Why is beef so expensive?

Quoted message said:

Does anybody know why the price of beef has skyrocketed?

The amount we export is less than the amount we exclude from Canada; in the meantime, the VAST
MAJORITY of consumers are not buying the mad cow scare, so supply-and-demand still favors the
domestic cattle industry.

Cdonahey41 said:

Does anybody know why the price of beef has skyrocketed? I presume people have been buying less,
and would buy more if the price went down.

Well... every newspaper I've read recently cite it as also being because of the increase in
consumption (think Atkins) Goomba

Cdonahey41 <[email hidden]> typed:

Quoted message said:

The price went way up before the mad cow problems/ Since there is lot of

beef

Quoted message said:

that can no longer be exported, this should indicate the price of beef will

go

Quoted message said:

down. You know greater supply, lower price kind of reasoning. I just paid $3.29 for ground chuck
recently.

Does anybody know why the price of beef has skyrocketed? I presume people have been buying less,
and would buy more if the price went down.

Because people *continue* to pay $3.29/# for ground mystery meat? If you pay it, they will charge
that much for it.

BOB

(Cdonahey41) said:

The price went way up before the mad cow problems/ Since there is lot of beef that can no longer be
exported, this should indicate the price of beef will go down. You know greater supply, lower price
kind of reasoning. I just paid $3.29 for ground chuck recently.

Think of them as cigarettes. The less poeple smoke, the higher the price.

-sw

It was a dark and stormy night, and Cdonahey41 managed to scribble:

Quoted message said:

The price went way up before the mad cow problems/

In Australia the price of lamb has skyrocketed from about $3/kg to $10/kg, partly because of
drought, and partly because of the collapse of the price of wool. The number of sheep has dropped
from 150 million to 100 million. But I can buy pork chops for $4/kg.

Also milk costs $1.20/litre and I can buy ice cream for $1 per litre. Go figure.

gtoomey

"Cdonahey41" <[email hidden]> wrote in message
"]news:[email hidden]...

Quoted message said:

The price went way up before the mad cow problems/ Since there is lot of

beef

Quoted message said:

that can no longer be exported, this should indicate the price of beef

will go

Quoted message said:

down. You know greater supply, lower price kind of reasoning. I just

paid

Quoted message said:

$3.29 for ground chuck recently.

Does anybody know why the price of beef has skyrocketed? I presume people

have

Quoted message said:

been buying less, and would buy more if the price went down.

Your thinking is right on the money but I believe this is too early to see any dramatic price
changes from the fallout over mad cow disease, particularly at the retail level now.

There is a lot of uncertainty over just how firm and how permanent the import bans on U.S. beef by
other countries are going to remain. If the absence of exports results in an oversupply, beef prices
could be expected to fall. OTOH if domestic consumption of beef continues to climb, the growing
demand here could absorb a lot of the the beef supply that now goes to foreign countries, in which
case prices may not fall much.

As soon as the dust begins to settle I look for a major national advertising campaign by the beef
industry to try and boost sales.

"Steve Wertz" <[email hidden]> wrote in message
"]news:[email hidden]...

Quoted message said:

(Cdonahey41) said:

The price went way up before the mad cow problems/ Since there is lot of

beef

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

that can no longer be exported, this should indicate the price of beef

will go

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

down. You know greater supply, lower price kind of reasoning. I just

paid

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

$3.29 for ground chuck recently.

Think of them as cigarettes. The less poeple smoke, the higher the price.

In a totally free market, the opposite would hold true. In a market where sales are declining and
the capacity exists to increase the supply, the price would be reduced in order to stimulate demand
and attract more sales.

Tobacco is not a good example of the relationship between supply and demand. The price is grossly
and artificially inflated by taxes. If a correspondingly similar1200% tax was placed on lettuce, the
sales of lettuce would rapidly diminish. But not so with cigarettes because a large percentage of
tobacco consumers are so hopelessly addicted that they are willing to pay nearly any price for their
smokes. So the demand for cigarettes among existing smokers is not influenced by changes in price in
the same way as with most items.

Goomba38 said:

Cdonahey41 said:

Does anybody know why the price of beef has skyrocketed? I presume

people have

Quoted message said:

been buying less, and would buy more if the price went down.

Well... every newspaper I've read recently cite it as also being because of the increase in
consumption (think Atkins)

Horseshit.

It's because thet cow producers got together and cartelled the price up.

If the Mad Cow spike didn't drop retail prices (it dropped wholesale by 20% already), then it's a
bunch of manure.

futures.tradingcharts.com14Open ↗

--Blair "Time to start kicking some monopolistic ass."

(WardNA) said:

Quoted message said:

Does anybody know why the price of beef has skyrocketed?

The amount we export is less than the amount we exclude from Canada; in the meantime, the VAST
MAJORITY of consumers are not buying the mad cow scare, so supply-and-demand still favors the
domestic cattle industry.

Whoa, you couldn't have proven that when I went to one of my favorite burger palaces (the kind with
a meat display case) for dinner on Tuesday. It should have been the height of the rush hour, but
there were customers at only 3 tables.

Practice safe eating - always use condiments

Sam D. said:

"Steve Wertz" <[email hidden]> wrote in message news:0MOdnQW9b5snXmGiRVn-
[email hidden]...

Quoted message said:

(Cdonahey41) said:

The price went way up before the mad cow problems/ Since there is lot of

beef

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

that can no longer be exported, this should indicate the price of beef

will go

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

down. You know greater supply, lower price kind of reasoning. I just

paid

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

$3.29 for ground chuck recently.

Think of them as cigarettes. The less poeple smoke, the higher the price.

<snip>

We bought a hind quarter *just* before the mad cow report came out and paid $2.69/lb custom cut and
custom vacuum sealed. I didn't think that was bad. Now I *think* we have enough to last until the
dust settles from this fiasco. :^)

[email hidden] (Cdonahey41) wrote in
:"]news:[email hidden]:

Quoted message said:

The price went way up before the mad cow problems/ Since there is lot of beef that can no longer
be exported, this should indicate the price of beef will go down. You know greater supply, lower
price kind of reasoning. I just paid $3.29 for ground chuck recently.

Does anybody know why the price of beef has skyrocketed? I presume people have been buying less,
and would buy more if the price went down.

Same thing happened in Canada last summer. Farmers couldn't sell beef except at rock bottom prices,
but the stores and restaurants were not having a fire sale...they were charging high, sometimes much
higher than usual, prices. Unfortunately, I didn't check the organic butcher shop. That would have
told me if it was a trend or just gouging (which in a kapitalyist ekonomiya, is sometimes one and
the same anyway :-) ).

--
"I'm the master of low expectations."

GWB, aboard Air Force One, 04Jun2003

"Cdonahey41" <[email hidden]> wrote in message
"]news:[email hidden]...

Quoted message said:

The price went way up before the mad cow problems/ Since there is lot of

beef

Quoted message said:

that can no longer be exported, this should indicate the price of beef

will go

Quoted message said:

down. You know greater supply, lower price kind of reasoning. I just

paid

Quoted message said:

$3.29 for ground chuck recently.

Does anybody know why the price of beef has skyrocketed? I presume people

have

Quoted message said:

been buying less, and would buy more if the price went down.

Expensive is a relative term based upon your disposable/discretionary income. Although prices have
increased recently since we use the open market system usually there is a supply and demand
situation.

Dimitri

"Dimitri" <[email hidden]> wrote in
:"]news:[email hidden]:

Quoted message said:

Expensive is a relative term based upon your disposable/discretionary income. Although prices have
increased recently since we use the open market system usually there is a supply and demand
situation.

Since when does the US use the open market system? The production of most agricultural foodstuffs in
the US is either subsidized or managed and therefore benefit from unfair advantages over countries
that don't subsidize (or receive foreign aid of any sort) like Canada. That has been a bone of
contention in GATT negotiations where the US has demanded the lowering or elimination of subsidies
in other countries while protecting its own.

--

"I'm the master of low expectations."

GWB, aboard Air Force One, 04Jun2003

"Michel Boucher" <[email hidden]> wrote in message
"]news:[email hidden]...

Quoted message said:

"Dimitri" <[email hidden]> wrote in :"]news:[email hidden]:

Quoted message said:

Expensive is a relative term based upon your disposable/discretionary income. Although prices
have increased recently since we use the open market system usually there is a supply and demand
situation.

Since when does the US use the open market system? The production of most agricultural foodstuffs
in the US is either subsidized or managed and therefore benefit from unfair advantages over
countries that don't subsidize (or receive foreign aid of any sort) like Canada. That has been a
bone of contention in GATT negotiations where the US has demanded the lowering or elimination of
subsidies in other countries while protecting its own.

Ok let me re-define my statement - neither the US government nor the States publish or "fix/set"
prices for retail food consumption ergo the normal supply and demand usually prevail.

You are correct however in that the US government does manage certain commodities which is why we no
longer make Life Savers in the US and why the production has moved 100% to Canada. Do you want to
send those Jobs back?

Dimitri

In article <[email hidden]>,

(Cdonahey41) said:

The price went way up before the mad cow problems/ Since there is lot of beef that can no longer
be exported, this should indicate the price of beef will go down. You know greater supply, lower
price kind of reasoning. I just paid $3.29 for ground chuck recently.

Does anybody know why the price of beef has skyrocketed? I presume people have been buying less,
and would buy more if the price went down.

One store here in Seattle was selling ground beef at 99 cents/pound on Sunday, mostly because ground
beef from the mad cow was distributed hereabouts. The same store didn't have much chicken on that
day. This is supply and demand in action.

Cindy

--
C.J. Fuller

Delete the obvious to email me

"Dimitri" <[email hidden]> wrote in
:"]news:[email hidden]:

Quoted message said:

You are correct however in that the US government does manage certain commodities which is why we
no longer make Life Savers in the US and why the production has moved 100% to Canada. Do you want
to send those Jobs back?

Do you want them back? Obviously, they were thought at one time to be unsuitable for Murkins to
do...are you saying that now you're desperate, that you're interested in getting them back? :-)

The GATT/WTO has attempted to develop the concept (not entirely successfully, nor do I agree with
it) of "comparative advantage", which is a difficult concept to nail down, but essentially it means
that certain crops or products should almost be granted as exclusive commodities for nations that
have a relatively easy time of growing or manufacturing them. For example, one would not recognize a
comparative advantage in growing bananas to Iceland, but one would to the island of Madeira. The
problem is that economists are the ones developing these concepts and that truly frightens the
bejaysus out of me.

I see it as a problem wherein local markets will cease to exist and varieties of cultivars will be
eliminated inorder to make the crop easier to transport. The experiment has already failed in Italy
where a region that was famous for its fifteen varieties of green peppers has been transformed into
large tracts of lad to grow something completely different and no one ensured the survival of the
varieties so that now they are lots (at any rate lost to consumers).

The problem with agricultural subsidies is that governments will want them applied on the blandest
of products to ensure best iunvestment return, not the lesser known but more exciting varieties, and
we are that much the poorer or it.

--

"I'm the master of low expectations."

GWB, aboard Air Force One, 04Jun2003

"Michel Boucher" <[email hidden]> wrote in message
"]news:[email hidden]...

<snip>

Quoted message said:

The problem with agricultural subsidies is that governments will want them applied on the blandest
of products to ensure best iunvestment return, not the lesser known but more exciting varieties,
and we are that much the poorer or it.

Nope the problem is that the programs are created/administered by politicians......

Dimitri

"Dimitri" <[email hidden]> wrote in
:"]news:[email hidden]:

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

The problem with agricultural subsidies is that governments will want them applied on the
blandest of products to ensure best iunvestment return, not the lesser known but more exciting
varieties, and we are that much the poorer or it.

Nope the problem is that the programs are created/administered by politicians......

Actually, politicians are not that smart. Program creators and administrators are career civil
servants for the most part, with a dash of academic input and sometimes industry input. Politicians,
if they are smart, do as they are told.

--

"I'm the master of low expectations."

GWB, aboard Air Force One, 04Jun2003

Cindy Fuller said:

One store here in Seattle was selling ground beef at 99 cents/pound on Sunday, mostly because
ground beef from the mad cow was distributed hereabouts.

It was distributed in 6 states.

Practice safe eating - always use condiments