Gabe Bell
An_Ugly_BastardIf the prices didn’t go up because of a shortage, because there was never a shortage, why did prices go back down again?
The law of supply and demand explains the price of eggs. If you’re saying it’s wrong then what’s your better egg-splanation?
Supercriticalthe federal government announced a price fixing investigation
a bunch of news coverage came out about how their claims were bogus
No, what I care about (in this context) is other people making arguments that they can’t substantiate. I’m not spending my time trying to substantiate someone else’s arguments, I spend enough time doing that for my own.
Claims made without evidence can be dismissed without evidence.
cedarmesa
GiganThe law of supply and demand is not real.
Lol, okay bud. If that’s the case you should start a business selling eggs for $100 each.
Eggs? You can offer to buy and sell stocks at whatever price you want. You just won’t complete any trades if you offer to buy at $1 and sell at $1,000,000 dollars per share. If “supply and demand” didn’t exist, you could become a millionaire in one trade.
Although, I suspect what this person means is: many markets are not free from price collusion. The stock market is very liquid because there are many buyers and sellers. You literally cannot corner the market because it would require too much money, and it’s illegal.
This creates quick movements based on news and sentiment. Food prices do not operate this quickly, but they do move based on available supply and demand.
Other markets have much more collusion. When there are only three producers, collusion is inevitable. If one seller raises the price and still finds buyers, the other two will follow without any communication between them. The solution is doing whatever you can to not buy what they are selling. Demand moves markets, not supply. They are raising the price because people are paying it.
Also, better regulation from the FTC would help.
Flying Squidyou should start a business selling eggs for $100 each.
Mike? Mike Nelson? Is that you?
“Eggs are complicated, they should cost like $100 each!”
MST3K - The Chicken of Tomorrow
From the episode The Brute Man.Cast:Crow - Trace BeaulieuMike Nelson - Michael J. NelsonServo - Kevin Murphy© 2008 Shout! Factory, LLC
The law of supply and demand is not real.
Um, so you don’t think that when a commodity becomes more scarce that the demand for it increases as a consequence?
There’s also a thing called price gouging where companies fuck over the public because they know they can. And then they keep the prices artificially high even after supply increases two, three, four fold over demand. Because they know they can.
Not that I am suggesting corporations are corrupt and would let people starve just to make a profit. Heaven forfend.
To be clear, price gouging is an example of supply and demand
Keeping prices high is an example of price fixing, not supply and demand. It requires companies colluding with each other because, otherwise, one company would just lower their prices to get more business and make more money
Raising your prices by a reasonable amount to meet extra costs is supply and demand.
Raising your prices by three, four, five or six times a reasonable amount is gouging and is not supply and demand. It’s gouging and fucking over your customers, especially those who need your products.
uisThere absolutely was a shortage.
the current outbreak of the virus that began in early 2022 has prompted officials to slaughter nearly 82 million birds, mostly egg-laying chickens, in 47 U.S. states
Avian flu is devastating poultry farms, egg production in California
A year after the bird flu led to record egg prices and widespread shortages, the disease known as highly pathogenic avian influenza is wreaking havoc on California poultry farms. The state had escaped the earlier wave of outbreaks that devastated egg producers in the Midwest. Experts say the latest outbreaks are being fueled by ducks, geese and other migratory birds that spend the winter in California. The waterfowl are being infected by the highly contagious virus and spreading it to poultry farms and backyard chicken flocks. California farms are under strict quarantine to curb the outbreak until the migratory birds return north in the spring.
The best part is they’ll raise prices due to “inflation” or whatever, then when supply increases…the prices don’t go down!
I’m honestly wondering what the end game is for these MBA asshats ruining everything. Is it really that many people so selfish and myopic that we have to suffocate on this one planet and never reach?
I searched egg laying hen population by year. The end of 2022, after the culling, it was 377 million.
Based on the article another comment had, the 80 mil was total birds killed, not just egg hens, so it was likely actually less than the 17% I estimated.
This is very relevant.
Weber’s company, Sunrise Farms, had to slaughter its entire flock of egg-laying hens — 550,000 birds — to prevent the disease from infecting other farms in Sonoma County
During the past two months, nearly a dozen commercial farms have had to destroy more than 1 million birds to control the outbreak (as of 27 Jan 24)
the current outbreak of the virus that began in early 2022 has prompted officials to slaughter nearly 82 million birds, mostly egg-laying chickens, in 47 U.S. states
In California, the outbreak has impacted more than 7 million chickens in about 40 commercial flocks and 24 backyard flocks
Avian flu is devastating poultry farms, egg production in California
A year after the bird flu led to record egg prices and widespread shortages, the disease known as highly pathogenic avian influenza is wreaking havoc on California poultry farms. The state had escaped the earlier wave of outbreaks that devastated egg producers in the Midwest. Experts say the latest outbreaks are being fueled by ducks, geese and other migratory birds that spend the winter in California. The waterfowl are being infected by the highly contagious virus and spreading it to poultry farms and backyard chicken flocks. California farms are under strict quarantine to curb the outbreak until the migratory birds return north in the spring.
grrgyle
IninewCrow
HarleyAnzuckNorway fucked up on eggs this year. They feared overproduction, so they made a subsidy for egg producers not producing… resulting in an egg shortage this Easter.
NorgurSubsidy for… . . .
Did United Russia take over Norway?
It seems that the Norwegian egg-business is always in trouble somehow. Just like farmers elsewhere complaining about the weather, it’s an endless moaning.
EU is pushing for a shorter shelf-life on eggs to be able to make a more rapid response against salmonella, and while Norway isn’t in EU and generally don’t have the salmonella issue, they still have to trade with EU. Fear of chicken flu is also lowering the demand for eggs.
Overproduction is bad because it can make the price go so low that it doesn’t make sense for anyone to do. Especially in a country like Norway where the cost of living is extremely high. They simply can’t compete, so the state offers money to keep the businesses closed while the free market can’t pay them, and to keep domestic production from competing too much internally.
It’s not uncommon to see this situation in EU, where it is sometimes possible to buy a plot of agricultural land and do nothing with it only to get paid by EU for leaving the land alone. The EU is a trade union, so the main purpose internally is to direct the trades to those who can do it best and cheapest within the borders. It’s a good thing though. In the 1990s there was a massive overproduction of all kinds of foods that would eventually rot up in stocks all over Europe. Overproduction is a cost if the goods cannot be sold.
Norwegian eggs are not exactly a big business, but I do believe it’s a net export for them, so I think the subsidy is made to keep the egg producers in business even if the export is lowering for different reasons. If they didn’t pay chicken producers not to produce, the producers would have to stop production due to low revenue from temporarily missed sales and eventually leaving Norway without a realistic capability of producing for their own market.
Anyway, it backfired at the Easter peak demand. It may still make sense later.
They…feared overproduction?
Were they worried about depleting resources or something?
I wrote a lengthy reply to a similar question:
Got it, dumb capitalist nonsense.
Flattening the territory to fit the map.
Previous poster might be spamming his opinion, but in this case he’s right.
In this particular case the government is financing capitalists by giving them money to keep capitalising on something they couldn’t otherwise capitalize on. This happens on an otherwise free market, just to add.
What they should have done is to lower the purchase tax on domestic eggs. That would benefit both Norwegian consumers and also Norwegian egg producers.
Norway already has several sales tax brackets to do just this. F.i. they did it to hotels, going from 25% to 6% after the COVID pandemics for the benefit of both hotels and guests.
i mean, that’s an option. Although after having done some reading, it seems like this was more in cohorts with like a million chickens being killed due to swine flue or whatever the fuck happens in industrial bird farming.
Either way, industrial farming is just not a very good system at handling anything even remotely shenanigan worthy.
it sounds dumb, but it happens. Apple farmers in rural america were about to lose their shit after producing way too many apples. The state of west virginia, iirc decided to buyback all of the excess. And donated it to foodbanks or something.
It’s literally lost revenue for large scale farming. That’s just how shitty it is.
Th4tGuyIIYup - God forbid poor folks have nice things rather than funneling every penny they earn to the rich to satisfy their ever-increasing hunger for money.
The average person earns £1,000,000 in their lifetime, and I struggle to see the justification in anyone, and I mean anyone being worth 100s, 1000s, or even over 100,000 human lifetimes.
It's sickening to see hard-working people having to fight month after month to survive on meager earnings while some dickheads are out there buying megayachts that cost a human lifetime per year just to maintain.