06.13.12

America fucks up beef, too

Posted in Uncategorized at 12:55 pm by George Smith

It had to happen. Hamburger and steak are moving toward being only for swells. And why not?

If the cattleman can lift prices, capitalize on shortage, and sell to countries like China where the government will help pay a higher price for it, it’s the free hand of the market, right?

From the wire:

The U.S. cattle herd has shrunk to the smallest since three years before Ray Kroc opened his first McDonald’s Corp. (MCD) hamburger stand, reducing supply and raising prices even as domestic demand sinks to a two-decade low.

Beef output in the U.S., the biggest producer, will drop for a third year in 2013 after drought destroyed pastures, forcing farmers to cull herds to the smallest since 1952, government data show …

Record beef prices predicted for this year by the Livestock Marketing Information Center, a 57-year-old research group based in Denver, may mean higher costs for retailers and restaurants …

Smaller breeding herds mean that calf production in the U.S. has declined for 16 straight years to the lowest since 1950, the University of Missouri’s Plain said. That could mean the highest prices ever, said Plain, who has studied the industry for three decades …

U.S. beef consumption is forecast by the USDA at 11.359 million tons, the lowest since 1993, partly as people eat more pork …

And why am I, and we, eating more pork? Because it’s cheaper and the 99 percent took a 40 percent hit on its capitalization, starting in 2007.

Forty six million people also know food stamps go farther when beef’s not on the menu.

The logic of stomping on the poor and the one-paycheck-away-from-being-broke class until they have even less money is inescapable.

You get to sell less and less stuff to people who can’t afford it, shrink your resources, hire less help, push up your prices for the 1 percent, sell less and less stuff to people who can’t afford it, shrink your resources, hire less help, push up your prices for a smaller number …

I hear there’s real market potential in ketchup and molasses over shredded recycled cellulose.

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