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An investigation into egg prices

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Re: An investigation into egg prices

#81

Post by moregrist »

SoftTalker wrote: post #71
rekabis wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

You can both be opposed to monopolies and in favor of sensible acquisitions.

Being pro-markets and pro-capitalism is not the same thing as being in favor of letting companies run rampant with M&A with no consideration for market power or monopolization.

Re: An investigation into egg prices

#82

Post by jay_kyburz »

bdangubic wrote: post #48
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…

you cannot just wake up and decide to grow your own, it is regulated heavily :)

Here are my local laws, not too crazy.

https://www.legislation.act.gov.au/View/di/2010-89/current/h...

Re: An investigation into egg prices

#83

Post by Marsymars »

Centigonal wrote: post #44
Marsymars wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> What are you gonna do about it? Substitute tofu?

Even at $6.50/dozen, eggs are cheaper than tofu, which is $3 for 14 oz where I'm at.

FWIW, Costco or low-cost Asian grocers are less than half that price for tofu.

And in terms of protein, a dozen eggs is pretty close to the same amount of protein as 14oz of firm tofu... so my cost for tofu protein is like a quarter of my cost for egg protein. (Organic in either case, fwiw.)

Re: An investigation into egg prices

#84

Post by latency-guy2 »

Dylan16807 wrote: post #66
genewitch wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Lol "if cheeto wants to end corruption he'd do " I'm in awe, friend.

If you consider breaking up big companies to be "socialist", then there is no problem with that type of "socialism" except associations that only exist in your head because you are considering every kind of "socialism" to be the same thing.

> Or just put the entire industry under public control by nationalizing the industry.

Explain what these words in the sequence they were presented mean.

Are you sure you're right, at all?

Re: An investigation into egg prices

#85

Post by drivebyhooting »

PaulDavisThe1st wrote: post #65
absolutelastone wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Don't those heterodox ideas about debt predict these increasing prices?

The heterodox ideas do, yes. MMT does not. We don't know who is correct. We do know that one POV is massively favored by those who would like to use the national debt as a reason to impose austerity policies on the US economy.

You use the word heterodox as a thought preventing insult.

On the one hand we have a simple model that 1+1=2. On the other we have someone else proclaimed correct saying it’s not so. But it’s too complex for me to understand.

Re: An investigation into egg prices

#86

Post by bdangubic »

SoftTalker wrote: post #62
bdangubic wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

you said “budget” in the context of America. 93.98% of americans are not finacially literate enough to budget. this is by design…

It doesn't have to be so formal, and for most people it's more like "wow eggs have gotten expensive, I'll skip buying them this week" that is what I do, same with beef and anything else that just seems like it costs too much. Or I'll shop around, there are people selling eggs from their home-kept chickens at the side of the road for less than supermarket prices (I realize that doesn't scale, at least not quickly).

you are the 6.02% :)

I do the same for EVERYTHING. my wife and I make a decent living but we drew lines when the prices started going up. we can afford it, not just eggs but also other things that have been price gouged in the last couple of years. issue is of course there are not enough of us to make a difference

Re: An investigation into egg prices

#87

Post by ryao »

mech975 wrote: post #52

I went to the trouble of finding monthly egg production totals for the US based on "NASS quick stats." https://quickstats.nass.usda.gov/results/80AF9DAE-99AE-31D0-... Hopefully yall can make heads or tails of the data. The querying tool is also linked at https://quickstats.nass.usda.gov/#80AF9DAE-99AE-31D0-8F1C-EC...

That data means that reversing the rule that prevented meat chicken eggs from being sold will have a negligible impact on the crisis:

https://www.yahoo.com/news/national-chicken-council-asks-fda...

It also means this is not going to be a huge impact either:

https://www.reuters.com/markets/commodities/turkey-export-15...

That import is 240,000,000 eggs if my math is right. If it is spread over a few months we will barely notice it. If it were achieved in a single month, it might be more noticeable.

I am reasoning mostly based on significant figures. I did not compare historical lows to production figures to try to get an idea of what actual demand is and I assume there is a bit of a smoothing effect that allows a surplus and shortfall in adjacent months to cancel.

Re: An investigation into egg prices

#88

Post by Dylan16807 »

latency-guy2 wrote: post #84
Dylan16807 wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you consider breaking up big companies to be "socialist", then there is no problem with that type of "socialism" except associations that only exist in your head because you are considering every kind of "socialism" to be the same thing.

> Or just put the entire industry under public control by nationalizing the industry. Explain what these words in the sequence they were presented mean. Are you sure you're right, at all?

That wasn't the main idea (which is also the idea that mentioned Trump), that was a secondary one. The main idea was just breakups. The comment I replied to summarized the whole suggestion as socialism.

Re: An investigation into egg prices

#89

Post by PaulDavisThe1st »

drivebyhooting wrote: post #85
PaulDavisThe1st wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The heterodox ideas do, yes. MMT does not. We don't know who is correct. We do know that one POV is massively favored by those who would like to use the national debt as a reason to impose austerity policies on the US economy.

You use the word heterodox as a thought preventing insult. On the one hand we have a simple model that 1+1=2. On the other we have someone else proclaimed correct saying it’s not so. But it’s too complex for me to understand.

> But it’s too complex for me to understand.

I'm not here to solve your problems.

The fact that you think that all economies can be reduced to something as simple as "1 + 1 = 2" is one of your problems. Good luck.

Re: An investigation into egg prices

#90

Post by paulddraper »

SoftTalker wrote: post #74
paulddraper wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Correct.

And those people who scalped toilet paper and sanitizer....their motivations may be scammy, but they were correcting a market that wasn't correcting itself.

Yeah it would suck for sanitizer to cost 10x as much, but that's the only thing that's going to make people ration it like they should.

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