Average Price of Ground Beef Hits All-Time High

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• The price of pork is also up, as is chicken.
  Thank God there is no inflation!

• I've noticed the animal population in certain parts of the city are beginning to thin out. It won't be long and I'll have to double up on my rabbits and chickens. I'm sure some farmers are having to watch thier stock a lot closer too.

• The simple reason the price of beef has gone out of sight has to do with the drouths in Texas, Oklahoma, New Mexico, etc. Those ranchers that could sent their cattle to Nebraska and South Dakota where there was grass. Those that couldn't sold off most of their herds. This happened due to an incredible wild fires that devastated pastures in the Sand Hills and caused ranchers there to sell off their herds, thus freeing up future grass. Regardless, the supply of beef has plunged driving up the retail cost. Supply and demand and the ability of packers to charge whatever they want to wholesale market. I used to raise hogs. When I was receiving $19/hdwt for hogs, the packers having record profits and charging high prices for their product. There is such a monoply in the packer market that no small independent can hope to crack it. In the early 1900's there were four packers controlling 20% of the market and the government broke up their monopoly. Now, four packers control over 80% of the market and nothing is done. They own and control major feedlots so they can set their prices in the wholesale side of the business, also. Cow-calf operators have been taking it in the shorts for years and are not doing much better now.

• Good thing most liberals are tree hugging vegan types right?

  Only us Conservatives suffer because he feed exclusively on lesser animals.

• Or it's Bush's fault

  • Well duh, of course it's Bush's fault. It will always be Bush's fault.

• I heard the price of bullshit is way down because of the increased supply.

• Because we are making ethanol with cow food? Supply demand thingy driving up the prices of cow food. Once the dominoes start falling..

  • It's not the corn. It's global warming. The frigid cold of last winter killed tens of thousands of cows. Damn AGW!

    • The cows going to market now were not fed on this years corn crop. Remember last year when the world was accusing the US of starving poor Mexicans who could no longer afford corn tortillas? Cow food suffered the same price spike.

      • Also because of globull warming a lot of cattle died last winter, frozen to death in blizzards.
        http://www.foxnews.com/us/2013/10/13/south-dakota-ranchers-reel-after-catastrophic-storm-leaves-up-to-100000-cattle/

        • Passing through Iowa a couple of days ago, we ran across a lady with her pickup parked on the side of the road, selling 14 ears of sweet corn, picked that morning, for four dollars. DAMN that was good, chilled and eaten raw. Being in Iowa CAN have it's benefits.

        • You just made the price of hamburger go up again...

  • I question that. There's a corn surplus in the midwest this year.

    http://online.wsj.com/articles/u-s-farmers-are-up-to-their-ears-in-corn-1408318910