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| Just curious - where do you get your information that the packers have been making so much money?
If we assume that you are correct, in that they "might have to wait for a new generation of naive suckers to come along" - doesn't it seem just a little bit odd that packing plants like the one in Aberdeen just had a bankruptcy sale? Workers are said to be waiting on their last checks. I mean, *if* the profits were *so* good in the packing industry, why couldn't Northern Beef Packers at least limp along?
This is, IMHO, just a case of the market doing what the market is supposed to do. There are a lot of people, like you, who have been just *so sure* that these evil packers have been taking advantage of producers for so long that they actually talked themselves into putting up actual money (rather than just words) and showing those evil packers that they could take some of those excess profits away.
So, by now you know that I wouldn't want to have money invested in packing plants. So, where are the profits going? Or, are there profits to be going somewhere? Just my guess, but I wonder about the Walmarts in the business. Are they dictating to the packers? Where has the money been coming from that has fueled the high prices for feeders? Who is really feeding the cattle today? Is it the big retailers who have been worried about a steady supply of quality beef to bring shoppers into their retail stores? I'm just guessing here. If everyone just replaces "packers" with "retailers" in their rants, possibly there might be some truth to the rants. Or, is it just a case of beef being expensive to raise, process, and market? | |
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Have packers beat the dog so much it won't come when they call
