[HN Gopher] Working Americans Turn to Food Banks as Fed Inflatio...
___________________________________________________________________
Working Americans Turn to Food Banks as Fed Inflation Battle Drags
On
Author : xivzgrev
Score : 11 points
Date : 2025-01-27 21:28 UTC (1 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.msn.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.msn.com)
| xivzgrev wrote:
| The article focuses on wages outpacing inflation as solution.
|
| But why is no one focusing on why food prices are still
| increasing so much? We're long past shortages of COVID.
|
| It seems there has been an unchecked rise in food supplier
| oligopolies which allows a small number of companies to collude
|
| -Big potato: https://www.levernews.com/the-rise-of-big-potato/
|
| -Big meat: https://blog.ucsusa.org/karen-perry-stillerman/will-
| the-bide...
|
| -10 companies own most of the world's food brands:
| https://www.good.is/this-infographic-shows-how-only-10-compa...
| elmerfud wrote:
| Is the consolidation of food companies and them artificially
| driving up prices to increase their profit margins the actual
| reason? I'm asking because I don't know. In my general
| experience that doesn't happen very often. They strive to keep
| their margins the same as a percentage of the cost. So this
| means the margin is a larger dollar value but as a percentage
| it's about the same. This would point to something else causing
| an increase in the supply costs. This also gets magnified down
| to the consumer because the retailer is still going to strive
| to keep their same profit margin percentage as well.
|
| One thing that I suspect is that labor costs are going up. I
| understand people feel that wages aren't keeping up with
| inflation but wages are also going to continue to drive
| inflation. One thing that's always struck me as strange, is
| when I was young I remember food co-ops being a thing and
| farmers selling direct to consumers through the co-ops or other
| farmer markets. Those prices were always significantly less
| than what you would pay at the stores. There was still big box
| stores that could keep low margins. Walmart still existed large
| grocery chains existed, etc... now anytime I see a local farm
| stand or a farmers market or any co-op-based thing the prices
| far outpace what you get at even the most boutique grocery
| stores. Often times a lot of these farmers markets are simply
| selling repackaged goods from these grocery stores too.
|
| I suspect the drive for all of this is that we have
| artificially inflated our food price at the supply level and it
| is now trickling down to everyone. The massive amount of
| subsidies we pay out to farmers and the massive amount of money
| that is spent to artificially keep prices high and the tariffs
| that are issued against imports of foreign foods all drive
| these crazy price increases. The fact that farmers feel like
| they need new tractors every few years and that big companies
| like John Deere have betrayed their customer base by blocking
| right to repair and the government has done nothing. That seed
| companies have taken over the agricultural industry and want to
| license the use of seed instead of selling it. And if you've
| ever engaged in one of those license agreements for seeds woe
| be unto you if you try and take a non-licensed seed because you
| will be sued.
|
| I think if we want to really address the food price problem we
| need to start fixing some of the core agricultural problems.
| Cuz I don't believe it's with the food brands themselves it
| starts much earlier in the chain.
| mistrial9 wrote:
| I dont know either.. but I can say that in some extractive
| industry, for example timber and wood products.. in a
| commodity market that is an old, established market.. profit
| and economic expansion that occurs in _other_ aspects of the
| economy do not reach the economics of the timber. In other
| words, newly minted millionaires by stock offering and
| corporate employment in the cell phone industry, do not move
| the needle on the core parts of the old, commodity timber
| products. Public news and government statements act as if
| there is "one economy" that is doing well or not doing well,
| but this is superficial .. trade goods transacted in the US
| dollar are sort of linked; trade of goods and services under
| a unified set of laws like USA interstate commerce laws are
| sort of linked.. but in Truth, there are winners and losers
| each year, and that extends to whole market segments, too..
|
| This is a long introductory statement to say that.. just
| because landlords in Santa Clara County California are
| driving Porches, or ex-FAANG digital nomads count their money
| in units of $100k, does not at all mean that big, stable
| companies and their owners and investors, are seeing the
| growth that others nearby are seeing.. SO .. how to "catch
| up" when you are an big brand food company? raise prices..
| "greedflation" .. but its not just greed, its a distribution
| system of profits.. this is an old situation. Stock markets
| are supposed to ameliorate this friction but not perfectly..
| young Turks want Lambos, not fairness.
|
| There have been sarcastic articles about medical doctors that
| are envious of stock brokers because the doctors cant buy the
| biggest houses anymore.. but it also includes a local Mexican
| restaurant going broke on labor and food costs, while Lambos
| drive by on their way to the airport.. source: personal
| musing
| n4r9 wrote:
| > In my general experience that doesn't happen very often.
|
| Pumping up prices is exactly what large corporations seek to
| do once they have a large market share. If possible, lowering
| costs at the same time. Matt Stoller has an article
| explaining how Walmart did this from the 70s through to this
| century: https://www.thebignewsletter.com/p/walmart-americas-
| food-gov...
| toomuchtodo wrote:
| Also, egg shortages are from Avian flu. Americans are
| uneducated and unsophisticated, believing someone can wave a
| magic wand and make food prices come down, when wages and
| supply must go up to accomplish this (price levels vs
| inflation). They also have no appetite to understand market
| consolidation being a root cause contributing factor of supply
| shortages or pricing power (depending on your view on the
| topic).
| sympil wrote:
| _Americans are uneducated and unsophisticated, believing
| someone can wave a magic wand and make food prices come
| down,... when wages and supply must go up to accomplish
| this..._
|
| Government wields a magic wand that can make this happen.
| Americans aren't dumber than other people. The President in
| the U.S. is the front person for "government" and asking why
| the President hasn't accomplished something is one of the
| ways we put pressure on our leaders to lead.
| toomuchtodo wrote:
| What wand would government wave to make food prices decline
| in a short period of time? Cattle herds are at the lowest
| level in 73 years due to costs related to climate change
| (which influences beef prices), and the government isn't
| going to mandate vaccination for poultry to stem Avian flu
| contagion (leading to flock culling, further intensifying
| the supply death spiral). Show your work to support your
| assertion.
|
| (if you vote for someone who tells you they can make
| something cheaper they can't actually make cheaper, and you
| don't understand the how and the why, you are not a smart
| voter)
|
| https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2024-01-31/us-
| beef-t... | https://archive.today/GJz4w
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42806145 (citations)
| treis wrote:
| I looked up Tyson Chicken's profits:
|
| https://www.macrotrends.net/stocks/charts/TSN/tyson-foods/gr...
|
| They had a phenomenal second half of 2021 but it quickly came
| down to below their average.
|
| Food inflation in general follows the same pattern. Big spike
| around covid and then settling back down to historical
| averages:
|
| https://tradingeconomics.com/united-states/food-inflation
|
| There's huge corporations on both sides of these deals. Tyson
| Chicken has a 22% market share and Walmart has a 23% share of
| the grocery market. Practically neither is going to be able to
| bully the other. The little guy? To some extent sure, but
| distributors exist too and Sysco probably isn't getting bullied
| around either.
| exabrial wrote:
| > We're long past shortages of COVID.
|
| There were no shortages during COVID. Only a bunch of panicked
| buyers clogging the smooth running supply chains. Prices had to
| rise to quell the behavior or the whole system would collapse.
|
| What happened afterwards is massive inflation from the federal
| government printing enormous amounts of money into existence,
| so as the supply chain caught up, prices had to stay high to
| keep companies afloat after their costs rose.
| exabrial wrote:
| Here's the bill I want to see passed: No more pay raises, ever,
| for members of congress and the executives in the executive
| branch. If they want a pay raise, they can lower the country's
| inflation rate to increase their purchasing power.
___________________________________________________________________
(page generated 2025-01-27 23:01 UTC)