De-regulation is hurting cattle ranchers

[SuperMatt]

The Republican party believes strongly in deregulation. However, the results of that are often disastrous.

Record Beef Prices, but Ranchers Aren’t Cashing In (Published 2021)

“You’re feeding America and going broke doing it”: After years of consolidation, four companies dominate the meatpacking industry, while many ranchers are barely hanging on.

www.nytimes.com

(paywall removed)

You know those extremely high beef prices? Ranchers aren’t seeing any of that money. All the meatpackers have consolidated and are making massive profits by overcharging consumers and underpaying ranchers.

While ranchers have been tallying losses, JBS has been celebrating gains — revenues of $18 billion between July and September, which represented an increase of 32 percent compared with the same quarter in 2020.

In past decades, when beef prices rose, so would payments to cattle ranchers, who claimed over half of what consumers paid for meat. But that relationship began to break down in 2015. Last year, cattle ranchers received only 37 cents on every dollar spent on beef, according to federal data.

“You’re having consumers exploited on one end of the supply chain, cattle producers exploited on the other,” said Bill Bullard, a former rancher who now heads an advocacy group, the Ranchers-Cattlemen Action Legal Fund. “The meatpackers are making all-time record profits.”

Ever since the Reagan administration, the federal government has taken a lax approach to antitrust enforcement, investing in the popular notion that when large and efficient companies are permitted to amass greater scale, consumers benefit.

Maybe rural Americans will wake up to the fact that GOP policies are quite bad for rural America.

 

[Joe]

'murica!

 

[Chew Toy McCoy]

Our entire country needs to be sat down and have a talking to. They need to be told that our capitalism and complicit government is designed to ensure that as much money as possible flows to those at the top. You can maybe hard work your way to $1 million dollars. After that you can stop the hard work and put all your focus on playing shell games with your money to grow wealth and as a hobby chip away at the money of those who have a lot less than you. You really don’t need their money. It's just fun to do.

 

[Yoused]

You can maybe hard work your way to $1 million dollars. After that you can stop the hard work and put all your focus on playing shell games with your money

If you have a million dollars, in this day and age, that amounts to significant comfort. If you are pursuing more than that, you just want the money so you can use it to fuck with other people.