[HN Gopher] Hatching a Conspiracy: A Big Investigation into Egg ...
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Hatching a Conspiracy: A Big Investigation into Egg Prices
Author : Armic
Score : 55 points
Date : 2025-03-09 17:49 UTC (4 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.thebignewsletter.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.thebignewsletter.com)
| araes wrote:
| Generally correlates with my own view on the subject. After
| reading two USDA reports on the subject "Chickens and Eggs" [1]
| and "Egg Markets Overview" [2] it seemed like the markets are not
| responding to actual supply / demand issues. The losses, while
| large "sounding" (30 million), are not really that enormous in
| the context of 369 million egg laying flock, down 2% from the
| previous year. And most of the losses were heavily constrained to
| the Ohio (44%) / Illinois (22%) area.
|
| [1] https://downloads.usda.library.cornell.edu/usda-
| esmis/files/...
|
| [2] https://www.ams.usda.gov/mnreports/ams_3725.pdf
| thegrim33 wrote:
| The article you're commenting on states that 115 million egg-
| laying hens were culled, not 30 million.
| readthenotes1 wrote:
| Alas! I thoroughly enjoyed Kevin Hassett's Face the Nation comedy
| skit "Perimeter of Dead Chickens".
|
| I guess I should have known that it was a misdirect...
|
| https://www.cbsnews.com/news/kevin-hassett-face-the-nation-t...
| vessenes wrote:
| The article had me at "European Chicken Monopoly In Control of US
| Egg Market." The rest is interesting, but fairly predictable in
| outcome. Normally competition will drive prices down when margins
| are good. In this case, the monopoly breaks that cycle and is
| like ... "Mmm, I like these margins, thanks."
| vessenes wrote:
| p.s. It also explains why at my local Pacific Northwest family
| owned market, there were plenty of $4.99 and $6.99 free range
| eggs per dozen for sale -- I believe this small chain prefers
| local suppliers.
| SoftTalker wrote:
| Egg prices are high compared to what they used to cost but still
| under $1.00 for a two-egg meal. There's not a protein source
| that's much cheaper, I think the egg producers are exploiting a
| certain inelasticity of demand. People don't like the price
| increases but eggs are still very cheap food.
| ericjmorey wrote:
| Harris and Walz campaigned specifically on addressing the issues
| raised by this article. People didn't care if they even
| understood. We have someone that's implementing a kleptocracy
| instead.
|
| This is not getting solved for at least a decade, probably 50+
| years before another regime change occurs.
| teeray wrote:
| It does make me wonder what it will take to have a government
| with an appetite for trust busting again.
| theWreckluse wrote:
| It might happen when the pop media allows for it. It's very
| easy to belive the the Govt and all media are in symbiotic
| cahoots w each other.
| generalizations wrote:
| We'll see. We're only a couple months into this 'regime' -
| might be interesting to try a different strategy for a little
| while.
|
| H&W may have campaigned on this, but there's two things
| critical to good advertising: offering what people want, and
| offering it credibly.
| pessimizer wrote:
| > Harris and Walz campaigned specifically on addressing the
| issues raised by this article.
|
| No, they didn't. They campaigned on a vague anti-"price
| gouging" promise while pretending they didn't even know who
| Lina Khan, Johnathan Kanter and Rohit Chopra were.
|
| Harris _never_ made it clear if any of their jobs were safe,
| her advisor and brother-in-law Tony West was Uber 's general
| counsel, and Mark Cuban, a proxy for Harris during the
| campaign, screamed from the rooftops how much he hated them all
| and how they would be gone if Harris won (until the campaign
| told him to stop saying that.)
|
| The only people mentioning antitrust during the campaign were
| on the Republican side, all the way up to Vance at least, and
| they continue to engage even after winning. Democrats were
| campaigning on companies "doing better" and not "taking
| advantage" and on anything else that wouldn't be definable or
| enforceable.
|
| -----
|
| edit: it's important to mention that this is the second avian
| flu outbreak since covid to kill an enormous (but not as
| enormous as it sounds) number of birds, the previous outbreak
| was used as an excuse to raise the prices just as high, and egg
| profits skyrocketed. This happened _entirely_ during the Biden
| administration. I don 't know how Harris would have differed,
| but we have already seen the Biden response and it was to let
| everyone get away with whatever.
| cantrecallmypwd wrote:
| I bet Agri Stats is involved to some degree with price fixing
| above the baseline of supply intersecting demand.
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