingly, in the early weeks of the Kamala Harris campaign last year, she actually advocated to fighting or stopping "price gouging", something that was wildly popular: 66% of respon…

If anything, there is a shortage of eggs (some stores near me have run out), which means prices should be higher not lower.

Yes, and when toilet paper sold out in the pandemic it should have been priced higher. Yeah it sucks to pay more but it also deters hoarding which was a huge contributor to the problem.

Re: An investigation into egg prices

#75

Post by ryao »

Interestingly, the investigation appears to have begun right after egg prices started to drop:

https://tradingeconomics.com/commodity/eggs-us

No one appears to be reporting the drop yet, which is fair since it is not clear the trend will continue as fundamentals have not changed beyond possible imports from Turkey.

Re: An investigation into egg prices

#76

Post by joshribakoff »

ryao wrote: post #75

Interestingly, the investigation appears to have begun right after egg prices started to drop: https://tradingeconomics.com/commodity/eggs-us No one appears to be reporting the drop yet, which is fair since it is not clear the trend will continue as fundamentals have not changed beyond possible imports from Turkey.

5 dozen lucerne eggs is $50 here in SF at Safeway, as of this morny. A few weeks to a month ago, I recall it being $5-$6 for one dozen.

Re: An investigation into egg prices

#77

Post by ryao »

SoftTalker wrote: post #67
genewitch wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Us cull numbers in 2024 were between 130mm and 180mm depending on who is saying the numbers. But I heard our flock numbers in that period were 10 times that. So I'm not sure what to think. I do know it was easy to get chicks this year, so that confused me even more. Perhaps the lack of grocery eggs was because they were incubated instead? I don't know.

> Perhaps the lack of grocery eggs was because they were incubated instead? Grocery eggs aren't even fertilized.

Some are:

https://www.delish.com/food-news/a63842548/what-are-fertile-...

You will find a number of people who have claimed to have hatched a number of types of birds from store eggs, including chickens.

Re: An investigation into egg prices

#78

Post by ryao »

joshribakoff wrote: post #76
ryao wrote: post #75

Interestingly, the investigation appears to have begun right after egg prices started to drop: https://tradingeconomics.com/commodity/eggs-us No one appears to be reporting the drop yet, which is fair since it is not clear the trend will continue as fundamentals have not changed beyond possible imports from Turkey.

5 dozen lucerne eggs is $50 here in SF at Safeway, as of this morny. A few weeks to a month ago, I recall it being $5-$6 for one dozen.

The drop is very recent and refers to upstream prices for contracts, which might have not even been delivered to stores yet. I had been watching the contract prices and successfully predicted increases in my local prices based on it, although the increases tended to lag behind the contract pricing changes by a week or more. I had been expecting another increase when the drop occurred so it is unclear to me whether the drop prevented another increase or is something we will see passed to us in the next week or two.

That said, Safeway is an expensive store. Shop at Aldi. It is cheaper. Aldi is so much cheaper that you likely could have groceries delivered from it via Instacart and still save money.

Re: An investigation into egg prices

#79

Post by gnufied »

gerdesj wrote: post #43
bsder wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Understanding a problem requires a holistic view of the larger system. It does, but the result is extremely uncomfortable. And the solving it will require actions that are even more uncomfortable. You have to come to grips with the fact that there are monopolies at every single level. There is no inventory anywhere except bottom. There is no over capacity at any level. Consequently, supply and demand simply do not…

"The big suppliers can ratchet up prices with zero consequences. What are you gonna do about it?" If I was that bothered about eggs, I'd simply grow my own. Americans on average have way more space to mess around in than say most Europeans - the place is fucking huge. Chickens are very easy to "grow your own". I'm not an American and clearly you have managed to get your collective knickers in a twist over a non issue…

A lot of Americans live in houses and neighborhoods where keeping chickens is simply not allowed.

Source: just got done cutting some pine trees on a hill behind my house because we got a notice. They will absolutely throw a fit, if we kept chickens

Re: An investigation into egg prices

#80

Post by jay_kyburz »

Dban1 wrote: post #72
genewitch wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have my own and I don't even like eggs that much. I do however like their noises, and for pest control, so I keep getting new birds. $33 for 6 birds, last month. They're not fully feathered yet.

noise control?

Probably means the noise, ie clucking, not noise control.
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