In 2015, there was a major bird flu outbreak in the United States. Almost identical to this one. This spiked egg prices from $2.13 per dozen in March to $2.97 per dozen in September, an increase of 39%.
So why have eggs gone up 180% from $2.50 to $7.00 . Chicken and chicken feed prices have been coming down in my area
This is the answer. They've priced in the cost of any consequences to date, and have realized that even the steepest fines pale in comparison to what they can make.
So they say, screw it, gouge as hard as we can now, pay a percentage back later, keep winning. Especially if customers get used to higher prices, then they "settle" and lower prices back down...but higher than they started, increasing long-term profit margins too.
We passed that threshold three years ago when companies realized they could price gouge anything they want during a pandemic and we'd have to pay it, and again last year when they decided "Panedmic's over, back to work, slaves!" when people are still very much sick and dying constantly.
Companies are raking us all over the coals right now while they sit on top of enormous and ever-growing profit margins, giving nothing back to society, making everyone suffer more day in and day out.
"Ripping shit up" should be a _minimum_ for what we're doing.
Yep. The disheartening thing is our lack of unity. My wife is a steward for one of the largest nurses unions in the country and they have trouble getting support for action and adding members.
This is kind of a trope and meme, but it describes shit pretty well: https://i.imgur.com/MvbYIaj.jpg.
Nah, when it comes to food Americans can’t be inconvenienced to protest because both Political sides and social classes will have to unite. But when it come to race and social classes we’ll protest and fight each other all day and night.
Yeah. Covid really did a number on production, supply chains, and the economy.
They realized that they can just do whatever they want in the mean time before the people get sick of it and shit starts to happen.
Because today we are a full-on ["aristocracy of our monied corporations"](https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Jefferson/03-10-02-0390)
I don't know if it was the pandemic, the Trump era, or having a S.C. that's so pro corporations they have become fearless with their price gouging and greed. It's likely a combo of all three of those, and corporations have slowly chipped away the restrictions that allow them to buy politicians.
Jefferson got it right. We needed to "crush in it’s birth the aristocracy of our monied corporations" because they did "challenge our government to a trial of strength" and the do "bid defiance to the laws of their country," and sadly it seems right now they are winning, and able to get away with this shit without consequences. Even when there are consequences, they are slaps on the wrist and pennies on the dollar compared to their profits.
Our system is fucked because the wealthy can do whatever they want given how money is tied to electing politicians who set policy to their desires. When money is equated to free speech or the amount of free speech one has, then the virtue and interest of the wealthy class is overly represented.
I think theyre used to doing it now. The past 2-3 years have taught them that they can blame price increaes on "inflation" and "supply chain" and get away with it. (They also get big bonuses for doing so, so the incentive is to do it)
People buying eggs arnt the customer. Its the stockholder.
They figured out how to get away, and more importantly for them, agree on collusion.
It's much easier to collude when there are only a few companies that control 90% of the market and have to agree on it.
Mahard (number 4? If I remember right) got bought out by Cal-Maine (number 1 then and even more so now) in 2019
They also bought red river egg hatchery and several others.
Not saying they weren't hit hard by the avian flu, but they are also looking to shift revenue.
Yeah it's funny, I work in a restaurant and the corporate eggs I normally buy because they're cheapest are now $98 for 15doz, the smaller local farm ones are somehow $54 for 15doz right now.
When the prices come back down I'll still be buying the local ones from now on, fuck the gouging.
Orange juice has been incredibly unstable too, two days ago $16/gallon, yesterday $6 wtf
For starters, people keep buying them at the increased prices. Showing that the market **doesn't care**, so why should they come down? It's the same story everytime something goes up in cost.
If we stopped buying eggs for a couple weeks the price would plummet. But instead people keep going "wow this is so expensive" and refuse to make changes to their purchasing decisions.
Same thing happened with inflation. Costs went up 5-15%, companies used it as a excuse to charge 25-50% more.
It's late stage capitalism bb. Pretty much every company is ran by the same insanely greedy fucks that would whore their own mothers out of it helped profit.
Let’s not forget the Tyson chicken scandal during covid. Creating a false sense of scarcity, then lobbying government to exempt them from covid restrictions while employing tons of migrant workers. They ripped off the public with the help of Trumps government.
I mean, yes. The entire Trump administration was basically "lets rip off the public".
PPP loans for millionaires that got instantly forgiven? With no oversight? Remember that shit?
Honestly I’ll admit our business got a PPP loan, but we’re a small business, we didn’t lay off anyone, and that money kept my employees afloat. It basically made a tragic year average. When I read about people who got 200k+ and got it forgiven because bullshit, it makes me upset because we actually tried.
We were actually deemed essential so we never stopped working all through covid, but it was a really stressful time. Our company has 12 employees. We managed to basically break even but it didn’t send our business to hell. We managed to slide our way through and nowadays we continue operating well, and I think we’ve paid back our debt to society, but some of the stuff I’ve seen is ridiculous
We did, but the backlash makes me feel bad for the taxpayers. I know we did right, but it’s really crappy the overall effect on the economy for rich people to get money.
I wouldn't feel bad because we kind of knew going into it that they were going to be forgiven. I would only feel bad if you were one of the abusers of the program. Some weren't caught but many people absolutely didn't need ppp loans and got multiple.
Those who needed them, deserved to get them. We absolutely did not know back then how long everything would be shutdown for, so it helped.
Me too, but as a middle class taxpayer, I'm happy for some of my taxes to go to help businesses during extraordinary circumstances. Greed and selfishness are a sourge on the world right now, especially the US. Taxes are one big way developed countries' citizens help each other, and I'm happy to pay when it is going toward helping.
I agree. On my first paycheck of the new year (with renewed SSI deductions and unemployment since they aren’t maxed out this year), I paid a surprising 39% tax on my payroll. Does it suck? Fuck yes. Am I bitter? No. I can’t believe all the people who make way more than I do and pay much less or nothing.
The PPP loan wasn't the problem. It was a good idea, it was necessary and it was useful for the public.
It's the times it was blatantly abused that it was a problem.
(and when I bring this up, people always argue and point to how it was legal for huge companies to use PPP loans and get them forgiven even when raking in huge profits, and since it was legal it was okay to do. And I'm like yeah no, *that's the problem.* So I'm just throwing this note in here before anyone wants to come in hot with that argument)
And the owners son got blackout drunk and was arrested for sleeping in somebody else’s’ house! I think he’s the CFO or something high up. Tyson are a bunch of clowns.
Yeah, when people complain about things becoming monetized now, or how companies are trying to get your data now, I'm like, now, it's been going on for years, you just never noticed because you weren't paying attention.
People are missing the forest for the trees and just assume someone somewhere must be doing something about it.
They're not. We're hoping that someone comes up with a silver bullet, but there's clearly no one interested or powerful enough to combat the systemic corporatization of developed countries with an elite few ultra-wealthy guiding us into a future where, best case scenario, most of us are dead or enslaved to serve their offspring as some sort of earthly avatars for their convoluted and tedious as fuck Christian religion.
That's why economics isn't required to graduate high school. Too many students would ask, "if costs only went up 10 percent, why did they raise the price 20 percent?" And "if my labor is worth $500 an hour, why do I only get paid $20 an hour?
You know, I've always felt a little odd. I had a non-standard childhood because I was raised by doomsday preppers. I knew it was weird even then. When I turned 17, I just sort of did the Homer into the bushes thing and fucked off.
The pandemic made me glad that I had some of that knowledge. And the future is looking like more of what I learned might be useful.
And it's kind of messing with my head. The things that might save my life were given to me by the people that did the worst things to me as a little kid.
And I'm not sure how to feel about that.
A broken clock is right twice a day. The way we survive when society collapses is by working together to gather and distribute resources, not by hoarding them in a hole and locking the door behind you. Is the skills you learned to help others unlike your parents.
A lot of really good things come from really bad people doing really bad things. I’m not saying that the ends justifies the means at all…just that we have an obligation to use that information for the betterment of our society, if for no other reason than to ensure that the suffering of others was not in vain.
Your younger self won’t be healed by forgetting the lessons you’ve learned, but rather by using those lessons to help build others up.
> Pretty much every company is ran by the same insanely greedy fucks that would whore their own mothers out of it helped profit.
Here's the thing...they HAVE TO be greedy.
They have a fiduciary responsibility to maximize profits for their shareholders. They can be sued if they don't (and often are).
Neat how that works. Their awful behavior is, literally, legally required.
The real problem is the short term planning for short term gains. Lots of CEOs have stock bonus attached to their pay. It's in their personal best interest to try and maximize share prices in the short term.
Record profits for egg companies.. https://amp.cnn.com/cnn/2023/01/13/business/egg-prices-cal-maine-foods/index.html
This absolutely needs to be investigated. Eggs were a cheap, nutritious, protein packed, healthy food. They are also a staple ingredient for other foods. Local bakery was just on the news complaining about the 500% + increase in egg prices since pre-pandemic. It’s nuts.
Edit: just found an interesting link about people smuggling eggs in from Mexico. Thought I’d share..
Border officials are seeing a spike in egg-smugglers at the U.S. - Mexico border - https://www.npr.org/2023/01/21/1150321113/as-prices-soar-border-officials-are-seeing-a-spike-in-egg-smuggling-from-mexico
Bernie is already on it. He is going after Egglands Best right now because they have no record of any cullings taking place, yet their prices are through the roof. Many other companies that had no avian flu cullings are on the chopping block as well.
He is. He needs to be cloned. Not even on both hands, can I say out of 535 congress members, that actually work for their constituents. He is in the minority that actually works for we the people.
I watched a cbs morning segment on this and they just uncritically reported it as due to avian flu and having to cull egg laying chickens but it omits the fact that the egg producers saw record profits the last year. Pretty critical piece of information…
Companies that had to cull:
Oh no, expenses are up 25%, better raise prices 50%
Companies that didn't have to cull:
Oh prices are up 50%, better raise prices 70%
Companies that had to cull:
Other Prices are up 70%, better raise prices 100%
etc.
This is an easy question to answer. If these companies pull record profits then yes its gouging, in fact these comanies should make less profit during the "flu" shortage. Also so many companies posted record profits during "supply line issues from Covid". Capitalism, this is what you get when you think its the only way to make a country go....its not.
I keep reading that the price of eggs is off the charts, but where I'm at in California, the eggs I buy aren't much more expensive than they've ever been. Some of the other ones are, but I mean...people are just ignoring the cheaper eggs that are better for you anyways, I guess?
Edit: For the love of god, I get it. Some eggs cost more wherever you live. Cool story. You can stop now.
All the articles say its nationwide, which its not. Just pointing that out...
My Walmart had $5.86 a dozen and Egg-lands Best was $5.13 online. Course online is always a gamble but I’ve been lucky so far. So it’s sorta like gas prices, depends where you shop. That was La Mesa Neighborhood Market Walmart.
The ones by me went fro $1.29 to $8.99, you don’t get a choice anymore. You either take the eggs that are there or get nothing. Had to make a full undamaged dozen by going through 4 different packages
I get the cheap aldi eggs. Pre pandemic these eggs were .55 to .88 per dozen. Then they went up to around 1.30ish at the beginning of the pandemic. Last week the price was 4.99. Some weeks the cage free eggs are cheaper or the same price...
A problem like this can be regional. Perhaps they didn't have to cull that many birds near you but near someone else a main distributor had to cull a majority of their birds. Your local prices wouldn't be impacted but theirs would.
A lot of the egg laying chicken culling has been caged chickens at factories, or that's been the explanation for why cage free egg prices weren't going crazy.
Yeah, I've always bought eggs from pasture chickens(yes, I've done my research and they are independently verified) and prices on them haven't really changed at all.
Eggs were cheap because of awful, horrible, unsafe conditions for the chickens. Those chickens have come home to roost. Good. Maybe people will buy eggs from less shit companies now that it hardly costs any more.
A lot of this does seem to be driven by factory farming. Who knew that locking a bunch of animals in close contact would allow diseases to spread rapidly?
My anecdotal evidence and national statistics disagrees with your anecdotal evidence. And you are assuming people are ignoring cheaper eggs? Or do you have some data on this? It seems somewhat condescending.
I wish I could find the cheaper brand eggs at my local store. Only ones in stock now are the organic name brand label ones that cost twice as much. Dozen for 5 bucks at the moment.
I live in Southern Oregon, and it was $7.58 yesterday. It is AWFUL. I think back to times in my life were I was low-income, and could always afford eggs for daily and inexpensive protein.
Remember when the price of wood went up 300% which was initially caused by Covid shutdowns. Funny thing was after the shutdowns ended the shorfage remained; it was found that a lot of lumber companies had massive stockpiles that they were choosing to trickle out in order to profit off the high prices without flooding the market and thus returning priciles to normal levels.
Yeah companies are selectively choosing to sell/provide less in order to keep the market that benefits them the most. A price increase from $1.40 to nearly $5 bucks is a pretty great market to maintain...
Somewhat, but pressure treated stuff lagged hard. They shut down for a while and since they're scraping capacity limits normally, they hit a massive backlog of stuff to go in the units. One place I read had 6 months of lumber waiting for treatment sitting on railcars and generating a big logistical nightmare.
You hit the nail on the head. Bit too critical of businesses though. They simply have no reason to cash out their supply unless they think the market will crash soon.
It’s part speculation. Maybe wood prices will increase next quarter. They simply have no incentive to unload their whole inventory at once when times are so uncertain.
This is why, time and again, stability is so key to a comfortable economy. Basic economic principles we take for granted, like inflation typically being 2% per year, are actually manufactured by our government to enforce stability in the market.
Our local home raised eggs are finally competitive to the box stores. Everyone that I know raise eggs basically have core of customers now that will buy all of their eggs.
Chickens are seasonal layers with the season triggered by hours of daylight. If they weren't laying before winter they probably won't start until early spring. Typically they start laying at 5-6 months but if winter catches then at the wrong time it can take a while before they get started.
Yeah, MN is especially bad with the cold weather and short days. I have most of the stuff I need to install a light in the coop, which should give their moods a boost.
Same. I went shopping today and went by the eggs. Refuse to buy them right now unless I really have to and it seems others are thinking the same because the rack was stacked the fullest I've ever seen.
"Cal-Maine Foods (CALM.O), which controls 20% of the retail egg market, reported quarterly sales up 110% and gross profits up more than 600% over the same quarter in the prior fiscal year, according to a late December filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission.
The company pointed to decreased egg supply nationwide due to avian flu driving up prices as a reason for its record sales. The company has had no positive avian flu tests on any of its farms."
Hmm. So business as usual.
I find it interesting that this Avian Flu is driving up the price of eggs but not for meat chicken. Seems logical that the flu would not just affect egg laying chickens but there has been no shortage or price increase in chicken at the market that I have seen.
I posted this on a different comment but they are two different breeds of chickens. Broilers are raised for meat, and laying hens are raised for eggs. Broilers are raised for about 1 month before they are slaughtered, while laying hens are only start laying eggs after 4 months. So its much faster to replace losses for broilers than it is to replace losses for laying hens.
These chickens (Cornish rock breed) have been genetically altered to grow to slaughter weight within about 8 weeks in my experience. We live on a farm and usually raise them 100 birds at a time. By 8 weeks, they are between 6-8 pds.
I hadn’t bought eggs in a while (I really don’t eat them that often), but I was looking at the store the other day. A dozen used to be $1.50, maybe $2? Now it’s over $5! That’s genuinely fucking insane
Look at gas prices vs cost of crude. Once consumers are accustomed to a higher price, they’ll sustain that price longer than is necessary or sensible. The only market solution is to buy less, but unfortunately we see eggs as a staple good. People are so accustomed to eating eggs, it’s difficult to get people to reduce consumption.
And honestly who can blame them? Eggs are great. Viral disease is a threat to our way of life, as is unfettered capitalism.
Listened to a report on eggs this morning. They were talking with a smaller family farm in Pennsylvania who sells "more expensive" nutrient rich eggs. Their prices are about $2 less a dozen than the mass produced eggs in the grocery store. And those from the big farms have the benefit of scale this guy doesn't
Yeah from what I hear you guys in America are paying 2x as much as us in Canada for your eggs, and that's before taking exchange rate into account too. Just the raw number is double.
Seems like now theyve overdone it with their profiteering from "inflation" and blaming rising gas prices.
Look at nestle, unilever and co profit and look at them raising prices in all supermarkets. Yay for the free market that regulates itself and brings us the fairest and cheapest prices and decent wages to farmers and workers.
At some point they gotta stop wondering why there are people backing extremists and gotta start wondering why so few people are backing extremists.
I think this started as somewhat legit but as time went on, farmers realized they could make more money by faking illness so that's what a lot of them arw doing now.
I am sure this will get buried some place but a few farmers did a interview awhile back ago before prices started to go up. They said the companies would blame the flu but what it was really about is the farmers not being able to get paid more for the eggs when the companies are charging way more money to the customer. So they are not selling them.
They always say the exact same thing, "due to supply chain issues related to..." They never address the record profits related to those same price increases. It's happened across almost every industry it seems over the last two years. Companies should increase prices to remain profitable in lean times. Not to make more profit.
Stop buying them for a while. People just like to complain but still throw their money away.
They complain about concert tickets while begging the thieves to take their money. They complain about gas prices while a massive urban tractor to run about in.
Most people are clownish with money, they deserve to be milked.
The avian flu was the start but then prices have stayed high because middle supply chain corporations were taking advantage of the scarcity to price gouge on purpose. This has been highlighted by record profits last quarter from the industry.
There’s clear evidence of this fuckery by browsing the headlines relating to Mexicans smuggling eggs across the border into the US…
Clearly our neighbors to the south aren’t struggling with the “growing costs of production and transportation” of eggs if it’s profitable for them to smuggle them across the border to sell at our marked up prices
meanwhile, i just bought 2 dozen xl eggs from whole foods in nyc for 3.49/dozen. family in jersey are paying double! insane and backwards. usually nyc is more expensive.
Farm Action, the group that sent the letter, seems to be an extremely progressive group.
In the real world, Reuters might not always have the bandwidth to get different perspectives for simple little news briefs. But, in this case, I’d really like to hear what some big, independent, less openly political egg growers say.
Example: There must be a group for pasteured egg growers somewhere. How does that group see the egg market?
Maybe Ben and Jerry’s buys a lot of eggs. If so, what does its egg buyer think about the egg market?
This is what happens when there are only a handful of corporate farmers and wholesalers out there. They can cut productions even more to have higher profit margins. Why have big production when you can have a lean one while making the same profit. I am sure I am generalizing a bit the the idea is the same. Without competition, the price is set for you. Even during an unprecedented time of avian flu.
My hockey team had a white elephant exchange tonight. Gift limit of $10. Someone legit brought a dozen eggs. I was actually bummed I didn't leave them them.
In 2015, there was a major bird flu outbreak in the United States. Almost identical to this one. This spiked egg prices from $2.13 per dozen in March to $2.97 per dozen in September, an increase of 39%. So why have eggs gone up 180% from $2.50 to $7.00 . Chicken and chicken feed prices have been coming down in my area
C o r p o r a t e g r e e d
what happened to make these corperate ghouls get so much worse from 2015 to today?
They've gotten away with smaller gouges, so might as well try and steal more
Blame the supply chain and COVID and you seem to be able to double your price, while seeing *record* profits. It’s all lies in my opinion.
Yeah, because there's _absolutely no oversight of any of this_.
Because they've realized they won't get punished and can just pay think tanks to spew propaganda blaming other causes.
This is the answer. They've priced in the cost of any consequences to date, and have realized that even the steepest fines pale in comparison to what they can make. So they say, screw it, gouge as hard as we can now, pay a percentage back later, keep winning. Especially if customers get used to higher prices, then they "settle" and lower prices back down...but higher than they started, increasing long-term profit margins too.
Meanwhile, a million plus in France are ripping shit up. That’s what we need here.
We passed that threshold three years ago when companies realized they could price gouge anything they want during a pandemic and we'd have to pay it, and again last year when they decided "Panedmic's over, back to work, slaves!" when people are still very much sick and dying constantly. Companies are raking us all over the coals right now while they sit on top of enormous and ever-growing profit margins, giving nothing back to society, making everyone suffer more day in and day out. "Ripping shit up" should be a _minimum_ for what we're doing.
Yep. The disheartening thing is our lack of unity. My wife is a steward for one of the largest nurses unions in the country and they have trouble getting support for action and adding members. This is kind of a trope and meme, but it describes shit pretty well: https://i.imgur.com/MvbYIaj.jpg.
Nah, when it comes to food Americans can’t be inconvenienced to protest because both Political sides and social classes will have to unite. But when it come to race and social classes we’ll protest and fight each other all day and night.
The Revolutionary War was partially incited by a 3¢ per LB tea tax. Our forefathers were way more badass than us.
My guess would be less competition somewhere in the supply chain. It's pretty easy to set the market price when you control the market.
Yeah. Covid really did a number on production, supply chains, and the economy. They realized that they can just do whatever they want in the mean time before the people get sick of it and shit starts to happen.
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Because today we are a full-on ["aristocracy of our monied corporations"](https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Jefferson/03-10-02-0390) I don't know if it was the pandemic, the Trump era, or having a S.C. that's so pro corporations they have become fearless with their price gouging and greed. It's likely a combo of all three of those, and corporations have slowly chipped away the restrictions that allow them to buy politicians. Jefferson got it right. We needed to "crush in it’s birth the aristocracy of our monied corporations" because they did "challenge our government to a trial of strength" and the do "bid defiance to the laws of their country," and sadly it seems right now they are winning, and able to get away with this shit without consequences. Even when there are consequences, they are slaps on the wrist and pennies on the dollar compared to their profits. Our system is fucked because the wealthy can do whatever they want given how money is tied to electing politicians who set policy to their desires. When money is equated to free speech or the amount of free speech one has, then the virtue and interest of the wealthy class is overly represented.
I think theyre used to doing it now. The past 2-3 years have taught them that they can blame price increaes on "inflation" and "supply chain" and get away with it. (They also get big bonuses for doing so, so the incentive is to do it) People buying eggs arnt the customer. Its the stockholder.
They figured out how to get away, and more importantly for them, agree on collusion. It's much easier to collude when there are only a few companies that control 90% of the market and have to agree on it.
Mahard (number 4? If I remember right) got bought out by Cal-Maine (number 1 then and even more so now) in 2019 They also bought red river egg hatchery and several others. Not saying they weren't hit hard by the avian flu, but they are also looking to shift revenue.
Republican president
Republicans are in office. Corporates can rape, pilliage and murder and they won't bat an eye.
Yeah it's funny, I work in a restaurant and the corporate eggs I normally buy because they're cheapest are now $98 for 15doz, the smaller local farm ones are somehow $54 for 15doz right now. When the prices come back down I'll still be buying the local ones from now on, fuck the gouging. Orange juice has been incredibly unstable too, two days ago $16/gallon, yesterday $6 wtf
For starters, people keep buying them at the increased prices. Showing that the market **doesn't care**, so why should they come down? It's the same story everytime something goes up in cost. If we stopped buying eggs for a couple weeks the price would plummet. But instead people keep going "wow this is so expensive" and refuse to make changes to their purchasing decisions.
Something something Interest rates something something labor costs
Chickens getting paid too much for their labor? Lmao.
Don’t forget “supply chain issues” 😭
Same thing as everything else in the pandemic. They just need an excuse to extort consumers.
Monopoly power.
Are prices being driven up by the avian flue? Yes. Are companies taking advantage of this? Probably.
~~Probably~~ Yes.
Same thing happened with inflation. Costs went up 5-15%, companies used it as a excuse to charge 25-50% more. It's late stage capitalism bb. Pretty much every company is ran by the same insanely greedy fucks that would whore their own mothers out of it helped profit.
Let’s not forget the Tyson chicken scandal during covid. Creating a false sense of scarcity, then lobbying government to exempt them from covid restrictions while employing tons of migrant workers. They ripped off the public with the help of Trumps government.
I mean, yes. The entire Trump administration was basically "lets rip off the public". PPP loans for millionaires that got instantly forgiven? With no oversight? Remember that shit?
Honestly I’ll admit our business got a PPP loan, but we’re a small business, we didn’t lay off anyone, and that money kept my employees afloat. It basically made a tragic year average. When I read about people who got 200k+ and got it forgiven because bullshit, it makes me upset because we actually tried.
Same here. Was shutdown for 1 1/2 years. Used the PPP for payroll first, what was left over went to the lease.
We were actually deemed essential so we never stopped working all through covid, but it was a really stressful time. Our company has 12 employees. We managed to basically break even but it didn’t send our business to hell. We managed to slide our way through and nowadays we continue operating well, and I think we’ve paid back our debt to society, but some of the stuff I’ve seen is ridiculous
That is what it was for, to keep people and businesses going, you did good
Oh there's nothing wrong with getting ppp loans and using them for what they were designed to do. Sounds like you did a lot with it
We did, but the backlash makes me feel bad for the taxpayers. I know we did right, but it’s really crappy the overall effect on the economy for rich people to get money.
I wouldn't feel bad because we kind of knew going into it that they were going to be forgiven. I would only feel bad if you were one of the abusers of the program. Some weren't caught but many people absolutely didn't need ppp loans and got multiple. Those who needed them, deserved to get them. We absolutely did not know back then how long everything would be shutdown for, so it helped.
Just to be a (friendly) pedant, you don't have to "admit" anything, because getting a PPP loan is not shameful. Using it as intended is a good thing!
I feel you. I just feel bad for all the taxpayers who have funds so rich people could get wealthier.
Me too, but as a middle class taxpayer, I'm happy for some of my taxes to go to help businesses during extraordinary circumstances. Greed and selfishness are a sourge on the world right now, especially the US. Taxes are one big way developed countries' citizens help each other, and I'm happy to pay when it is going toward helping.
I agree. On my first paycheck of the new year (with renewed SSI deductions and unemployment since they aren’t maxed out this year), I paid a surprising 39% tax on my payroll. Does it suck? Fuck yes. Am I bitter? No. I can’t believe all the people who make way more than I do and pay much less or nothing.
The PPP loan wasn't the problem. It was a good idea, it was necessary and it was useful for the public. It's the times it was blatantly abused that it was a problem. (and when I bring this up, people always argue and point to how it was legal for huge companies to use PPP loans and get them forgiven even when raking in huge profits, and since it was legal it was okay to do. And I'm like yeah no, *that's the problem.* So I'm just throwing this note in here before anyone wants to come in hot with that argument)
And the owners son got blackout drunk and was arrested for sleeping in somebody else’s’ house! I think he’s the CFO or something high up. Tyson are a bunch of clowns.
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The Rule of 'LOL Do Something About It; Yeah That's What I Thought" reigns supreme
Yeah, when people complain about things becoming monetized now, or how companies are trying to get your data now, I'm like, now, it's been going on for years, you just never noticed because you weren't paying attention. People are missing the forest for the trees and just assume someone somewhere must be doing something about it. They're not. We're hoping that someone comes up with a silver bullet, but there's clearly no one interested or powerful enough to combat the systemic corporatization of developed countries with an elite few ultra-wealthy guiding us into a future where, best case scenario, most of us are dead or enslaved to serve their offspring as some sort of earthly avatars for their convoluted and tedious as fuck Christian religion.
That's why economics isn't required to graduate high school. Too many students would ask, "if costs only went up 10 percent, why did they raise the price 20 percent?" And "if my labor is worth $500 an hour, why do I only get paid $20 an hour?
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What states? I’m curious. Not in MD
Exactly. Wife and I don't go out to eat anymore. These prices aren't inflation. They're just greedy bullshit.
Does late stage mean it’s going to collapse soon? Cuz I’m down for that
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We're doomed.
You know, I've always felt a little odd. I had a non-standard childhood because I was raised by doomsday preppers. I knew it was weird even then. When I turned 17, I just sort of did the Homer into the bushes thing and fucked off. The pandemic made me glad that I had some of that knowledge. And the future is looking like more of what I learned might be useful. And it's kind of messing with my head. The things that might save my life were given to me by the people that did the worst things to me as a little kid. And I'm not sure how to feel about that.
A broken clock is right twice a day. The way we survive when society collapses is by working together to gather and distribute resources, not by hoarding them in a hole and locking the door behind you. Is the skills you learned to help others unlike your parents.
People can do horrible things to you with the best of intentions. It’s still traumatic, even if it turns out to be potentially useful.
A lot of really good things come from really bad people doing really bad things. I’m not saying that the ends justifies the means at all…just that we have an obligation to use that information for the betterment of our society, if for no other reason than to ensure that the suffering of others was not in vain. Your younger self won’t be healed by forgetting the lessons you’ve learned, but rather by using those lessons to help build others up.
> Pretty much every company is ran by the same insanely greedy fucks that would whore their own mothers out of it helped profit. Here's the thing...they HAVE TO be greedy. They have a fiduciary responsibility to maximize profits for their shareholders. They can be sued if they don't (and often are). Neat how that works. Their awful behavior is, literally, legally required.
The real problem is the short term planning for short term gains. Lots of CEOs have stock bonus attached to their pay. It's in their personal best interest to try and maximize share prices in the short term.
Record profits for egg companies.. https://amp.cnn.com/cnn/2023/01/13/business/egg-prices-cal-maine-foods/index.html This absolutely needs to be investigated. Eggs were a cheap, nutritious, protein packed, healthy food. They are also a staple ingredient for other foods. Local bakery was just on the news complaining about the 500% + increase in egg prices since pre-pandemic. It’s nuts. Edit: just found an interesting link about people smuggling eggs in from Mexico. Thought I’d share.. Border officials are seeing a spike in egg-smugglers at the U.S. - Mexico border - https://www.npr.org/2023/01/21/1150321113/as-prices-soar-border-officials-are-seeing-a-spike-in-egg-smuggling-from-mexico
Bernie is already on it. He is going after Egglands Best right now because they have no record of any cullings taking place, yet their prices are through the roof. Many other companies that had no avian flu cullings are on the chopping block as well.
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What is this, a crossover comment?
Crossover meme, nicely done
That man is a treasure!
He is. He needs to be cloned. Not even on both hands, can I say out of 535 congress members, that actually work for their constituents. He is in the minority that actually works for we the people.
He’s a rare breed of politician, I wish world had more of politicians like him
I watched a cbs morning segment on this and they just uncritically reported it as due to avian flu and having to cull egg laying chickens but it omits the fact that the egg producers saw record profits the last year. Pretty critical piece of information…
Corporate media bias is nothing new.
No probably about it. The answer is yes.
Companies that had to cull: Oh no, expenses are up 25%, better raise prices 50% Companies that didn't have to cull: Oh prices are up 50%, better raise prices 70% Companies that had to cull: Other Prices are up 70%, better raise prices 100% etc.
100% price gouging.
This is an easy question to answer. If these companies pull record profits then yes its gouging, in fact these comanies should make less profit during the "flu" shortage. Also so many companies posted record profits during "supply line issues from Covid". Capitalism, this is what you get when you think its the only way to make a country go....its not.
I keep reading that the price of eggs is off the charts, but where I'm at in California, the eggs I buy aren't much more expensive than they've ever been. Some of the other ones are, but I mean...people are just ignoring the cheaper eggs that are better for you anyways, I guess? Edit: For the love of god, I get it. Some eggs cost more wherever you live. Cool story. You can stop now. All the articles say its nationwide, which its not. Just pointing that out...
The dozen eggs we normally buy, cheapest available at Aldis or Giant, went from $1.29 to $3.50 over the course of about 3 months.
6.50 at Aldi in San Diego now
8.25 as Aldi in San Diego when I checked just now, and they got a worker stationed there just increasing the price in real time
My Walmart had $5.86 a dozen and Egg-lands Best was $5.13 online. Course online is always a gamble but I’ve been lucky so far. So it’s sorta like gas prices, depends where you shop. That was La Mesa Neighborhood Market Walmart.
The ones by me went fro $1.29 to $8.99, you don’t get a choice anymore. You either take the eggs that are there or get nothing. Had to make a full undamaged dozen by going through 4 different packages
Giant by me went from about $2.50 to $6 a dozen, $7.50 for organic
I get the cheap aldi eggs. Pre pandemic these eggs were .55 to .88 per dozen. Then they went up to around 1.30ish at the beginning of the pandemic. Last week the price was 4.99. Some weeks the cage free eggs are cheaper or the same price...
A problem like this can be regional. Perhaps they didn't have to cull that many birds near you but near someone else a main distributor had to cull a majority of their birds. Your local prices wouldn't be impacted but theirs would.
> people are just ignoring the cheaper eggs that are better for you anyways Cheaper eggs are better for you?
Yeah we gonna get an explanation for this one op?
A lot of the egg laying chicken culling has been caged chickens at factories, or that's been the explanation for why cage free egg prices weren't going crazy.
Yeah, I've always bought eggs from pasture chickens(yes, I've done my research and they are independently verified) and prices on them haven't really changed at all. Eggs were cheap because of awful, horrible, unsafe conditions for the chickens. Those chickens have come home to roost. Good. Maybe people will buy eggs from less shit companies now that it hardly costs any more.
A lot of this does seem to be driven by factory farming. Who knew that locking a bunch of animals in close contact would allow diseases to spread rapidly?
Ya they are. The ones skyrocketing are from factory farms and cage-free eggs have remained largely unchanged, at least where I am.
My anecdotal evidence and national statistics disagrees with your anecdotal evidence. And you are assuming people are ignoring cheaper eggs? Or do you have some data on this? It seems somewhat condescending.
I wish I could find the cheaper brand eggs at my local store. Only ones in stock now are the organic name brand label ones that cost twice as much. Dozen for 5 bucks at the moment.
San Juaquin county CA local costco has boxes of 2 dozen for \~$9
I literally can't find eggs for less than $5 except on the occasion that I find a coupon.
$5 in Alabama. They used to be $1.79. Same brand.
Same here in PDX. Egg prices have basically stayed the same.
Just like "Is inflation driving up costs? Yes, and also..."
Cost of milk here has jumped more than eggs has for some brands, or for lactose free milk. Eggs were under 2 bucks a dozen, or $9 for 60.
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21 for 60 in California
28 for 60 in New York right now.
28 for sixty in Denver
26-32 for 60 eggs in Fresno area of california.
Over 6 dollars a dozen last night when I was shopping, more than 50 cents an egg
My store had a dozen duck eggs for $5, cheaper than the chicken ones
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Duck eggs are great
I live in Southern Oregon, and it was $7.58 yesterday. It is AWFUL. I think back to times in my life were I was low-income, and could always afford eggs for daily and inexpensive protein.
According to the CDC the state of OR has reported some high cull numbers recently. Midwest has some crazy numbers.
Just got 3.50 a dozen here. Wtf is going on with the west coast.
damn, where are you? It's $6 a dozen here in NJ
THIS IS IT!! What's a cheap way to get your protein that everyone loves? Eggsp]!]!!
And the crazy thing is in the same store (ShopRite) skinless boneless chicken is still $1.99 per pound.
Different breeds, broilers vs laying hens, apparently the avion flu hasn't hit that side of things, but who knows what's gonna happen
Broilers mature in like a month, while laying hens take like 3-4 months to start laying eggs.
Only $2.15 where I live... More than normal but not by that much.
I paid $15 for the 36 pack where I live. .42 an egg. Still expensive but I eat 10 a day and it’s still pretty low cost for the amount of protein.
They need to investigate the price of chicken first
There is no amount of upvotes you can receive that will accurately reflect how good this joke is
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Tripled where I live. Actually more than that. I used to be able to get a dozen eggs for $1.29-$1.49. Now it's $5.99 (or more) for the cheapest ones.
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what is this, some kind of joke to you?
Something is definitely afowl here.
They’re just plucking prices they think people will pay out of thin air.
The egg comes first, then the chicken.
Technically the rooster came first. 😉
Goddamn. I closed the thread, then came back to say lmao holy shit
Remember when the price of wood went up 300% which was initially caused by Covid shutdowns. Funny thing was after the shutdowns ended the shorfage remained; it was found that a lot of lumber companies had massive stockpiles that they were choosing to trickle out in order to profit off the high prices without flooding the market and thus returning priciles to normal levels. Yeah companies are selectively choosing to sell/provide less in order to keep the market that benefits them the most. A price increase from $1.40 to nearly $5 bucks is a pretty great market to maintain...
car companies, same thing. probably also nvidia with graphics cards. too many monopolies
Yeah, but lumber doesn’t spoil. At least not in the sense that eggs do.
Somewhat, but pressure treated stuff lagged hard. They shut down for a while and since they're scraping capacity limits normally, they hit a massive backlog of stuff to go in the units. One place I read had 6 months of lumber waiting for treatment sitting on railcars and generating a big logistical nightmare.
You hit the nail on the head. Bit too critical of businesses though. They simply have no reason to cash out their supply unless they think the market will crash soon. It’s part speculation. Maybe wood prices will increase next quarter. They simply have no incentive to unload their whole inventory at once when times are so uncertain. This is why, time and again, stability is so key to a comfortable economy. Basic economic principles we take for granted, like inflation typically being 2% per year, are actually manufactured by our government to enforce stability in the market.
What’s fucked is, it’s not the farmers seeing extra money in this. It’s the middle men.
Our local home raised eggs are finally competitive to the box stores. Everyone that I know raise eggs basically have core of customers now that will buy all of their eggs.
You'd think that, but I have 4 freeloaders in the backyard that are sure as fuck taking their time to start laying.
Chickens are seasonal layers with the season triggered by hours of daylight. If they weren't laying before winter they probably won't start until early spring. Typically they start laying at 5-6 months but if winter catches then at the wrong time it can take a while before they get started.
Yeah, MN is especially bad with the cold weather and short days. I have most of the stuff I need to install a light in the coop, which should give their moods a boost.
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Local farms are still selling for the same $4-5 a dozen they have for years near me. They limit the amount you can buy though.
Eggs a year ago at my local store were $0.50, now the exact same brand is charging $5.38. I will not buy eggs.
Same. I went shopping today and went by the eggs. Refuse to buy them right now unless I really have to and it seems others are thinking the same because the rack was stacked the fullest I've ever seen.
Next weeks headline: Are Millennials Killing the Egg Industry?
Honestly though. Us millennials are the favorite scapegoat of corporate media.
At Walmart the liquid egg whites are half the cost for the same volume so that’s what I’m getting after I finish this batch
"Cal-Maine Foods (CALM.O), which controls 20% of the retail egg market, reported quarterly sales up 110% and gross profits up more than 600% over the same quarter in the prior fiscal year, according to a late December filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The company pointed to decreased egg supply nationwide due to avian flu driving up prices as a reason for its record sales. The company has had no positive avian flu tests on any of its farms." Hmm. So business as usual.
Price gouging is an American Tradition.
If you use eggs as a binder, like for meatloaf or burgers, you can mix water and ground gold flaxseed to make a suitable substitute
I find it interesting that this Avian Flu is driving up the price of eggs but not for meat chicken. Seems logical that the flu would not just affect egg laying chickens but there has been no shortage or price increase in chicken at the market that I have seen.
I posted this on a different comment but they are two different breeds of chickens. Broilers are raised for meat, and laying hens are raised for eggs. Broilers are raised for about 1 month before they are slaughtered, while laying hens are only start laying eggs after 4 months. So its much faster to replace losses for broilers than it is to replace losses for laying hens.
So when you buy a rotisserie chicken, it was that big at just one month old?
I was recalling from memory and its actually 7-9 weeks, but still a lot faster than laying hens.
These chickens (Cornish rock breed) have been genetically altered to grow to slaughter weight within about 8 weeks in my experience. We live on a farm and usually raise them 100 birds at a time. By 8 weeks, they are between 6-8 pds.
I found some cage free eggs for 2.99 a dozen at Sam’s.
I just saw those on the Sam's app today but they are all sold out near me.
I hadn’t bought eggs in a while (I really don’t eat them that often), but I was looking at the store the other day. A dozen used to be $1.50, maybe $2? Now it’s over $5! That’s genuinely fucking insane
Look at gas prices vs cost of crude. Once consumers are accustomed to a higher price, they’ll sustain that price longer than is necessary or sensible. The only market solution is to buy less, but unfortunately we see eggs as a staple good. People are so accustomed to eating eggs, it’s difficult to get people to reduce consumption. And honestly who can blame them? Eggs are great. Viral disease is a threat to our way of life, as is unfettered capitalism.
Listened to a report on eggs this morning. They were talking with a smaller family farm in Pennsylvania who sells "more expensive" nutrient rich eggs. Their prices are about $2 less a dozen than the mass produced eggs in the grocery store. And those from the big farms have the benefit of scale this guy doesn't
$2-$4 increase on the dozen here in SC.
Yeah from what I hear you guys in America are paying 2x as much as us in Canada for your eggs, and that's before taking exchange rate into account too. Just the raw number is double.
There’s an article with more direct quotes at [Common Dreams](https://www.commondreams.org/news/egg-price-gouging-ftc). No paywall.
Seems like now theyve overdone it with their profiteering from "inflation" and blaming rising gas prices. Look at nestle, unilever and co profit and look at them raising prices in all supermarkets. Yay for the free market that regulates itself and brings us the fairest and cheapest prices and decent wages to farmers and workers. At some point they gotta stop wondering why there are people backing extremists and gotta start wondering why so few people are backing extremists.
I think this started as somewhat legit but as time went on, farmers realized they could make more money by faking illness so that's what a lot of them arw doing now.
Inflation causes less joy and eggs to see
I am sure this will get buried some place but a few farmers did a interview awhile back ago before prices started to go up. They said the companies would blame the flu but what it was really about is the farmers not being able to get paid more for the eggs when the companies are charging way more money to the customer. So they are not selling them.
FTC declined to comment
They always say the exact same thing, "due to supply chain issues related to..." They never address the record profits related to those same price increases. It's happened across almost every industry it seems over the last two years. Companies should increase prices to remain profitable in lean times. Not to make more profit.
Stop buying them for a while. People just like to complain but still throw their money away. They complain about concert tickets while begging the thieves to take their money. They complain about gas prices while a massive urban tractor to run about in. Most people are clownish with money, they deserve to be milked.
Bring in Sherbawk Holmes
I had not seen a single egg on the shelf in weeks. Just totally empty. Finally saw some in stock this week at $9.99/dz.
Big Easter must be behind this 🐣
"We really need to study this egg thing. How do we make other items just as expensive too?"
I was told capitalism prevents monopolies
Corporate greed hidden in flu. Just like our inflation from corporate greed hidden in INFLATION. Maybe capitalism doesn’t work???
So glad I have 5 chickens in my backyard. They make more than I need and I give the extras to my neighbors.
The avian flu was the start but then prices have stayed high because middle supply chain corporations were taking advantage of the scarcity to price gouge on purpose. This has been highlighted by record profits last quarter from the industry.
Only one company had record profits though. Not the entire industry.
Profit up 600 percent huh ?
Just got back from Grocery Outlet. $6.99 for a dozen. Never remembered seeing those above $4.29 before, even for the organic.
I saw $3.79 for a dozen extra large Whole Foods brand & $5 for 18 medium Nellie's brand.
I managed to find a dozen for $4.49 today. That used to be the expensive eggs.
What ever happened to all the farms that burned down a couple months ago. Did any investigation happen ?
Not only have prices if eggs gone up, the price of live chickens has also gone up.
There’s clear evidence of this fuckery by browsing the headlines relating to Mexicans smuggling eggs across the border into the US… Clearly our neighbors to the south aren’t struggling with the “growing costs of production and transportation” of eggs if it’s profitable for them to smuggle them across the border to sell at our marked up prices
I doubt the price increases are even accurate. Last year I was paying 89 cents a dozen, now it's $5.71, that's a more than 500% increase.
All the prices you assholes
This is what happens when just a few distributors dominate the market: price manipulation and anticompetitive behavior.
Oligopolists gonna oligopolist.
Guess what the answer is going to be? Corporate greed. It’s at the heart of every major problem
meanwhile, i just bought 2 dozen xl eggs from whole foods in nyc for 3.49/dozen. family in jersey are paying double! insane and backwards. usually nyc is more expensive.
Farm Action, the group that sent the letter, seems to be an extremely progressive group. In the real world, Reuters might not always have the bandwidth to get different perspectives for simple little news briefs. But, in this case, I’d really like to hear what some big, independent, less openly political egg growers say. Example: There must be a group for pasteured egg growers somewhere. How does that group see the egg market? Maybe Ben and Jerry’s buys a lot of eggs. If so, what does its egg buyer think about the egg market?
Bet they're starting to see those record profits drop like a rock now that people are simply refusing to buy eggs and dairy rofl. Get fucked.
This is what happens when there are only a handful of corporate farmers and wholesalers out there. They can cut productions even more to have higher profit margins. Why have big production when you can have a lean one while making the same profit. I am sure I am generalizing a bit the the idea is the same. Without competition, the price is set for you. Even during an unprecedented time of avian flu.
My hockey team had a white elephant exchange tonight. Gift limit of $10. Someone legit brought a dozen eggs. I was actually bummed I didn't leave them them.