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

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

bloomberg.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

81–85 of 85 posts

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

#81

Post by nradov »

robotron wrote: post #78
CWuestefeld wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Processing, packing, and distribution facilities for fruits, vegetables, and mushrooms have dense working conditions just like meat plants.

Grains are better in that regard since there's much more automation.

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

#82

Post by bsder »

eesmith wrote: post #73
bsder wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Nope. I said what I meant. Any system optimized for maximal efficiency on any measure becomes deoptimized as soon as that measure changes even a little bit.

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

It's almost impossible to optimize for "robustness". You are always optimizing some measure. You would have to deoptimize for all measures, and that's just silly from an engineering perspective.

The only thing you can do is to simply not optimize to the last 0.1%.

The whole toilet paper fiasco is a good example. Toilet paper is such a low-margin business that everybody optimized it to hell and back. Lines are already running 24/7 even in normal times. The consumer and industrial production is split so they can optimize them independently to squeeze those last couple fractional percentage points out by making commercial toilet paper even shittier.

Consequently, there is zero ability to absorb the demand shock that occurred when lots of commercial usage transferred to consumer usage.

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

#83

Post by eesmith »

bsder wrote: post #82
eesmith wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think you mean something more like "maximally profitable is minimally robust"? After all, we could use robustness as our optimization criterion.

Nope. I said what I meant. Any system optimized for maximal efficiency on any measure becomes deoptimized as soon as that measure changes even a little bit. > After all, we could use robustness as our optimization criterion. It's almost impossible to optimize for "robustness". You are always optimizing some measure. You would have to deoptimize for all measures, and that's just silly from an engineering perspective.…

I'm going to assume you are not arguing ad absurdum. Maximizing for X doesn't meant that factors Y, Z, etc. can be completely ignored. Nothing can be optimized "to the last 0.1%" given that other factors become important at that point.

(Eg, it might be possible to make to make space access more robust by spending the next 100 years of the world's combined effort to build a space elevator. But that's not going to happen because there's no perceived need to have that extra robustness given how much human focus is required.)

Forward error correction systems are designed to improve signal robustness in the face of noise - based on a given noise model. It can be made more robust by assuming a much higher noise than what actually exists.

This would probably require more transmission time. But the robustness level, by any usual quality measure, would increase.

"The whole toilet paper fiasco is a good example" ... for my clarified version, yes. That system was was optimized for profit extraction, probably also with the expectation that the government would throw money at them if things went really bad. ("Socialized risk.")

It was not at all optimized for an efficient transition to a widespread shelter-at-home world.

It could have been at least somewhat optimized for that, which is why I think your original statement was too broad. But it wasn't, because it was maximizing for profit, not social stability or happiness or other more nebulous criteria.

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

#84

Post by niklasolai »

nscalf wrote: post #44
pascalxus wrote: post #36

It's not commonly known but Vegetables, Grains and Beans are extremely excellent sources of protein. Most of them have between 10-20% or more of their calories from protein. if you want exact numbers, check out this: https://kale.world/c And, if people reduce their meat consumption form these shortages, it could have excellent results on people's health. The last time a country went completely without meat or dairy w…

Protein from those sources are not as bioavailable, and are therefore not “extremely excellent sources of protein”. Also, forks over knives has been disproven a hundred times over. Not saying everything in that doc is wrong, but it has enough wrong that it is not a credible source of information.

Yes there is a difference in bio-availability. But have you ever checked what the actual difference is? No? Because then you would know the difference is negligible. "No" people in the western would have a protein deficiency, however many people overeat both kcal and protein.

There is no issue in getting enough proteins on a vegan diet/lifestyle.

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

#85

Post by 0x8BADF00D »

nradov wrote: post #80
0x8BADF00D wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

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

It was actually a currency longer than Federal Reserve notes were in existence. Not sure why you'd pay your taxes in gold, but you can, only it would be based on the face value of each gold coin.

Post reply on HN