Tablerock Ranch eastern Wa | Knee jerk reaction this morning was not one of support for the idea "work our magic to reduce the price of beef" didn't like the Egg deal and don't like the sound of this. First off, I will say I feel for the soybean guys as they have fallen victim to the trade war game that is as old as time and politicians, as a Wheat producer I have felt the brunt many times... as Farmers we are the low hanging easy to grab fruit, and they can hit big trade numbers easy and fast to retaliate by using our commodities. That being said this is way different, we are not an abstract victim chose only for retaliatory purposes, feels like we have been singled out to appease the voters, another Egg deal "another win". How is this much different than the price of lumber / coffee / oranges, people are unhappy with the price of groceries in general, "we all are" but we don't pick winners and losers unless we want to head towards a communist approach toward pricing, instead of supply and demand and free market capitalism. All that being said I will extend some latitude on imports to the extent of offsetting the increased price the consumer is incurring due to closing of the border to Mexican screw worm concerns which I greatly appreciate, this administration also slammed the door on Brazilian Cattle which also ran our market up. Compensate for those market disruptions with safe Beef "ya right" from ? Argentina / Brazil / or wherever and take this opportunity to clearly label it as foreign and COOL label ours and Canada together. Sure friggen glad I didn't buy a couple hundred k worth of cattle yesterday as I often wait until the next day to hedge, undoubtably someone took a shot to the nut's this morning. |
Impressions, from a Trump supporter
