[HN Gopher] High beef prices and the destruction of independent ...
___________________________________________________________________
High beef prices and the destruction of independent cattle ranching
Author : BobbyVsTheDevil
Score : 140 points
Date : 2022-01-03 19:10 UTC (3 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (mattstoller.substack.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (mattstoller.substack.com)
| mannanj wrote:
| dang wrote:
| Could you please stop taking HN threads further into flamewar?
| We've already had to ask you about this, and you've continued
| to do it repeatedly. We end up having to ban accounts that do
| that, so if you'd please review
| https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and fix this,
| we'd appreciate it.
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
| bshipp wrote:
| What seems to be missing in the article is a reference to the
| Jack-in-the-box ecoli outbreak, BSE, and a number of other food
| safety outbreaks that dramatically impacted small abattoirs.
|
| I watched a friend close up his small butcher shop when he simply
| lost the will to meet all of the new and changing requirements
| that were mandated for him to stay in business.
|
| I'm not saying this was unwarranted, but those smaller
| slaughterhouses provided competition to the larger ones that kept
| price in lockstep with demand.
|
| With most of those gone, the remaining large players are able to
| set their prices to maximize their marginal revenue and not at
| marginal cost.
| coderintherye wrote:
| Previous discussion from when this was posted in 2021:
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28877408
| giantg2 wrote:
| Sounds like independents need to band together and vertically
| integrate by creating a meat packing facility that serves them
| and passes on the profits. Similar to, albeit on a much smaller
| scale, how the local grange can allow farms to plan who is
| planting what and organize who owns what specialized equipment
| and the reasonable rate for them to utilize it at others'
| request.
| azemetre wrote:
| Why not band together and force better conditions by the
| corporations? This is what unions are for, a place for labor to
| bargain fairly compared to capital.
|
| This will also have the nice benefit of raising the tide to
| lift all boats, rather than trying to diverge and course
| correct by oneself (raising cattle isn't comparable in skills
| or costs to running a meat packing facility).
| chrisseaton wrote:
| > This is what unions are for
|
| They're independent companies. They aren't employed by
| anyone. They aren't labour they're owners. That's not what a
| union is for.
| WanderPanda wrote:
| Correct, that is what a cartel is for
| meheleventyone wrote:
| Isn't a cartel more about illicit collusion (often
| outright illegal) rather than forming a public
| organisation to act collectively?
| AnthonyMouse wrote:
| Cartels violate antitrust laws. Labor unions in
| particular have an antitrust exception. But both of them
| are solving the problem from the wrong end.
|
| The question isn't how to negotiate with an existing
| monopolist that can screw you over with monopoly power,
| it's how to break their monopoly. "Get your own monopoly"
| not only doesn't fix it, it just makes it worse for
| everybody else. Congratulations, humans who eat food,
| there are now _two_ monopolies in your supply chain.
| celestialcheese wrote:
| It seems like it depends on the industry. OPEC is the
| largest, and definitely not illegal, cartel, but there
| are others. [1]
|
| 1 - https://guides.loc.gov/oil-and-gas-
| industry/organizations
| ipaddr wrote:
| Association is a better concept or industry group
| bobthepanda wrote:
| Farmers already do this, and they're called cooperatives.
|
| Some US big name brands that are cooperatives are
| Darigold, Land O' Lakes, Organic Valley, and Sunkist.
|
| The largest company in New Zealand is a dairy
| cooperative: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fonterra
|
| It's interesting that this is not common for meat, when
| it is for dairy. Wonder why that is.
| Mandatum wrote:
| Because meat isn't as commoditized, there's too many
| different grades and products. When 70%+ of your output
| turns into shelf-stable milk powder, it's all the same.
| Fonterra has kept local milk supplies in New Zealand at
| export prices for more than 15 years. It wasn't until
| recently that smaller independent co-op's formed and
| began selling processor-to-table and exporting
| themselves.
|
| However now many of the processors are owned by the same
| companies or people, so processors who'd previously deal
| with these co-ops are signing exclusivity deals with
| Fonterra and they're being shut out of the market.
|
| But we also have the income and GDP brought by Fonterra
| for the last 10-15 years to thank. Unfortunately we're
| seeing a lot of those profits off-shored or eaten up by
| corporate middlemen owned by conglomerates now.
| chrisseaton wrote:
| Meat is literally traded as a commodity.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lean_Hog
| dehrmann wrote:
| Cartels and unions both tightly control the supply of
| what they are selling, so they're not all that different
| economically.
| nickstinemates wrote:
| I love raising my own meat, and look forward to being 100% self-
| sustainable for all meat consumption across hunting, fishing, and
| livestock for a family of 5. Meat processing and butchery is very
| rewarding.
|
| Turning a whole pig into a mix of charcuterie, roasts, and
| sausage doesn't take a lot of time and is completely worth it.
|
| This is the opposite of cheap, and is not a 'profitable' endeavor
| by any means. Buying from the store would be a lot cheaper and a
| lot less work. But the difference is incomparable.
| jdavis703 wrote:
| This all sounds pretty labor intensive to me. About how many
| hours per year do you think goes in to this? Like is this
| something that could be a weekend hobby? Or does it require
| more substantial lifestyle change?
| topkai22 wrote:
| I have in-laws in the independent ranching industry and the lack
| of slaughter house/packer capacity is a real problem. Around here
| at least supply and demand is working as there is a company
| trying to open up a new plant, but it is taking years to get past
| NIMBYism and environmental reviews.
|
| I wonder if an alternative model is to look into public/private
| partnerships where the government establishes the land and
| permitting for additional meat packing plants and then offers it
| as a lease package to private business to construct and operate.
| The Feds seem to be better at ignoring NIMBYism and they
| certainly have enough BLM land out west.
| rch wrote:
| Do you happen to know the approximate location?
| topkai22 wrote:
| Northern Nevada (Reno-Carson-Fernley-etc)
| narrator wrote:
| Intentionally destroying the beef market would be a lot of rich
| people's dream.
| LesZedCB wrote:
| can you elaborate? considering we (humanity) are de-
| sequestering thousands of acres of captured carbon in order to
| create new cattle farms, i really hope by destroy you don't
| mean monopolize and grow.
| iszomer wrote:
| Breaking Points recently did a segment on this, if you're into
| this format of presentation:
|
| - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o3v7G9EDovQ
| Server6 wrote:
| I can't take Breaking Points seriously. It's basically a
| mainstream media dunkfest that rides the line of being right-
| wing full blown crazy - which I suspect is a good chuck of
| their audience.
| president wrote:
| Not a fan of the format but I do enjoy hearing about things
| that aren't covered or highlighted in the elite corporate
| press. Not everything has to be left vs right.
| iszomer wrote:
| Be that as it may (a "right-wing full blown crazy" thing),
| you're missing the point of my reply. They did a short
| interview with a ranch farmer named Bill Bullard on this very
| topic.
| fallingknife wrote:
| I've seen several of their videos and I don't think this is
| correct (well the msm dunk fest is, but I'm fine with that).
| Do you have any examples of right wing crazy?
| voakbasda wrote:
| As a small farmer, I can tell you: independent small-scale
| farming is _not_ profitable in any meaningful manner. Government
| is actively killing it, by giving away every possible concession
| to Big Ag.
|
| The food in stores is pretty much all garbage compared to food
| raised on small farms. It sickens me to see things go this way,
| but this is the reality that we have created.
| zwieback wrote:
| Nonsense - you can get everything from trash to exceptional
| quality food, depending on the store you buy it from. Not
| disputing your point that small farmers have it hard but on the
| consumer side there's lots of choice.
| CreepGin wrote:
| > Nonsense - you can get everything from trash to exceptional
| quality food, depending on the store you buy it from. Not
| disputing your point that small farmers have it hard but on
| the consumer side there's lots of choice.
|
| When money is of no concern to you, sure. But reality is many
| people can't even afford to buy organic foods.
| lettergram wrote:
| Having been all over the country it's amazing to me how
| different Wyoming and say Tennessee are.
|
| The people in Tennessee already had to deal with the federal
| government implementing policies destroying the domestic
| tobacco industry. Btw this just means foreign farmers reap the
| profits. The federal government made the input costs to tobacco
| prohibitively expensive through taxes and regulations.
|
| They then converted mostly to grass fed cattle farms. Now there
| are multiple aspects that make it difficult to be profitable.
|
| It's really painful to watch.
|
| 2008 also had a pretty large impact for farmers losing their
| farms, followed bu drugs, increased taxes, etc make it pretty
| difficult. All the farmers complain around me about "getting
| good help".
| lotsofpulp wrote:
| > All the farmers complain around me about "getting good
| help".
|
| I assume this is due to the low pay to quality of life ratio
| offered by farming jobs.
| lettergram wrote:
| Getting people drug addicted removes potential help and
| illegal immigration drives down prices
| dodobirdlord wrote:
| If illegal immigration was driving the cost of help down,
| would they be complaining of a lack of laborers to hire?
| Someone must be hiring all of these illegal immigrants if
| their presence is suppressing wages in an industry...
| User23 wrote:
| Rural birth rates plummeted so there are fewer potential
| workers. Add to that the methamphetamine and opioid
| epidemics and the pool of potential domestic farm workers
| is tiny. The ones that do the work are the ones that love
| the lifestyle.
|
| That means that even small farmers lean hard on H-2B to
| pick up the slack. Interestingly those wages are actually
| pretty competitive: around $12 an hour plus room and board.
| JoeAltmaier wrote:
| Destroying tobacco? Wasn't $2B subsidies over the last
| decade, enough to keep it going?
| [deleted]
| AnthonyMouse wrote:
| The government is fully capable of doing two dumb things at
| the same time.
| MomoXenosaga wrote:
| The food in stores is cheap. And that matters to consumers more
| than whatever alleged quality small-time farmers can produce
| (was food actually better a hundred years ago? Doubt).
| ipaddr wrote:
| By not needing to give antibiotics and by allowing animals to
| move and by providing better food the product was healthier,
| tastier but costed more.
|
| You know those human growth hormone jumbo chicken beasts that
| have the woody texture and taste like water? They are cheaper
| for a reason...
| raincom wrote:
| Yes, appearance-wise, food is cheap. Taste-wise, it is bad.
| Taste any industrially farmed vegetable, you can see the
| difference.
| Grakel wrote:
| I don't even buy tomatoes any more, they all taste like wet
| paper.
| evv555 wrote:
| Apparently not. Meat prices are going up because of collusion
| by corporate meat packers not because the price of meat is
| going up.
| ramesh31 wrote:
| (was food actually better a hundred years ago? Doubt).
|
| It absolutely was, but of course there was less of it. Have
| you ever had real farm fresh eggs from a free range chicken?
| It's a completely different thing from those white shells
| with bright yellow yolks you get at the grocery store. Same
| goes for vegetables. Ever had a home grown tomato? Those
| things are worth their weight in gold. The grocery store
| version is really just a bunch of water in the shape of a
| tomato.
| yostrovs wrote:
| The reason the store egg shells are white is because the
| Leghorn breed is the most productive layer and it produces
| white shells.
|
| But to compare our homestead eggs to the store's, you can
| simply hard boil the two and then use a knife to cut the
| eggs in half. Our pampered chickens make much denser yolks
| that are much harder to cut. There's clearly more of
| something in them.
| programmertote wrote:
| I highly recommend you to visit third world countries and
| sample food from there. I grew up in Burma and have been
| living in the US for almost 20 years. Every time I went back
| to Burma, I buy milk, egg and chicken from local markets. I
| boil the milk and egg, and make curry out of the chicken. The
| milk is super creamy and if you boil it for 2-3 times, you
| get like 1-cm creamy foam on top. I tried the same with
| Costco whole milk, and didn't get as much cream/richness. The
| chickens are usually smaller, but they don't have "fishy"
| (for the lack of better way to describe it; but you can
| notice if you have lived in Burma for a while and came back
| to the US to eat factory-farmed chicken) smell before/after
| cooking _. The chicken bone is a bit thicker and there is
| more bone marrow (I like chewing on bones and eating the
| marrow). Maybe it 's the breed difference, but certainly
| there's no smell.
|
| I'd also recommend you to try different kinds of fresh water
| fish that are available in places like Burma and Thailand.
| These fish are more and more difficult (expensive) to buy
| thanks to overfishing, but the variety and the flavor will
| just amazes you.
|
| In general, I believe that factory farming has reduced the
| variety of available food in the US. Whether that impacts the
| long term health/flavor of the food is something we probably
| should conduct a long-term scientific study to confirm.
|
| _ My wife and mom (from the same country) both told me that
| they cannot eat the chicken from US markets because of the
| smell, and it took me a while (15 years) to get that distinct
| scent that they mention and once I starts cooking more and
| more, I learned to distinguish that myself.
| [deleted]
| yurishimo wrote:
| If your chicken smells/tastes fishy, then it's going bad.
| The fat oxidization causes that smell if I'm not mistaken.
| voakbasda wrote:
| Studies repeatedly have shown that micronutrients do not get
| replenished in monoculture crops, resulting in a measurable
| decrease in nutrition available in food grown in that soil.
| So, yes, food was actually better a hundred years ago.
| AniseAbyss wrote:
| If you could afford it. Which is precisely where we find
| ourselves today isn't it? You can buy whatever artisanal
| produce you want. You can have your yak milk from Bhutan if
| you have the money. The plebeians will just have to do with
| the supermarket.
| pfdietz wrote:
| Micronutrients are, by definition, present in micro
| amounts, so they can be fully replenished artificially with
| only small additions of material.
| freedomben wrote:
| Yes but it's difficult to get them in a form that is
| highly available for digestion/absorption, so most
| fortified food may have the same things on paper but it
| doesn't all get absorbed into your body.
| pfdietz wrote:
| We are not eating soil, we are eating plants (and animal
| flesh). An atom of (say) molybdenum taken up by a plant
| will be put into use in that plant in a way that's not
| dependent on its state in the soil.
|
| Measurement and correction of soil trace element
| abundances -- often on a small scale -- is already state
| of the practice for large scale agriculture.
|
| The whole micronutrient thing sounds like trying to apply
| a thin coating of science to a non-scientific thought
| process.
| mitchell_h wrote:
| fellow small farmer(live stock only) with a day gig. The only
| benefit to having a small farm these days is it provides a tax
| shelter, and an enjoyable(yet difficult) hobby.
|
| Even if you outright own the land, by the time you figure in
| maintenance and equipment on any cattle farm under 500-1000
| head of cattle you simply can't turn a profit in a meaningful
| way. What you CAN do is use it as a tax shelter where you sorta
| break even if you squint and hope.
| voakbasda wrote:
| In the US, the tax shelter plan only works if you are
| profitable 3 out of any given sequence of 5 years. Otherwise,
| the IRS prohibits deductions from "hobby farms". Be sure you
| check with an accountant, unless you have been showing a
| clear profit from your farming activities.
|
| In my experience, a small farmer basically needs to cook
| their books to appear profitable. Profit is not realistic if
| you include all of the actual costs.
| jdavis703 wrote:
| Why is all the pasture raised, permaculture, organic blah
| blah stuff all so expensive if it's not profitable? If I'm
| paying $12 for a dozen eggs when I can get non-sustainable,
| conventionally raised eggs from some megacorp for $3 then
| where is all the money going? Any consumer paying $12 for
| eggs certainly wouldn't mind $13, which could then be profit.
| cinntaile wrote:
| $12 dollars for 12 eggs? The goose is dead but the hen is
| still going strong.
| loudmax wrote:
| > Government is actively killing it, by giving away every
| possible concession to Big Ag.
|
| If government were out of the picture would small-scale farmers
| be better able to compete with Big Ag? If you were making
| policy, what would you have government do instead?
| voakbasda wrote:
| Break up all large corporations. Sure, start with Big Ag, but
| we need to dismantle Big Tech, Big Pharma, Big Oil, etc. etc.
| End the anti-trust run by dismantling Big Government.
| poulsbohemian wrote:
| Can you talk more about this? As a consumer I generally see
| these two as almost mutually exclusive. What I mean is - while
| I know there is rent seeking on the part of Big AG, as a
| consumer I'm under the impression there are plenty of sectors
| where small-scale producers _can_ be profitable. Meat comes to
| mind, as I buy directly from ranchers I know personally. Small-
| scale creameries have definitely been squeezed by rules written
| by Big AG, but then again some of those have had legitimacy IE:
| healthy and safety.
| xu3u32 wrote:
| I am someone who usually gets their beef from costco, small
| middle eastern markets and sometimes when its on sale at the
| neighborhood grocery store (Publix). Would you mind sharing in
| what ways what I'm consuming is trash compared to what comes
| from small farms?
| AndrewUnmuted wrote:
| It's true; it is. This year I bought half of a red angus cow
| straight from the farm. It turns red when it gets cooked.
| It's a sight to behold. The stuff you buy at the costco has
| been frozen and unfrozen at least twice before you buy it.
| That's already a meaningful difference. They clearly treat it
| with some sort of coloring agent.
|
| In the 30 years I have cooked meat, nothing can prepare you
| for real beef that comes straight from the source. If it's
| USDA approved it ain't right.
| voakbasda wrote:
| You are absolutely correct.
|
| It all starts with better nutrition. CAFO cows that end up
| at the supermarket are fed low-quality grains and
| feedstocks, rather than grass that they were evolved to
| eat. The difference between grain and grass fed beef is
| amazing.
|
| USDA processing is a complete farce. I can only sell
| locally, because I am not willing to send my animals to
| such facilities. Instead, I can only sell here in my home
| state, because that's the only way I can say that my
| animals were born, raised, and died humanely on my farm.
| The butcher will drop them where they stand, eating a final
| meal in the conditions that they were raised.
|
| If I want to go with USDA in order to sell my products out
| of state, by the cut, or to resellers (e.g. restaurants),
| then I must load my animals onto a trailer, haul them
| almost two hours away, and allow them to suffer the trauma
| of that experience before finally being slaughtered in
| inhumane conditions. I can tell you right away: that
| experience severely damages the quality of the meat.
|
| Big ranches can afford their own USDA facilities, but small
| farms must share the slowly dwindling number of processors
| that still serve the public. There are less than two dozen
| in my entire state, so you currently need to book them
| further out than the entire lifespan of the animals that
| you plan to raise. Right now, my processor has completely
| booked 2022; a new farmer cannot get any animals processed
| there until 2023!
|
| Seriously, fuck the USDA.
| hcurtiss wrote:
| I'm only one guy, but having raised and butchered several
| of both, I vastly prefer grain-finished steers. The trend
| toward lean grass-fed beef mystifies me. The fat and
| marbling with grain-finished animals is much higher,
| particularly if modestly confined, and that has at least
| historically earned a better grade. It's certainly easier
| to cook and preferred in my household.
| bee_rider wrote:
| Any thoughts on Mobile Slaughter Units?
|
| Your focus on being less cruel to your cows is pretty
| admirable, but I don't really see how average consumers
| could evaluate whether their local farm is:
|
| * Putting in the sort of extra effort that you are
|
| * Following safety protocols more generally
|
| I dunno. I'm not super attached to meat, so I'd probably
| quit eating it before putting in the effort to eat it
| ethically. Actually when I put it that way, I should
| probably quit it...
| voakbasda wrote:
| The USDA allows Mobile Slaughter Units. My state does not
| have one, because it's too expensive to bootstrap. We're
| talking millions of dollars of capital expenditures to
| get one running, because you still need a non-mobile
| facility in which to finish processing and pack the meat.
|
| None of the existing processors are willing to invest in
| such a venture, when their existing facilities are
| increasingly being regulated out of existence. No one is
| building new USDA facilities to serve small farmers.
| vwcx wrote:
| One counterexample to this might be the field harvesting
| of bison. Starting to see more 'artisanal' buffalo
| ranching that stress the positive ethics and efficiency
| of slaughtering in the field as needed. Of course, they
| still do need a partnership with a local processor to
| make field harvesting work.
| graaben wrote:
| How did you go about finding a farm to buy from? I'm very
| interested in doing this.
| [deleted]
| freedomben wrote:
| I'm in Eastern Idaho, and you can find small ranchers to
| buy meat from pretty easily on local Facebook pages. I
| even met one at the park and just started up a
| conversation. In the end it wasn't cheaper (It was about
| the same price as Costco) and I had to buy at least a
| half cow, but the quality was so good I can't even
| believe it sometimes.
| matchbok wrote:
| In absolutely no way does any beef sold in stores contain
| artificial color.
| JoeAltmaier wrote:
| I buy grass-fed beef from my neighbor. There's no difference
| as far as I can see. I like to support my neighbor, but
| there's no magic, no difference cooking, no startling color-
| change tricks as reported elsewhere in this thread.
| hn_throwaway_99 wrote:
| Don't know about grass-fed beef, but the taste of grass-fed
| _milk_ compared to regular is night-and-day to me. I don 't
| often splurge on organic but for milk I do solely for the
| taste.
| CreepGin wrote:
| We have opposite experiences with pork and poultry. The
| meat we get from local homesteads are noticeably way better
| than store bought. Maybe beef is a different story. I don't
| know...
|
| During 2020 summer, we raised 4 peking ducks in our
| backyard. We gifted some of the processed meat to extended
| family members. And to this day, they still can't stop
| talking about how good the meat were.
| jghn wrote:
| I get most of my meat from a local farm share. I've
| noticed that the largest difference vs grocery store meat
| by far is the fat in the pork we get. Poultry in general
| would be next, followed by the actual pork meat, and then
| beef. But yes, it's nice to get poultry that tastes like
| ... something.
|
| The largest difference at first with beef was that it was
| grass fed and I was not used to that. But now I tend to
| buy grass fed beef when I do get it from the supermarket
| and thus don't notice a big difference vs my farm meat.
| adrr wrote:
| Poultry that is free range is more stringy and chewy. It
| also much leaner and smaller. I lived off free range
| chicken when i worked summers on my grandfather's farm in
| Hawaii. It is all personal preference. If you order
| chicken pho at a Vietnamese restaurant it will most
| likely be free range chicken or what they call "Walking
| chicken". It is completely different than a Tyson Chicken
| from Costco with oversized breast meat.
| artificialLimbs wrote:
| You have to put it in the freezer before it gets stringy
| and chewy. You're eating old chickens if it's stringy and
| chewy.
| cheese_goddess wrote:
| Really free-range poultry (backyard chicken, rather than
| chicken grown in a factory with a tiny yard just enough
| to satisfy free range regulations) is like you say,
| tough, stringy, full of muscle, with normal-sized breasts
| and its meat is dark. It's no good for roasting because
| you really have to boil it for a couple of hours at least
| in order to get it to the point it's edible. I made the
| mistake once to only cook a hen for half an hour, like
| I'd do for supermarket chicken and I spent the night
| chewing until my jaws ached (I didn't want to throw it
| out. Poor bird died so I could eat it; so I ate it).
|
| That said, real-free-range chicken makes the most
| unbelievably godly soup. They have this amazing yellow
| fat and their skin is thick with it, so they make a
| really thick broth. Just add a few vegetables, a bit of
| celery, some carrots, potatoes, and you don't even need
| rice or anything else to thicken it. I suspect it's that
| kind of chicken that people mean when they say that
| chicken soup is good for you when you're sick. It's the
| kind of soup that could raise the dead.
| abduhl wrote:
| This sounds like how I always "reminisce" with old
| associates about how good they were when they or we did
| X. Except you're even more related to these people and so
| the vested interest in making you feel like they think
| you're a great dude is even more entrained.
| gutitout wrote:
| Maybe it's not grass-fed.
|
| Kidding. Really though if it was you could taste it. In
| some cases I prefer grain fed cows cause they just taste
| better. However the fat ratio of healthy to unhealthy fat,
| omega 3 to omega 6, is a major reason to go grass-fed.
| hindsightbias wrote:
| A decade back, you couldn't get grass-fed in any US metro,
| save the BA. And that was imported from Paraguay or
| Argentina.
|
| Now it's probably corn finished and pesticidy, but it does
| taste more like I remember as a kid.
| ratsmack wrote:
| That may be because many "grass-fed" farmers do a 120 day
| corn finish which adds weight quickly. This makes the beef
| more like what is produces commercially.
| poulsbohemian wrote:
| The rancher I buy beef from is a multi-generation family
| friend. I can tell the years he's finished on grain vs.
| the years he hasn't. Same Angus beef on the same grass
| fields, drinking the same mountain spring water, same
| mobile kill operation. But, some years it's obvious in
| the taste and texture he has mixed in corn / grains into
| the diet.
|
| To the other poster asking about mobile kill operations -
| it's less stress on the animals, and that ultimately does
| yield a better product. So whether you view it through
| the lens of tasty meat or animal welfare, in both cases
| it's a win.
| xd wrote:
| I took on some caged hens (about 6months back now) that were
| off for slaughter to be turned into dog food. Straight away
| they took to the patch of land in my garden I gave them and
| laid eggs .. the eggs they lay are on another level to
| anything store bought. I can put a pan of water on boil over
| a stove; crack an egg into it and have a perfect poached egg
| 2-3mins later. They are creamy and rich as if they have life
| compared to what now tastes almost rancid in store eggs.
|
| Waking up at sun rise every day to let them out is a pain but
| more than worth it. That said I wouldn't recommend keeping
| hens unless you've had exposure to them on some level other
| than visiting a farm.
| zwieback wrote:
| I added a solenoid-operated latch to my chicken coop that
| opened when the sun came up. I didn't like getting up at
| 4:30 in the summer. At night I still manually closed it
| since I had to make sure I didn't lock a skunk or possum in
| with the chickens.
| inetknght wrote:
| > _I added a solenoid-operated latch to my chicken coop
| that opened when the sun came up._
|
| That's pretty cool. Is it battery operated? Do you have
| your chicken coup next to your home or did you run power
| to the hen house?
| zwieback wrote:
| The coop was maybe 60 ft away so I opted for a battery
| that I'd have to recharge every few weeks. I don't have
| chickens right now but if I ever get more I'll use a
| small solar charger and maybe add a few more bells and
| whistles. I lost a lot of chickens to raccoons and hawks
| so maybe next time I'd actually do a fully enclosed
| chicken run.
| wiredfool wrote:
| Funny, I had it auto open at 8am and close at civil
| twilight automatically, and it was the auto closing that
| was the much bigger deal for me.
| inetknght wrote:
| > _That said I wouldn 't recommend keeping hens unless
| you've had exposure to them on some level other than
| visiting a farm._
|
| I recently bought a few acres in SE Texas and several
| people have recommend I raise chickens both for the eggs
| and also to help with some of the insects around here.
|
| Why don't you recommend it?
| omeze wrote:
| Not GP but how'd you find the land? I'm from Texas (grew
| up but haven't lived as an adult) and was wondering how
| to find 1-2 acres
| inetknght wrote:
| I went through a half dozen real estate agents. After
| several months and false starts, I found a real estate
| agent who was close to retiring, loved driving far, and
| liked looking at rural properties. During the week she'd
| send property listings to me and I'd yay/nay them. Then
| on the weekend we'd drive around and see three or four of
| them -- literally all-day affairs on Saturdays and half-
| days on Sundays. That went on for several months.
|
| I moved from Houston to my new 5 acres in August after
| watching the housing market for a year and actively
| searching for a home for about 6 months.
|
| Honestly the real selling point is that this home has
| AT&T gigabit fiber :)
| jdhn wrote:
| AT&T fiber in a rural area? What's the closest major
| city?
| inetknght wrote:
| I'm 15 minutes from Cleveland.
| IronWolve wrote:
| Lots of small farmers are selling their cows at a profit, selling
| to local people, and having a butcher cut the meat. You just need
| to be able to have freezer space for a 1/2 or whole cow.
|
| The problem with 4 major meat packing plants, 2 owned by china,
| they control the market, pay less to the farmer, and get more
| from the consumer.
|
| Some States in turn, are allowing producers to pack their own
| meat, making more money themselves.
|
| Lots of small mom/pop meat packers are popping up due to demand.
|
| The problem is larger producers who have hundreds-thousands of
| cows, they currently sell to the 4 major packers, and get paid
| less.
|
| >Miller noted that a rancher might lose $500 on a steer, while a
| processor might make $2,500 to $3,000 in profit.
|
| https://www.yorkdispatch.com/story/opinion/editorials/2022/0...
| orang2tang wrote:
| This is happening to every industry. There is an obvious
| consolidation and massive wealth transfer still ongoing.
| Sickening
| beebmam wrote:
| Easy enough to solve: tax wealth and redistribute it with a
| UBI.
| umvi wrote:
| Seems like an ultra-simplistic hot take that doesn't address
| the mountain of side effects doing those things would cause.
| AnthonyMouse wrote:
| > Easy enough to solve: tax wealth and redistribute it with a
| UBI.
|
| These are extremely independent problems.
|
| The problem with concentration isn't taxes, it's a regulatory
| environment that promotes concentration. You take money from
| Bezos, it doesn't change the size of Amazon.
|
| A UBI would help some by making it easier to start a small
| business, but unless you address the underlying regulatory
| problems that give every advantage to consolidated megacorps,
| that's not enough.
|
| One of the big problems _is_ taxes though, specifically the
| taxation of dividends that get reinvested. Under the existing
| system, if you 're Apple and you make iPhones and pay
| dividends to shareholders who invest them in a separate
| company that makes microprocessors, they pay more tax than if
| Apple keeps the money and makes its own microprocessors. And
| it works that way for everything, so corporations grow
| without bound and the tax system encourages that.
|
| The easy fix is to make investment a tax deduction but sale
| of an investment fully taxable instead of only on the gain.
| We already try to do this in a hundred places, 401k and Roth
| IRAs and not taxing gains until they're realized, because
| it's obviously a good idea and promotes investment. But
| because we specifically don't do it in the case where you
| take profits from one company and invest them into an
| independent one, we've been promoting indefinite corporate
| expansion for decades.
| beebmam wrote:
| Are you claiming that with less regulations, companies like
| Amazon will lose market share? Are you delusional?
| zo1 wrote:
| Not OP, but 10 or 15 years ago sure maybe. The problem is
| we can't look at it now that Amazon is _huge_ and
| deregulate. If we deregulated now, Amazon will absolutely
| destroy any new competition.
| hackerfromthefu wrote:
| Increased regulation that becomes burdensome to meet
| creates what business schools call a 'moat' around a
| business.
|
| So the post you're referring to is educated, not
| delusional.
| AnthonyMouse wrote:
| What do you think their advantage comes from? Most
| regulatory compliance is a fixed cost. Amazon's lawyers
| get paid the same hourly rate to read the same
| regulations as yours, but they can amortize the cost over
| a billion customers. The more regulations there are, the
| larger the advantage to big corporations.
|
| Half their advantage comes from the complexity and
| stupidity of financial regulations that make it so small
| businesses have to subject themselves to the caprice of
| PayPal et al to accept payment for anything, when
| PayPal's business model is screwing over small
| businesses. The biggest reason third parties sell on
| Amazon is so they can use Amazon as a payment service.
| loudmax wrote:
| > What do you think their advantage comes from?
|
| Scale. This applies to processing regulation and also to
| purchasing power, organizational ability and much else
| besides.
|
| > Half their advantage comes from the complexity and
| stupidity of financial regulations
|
| No doubt that excessive regulation is a burden and
| regulatory capture is a thing. "Half their advantage"
| overlooks all of their other advantages.
|
| The fact is, regulation is hard to get right. It's
| generally a good idea to avoid over-regulating, but there
| are real dangers to under-regulation as well.
| animal_spirits wrote:
| That is not easy to do
| disambiguation wrote:
| expectations: UBI utopia.
|
| reality: Corporate welfare and record levels of poverty.
| HPsquared wrote:
| Have the state pay everyone's wages and (eventually, with
| wealth tax) own all major industries... this is supposed to
| reduce consolidation how?
| beebmam wrote:
| What do you think reduces consolidation? Genuinely curious.
| I think there are other strategies that will work, but
| taxation is extremely effective at reducing variance of
| wealth distribution.
| Negitivefrags wrote:
| What reduces consolidation ultimately is a real
| recession. Not these fake ones we have had in recent
| times which get propped up with QE, but a _real_
| recession. The type that kills big companies.
|
| Then in the ashes you will get a verdant crop of new
| companies started by fresh people and a new period of
| massive growth with follow.
|
| Might not be a cost that people actually want to pay
| though.
| tuatoru wrote:
| This process is intrinsic to capitalism, though.
|
| Every company has to get bigger by swallowing others, or
| instead be swallowed by another company that does it.
|
| The board game "Monopoly" is a pretty good simplified
| simulation of the system's structures and operation. Fun for
| all in the early stages, not so much in the end game.
| eulers_secret wrote:
| Remember when ma bell was split up? Now there's a strong
| distaste for breaking up: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Histo
| ry_of_United_States_antit... - The FTC seems to prefer to
| prevent monopolies by considering and blocking
| acquisitions... but this clearly has blind spots.
|
| Like all economic systems, a strong and independent
| state/gov't is required to force-fix issues that don't make
| financial sense to fix (ex. FDA creation after _The Jungle_
| ). I think our current system is suffering from _regulatory
| capture_ , and I don't see a way to resolve this kind of
| near-corruption. Corporatism will continue until the system
| is no longer sustainable, which likely will never happen
| (within our lifetimes).
| goodluckchuck wrote:
| LAC-Tech wrote:
| I feel like most governments speed up this process, ie by
| giving tax cuts to huge businesses to set up operations in
| their jurisdiction. Which in practice means actively
| punishing smaller businesses.
| lotsofpulp wrote:
| Technology speeds up the process.
| freedomben wrote:
| I have gripes with capitalism, but this isn't one. Capitalism
| essentially allocates resources to where they are most
| efficient (although IMHO not as purely as most Austrian
| economists would argue, because people aren't all that
| rational and information asymmetry makes rationality
| impossible in many other cases). Sometimes (ok often) that
| goes to huge megacorps due to economies of scale, but in
| return you take on massive bureaucracy that makes you less
| efficient, opening the door for disruption. Disruption
| happens all the time to big players that don't continue doing
| the best for the least[1]. Now that said, as barriers of
| entry continue to accrete due to regulatory capture and deep
| tech, I do worry that the ability for startups and small
| business to compete may decline.
|
| Monopoly is a _vastly_ over simplified model that doesn 't
| consider much of modern economics. Interestingly, it was
| actually invented to demonstrate to people how evil
| capitalism is[2].
|
| [1]:
| https://www.investopedia.com/terms/c/creativedestruction.asp
|
| [2]: https://www.bbc.com/worklife/article/20170728-monopoly-
| was-i...
| mytherin wrote:
| > Monopoly is a vastly over simplified model that doesn't
| consider much of modern economics. Interestingly, it was
| actually invented to demonstrate to people how evil
| capitalism is[2].
|
| Close. Monopoly was created by Lizzie Magie, a Georgist,
| and its purpose was to demonstrate how evil _land ownership
| by monopolies /rent seekers_ is and to advocate for a Land
| Value Tax [1]. Many of the forces you describe that apply
| to other areas in economics do not apply to land. You
| cannot create new land, after all.
|
| [1]
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monopoly_(game)#Early_history
| pessimizer wrote:
| The most direct message it sends is that even though
| everyone can start in the same place with the same
| resources, chance will ultimately and quickly lead every
| other player being in debt to the winner. Georgism is a
| socialism, believing that land is part of the common-
| wealth, so it should be rented, not owned.
| fsckboy wrote:
| front page headline above the fold in the pre-millenial Hunter
| Gatherer Times,
|
| > _This is happening to every industry. Sickening_
|
| the article goes on to say:
|
| _There is an obvious consolidation and massive wealth transfer
| still ongoing. There are people among us settling down on plots
| of land and growing more food than they can eat themselves,
| putting both hunters and gatherers out of work. Some of those
| unemployed hunters and gatherers are now sitting around and
| making more mocassins than their families can wear, and trading
| them with the farmers. Since there is already too much food and
| footwear, still others are reduced to making purely decorative
| clay objects and toys and trading them for food and footwear!
| And what about our shamans? There 's this guy Moses who's got
| all the rules carved in stone for easy reference instead of
| oral story telling. All in the name of productivity and
| efficiency, alien ideas in our lands. These are scary times!_
| imglorp wrote:
| Independent physicians come to mind as another example. Many
| have gone to work for large providers that can negotiate better
| rates with insurance.
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