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| You tell my wife I haven't been involved - and you'll get your signature "yeehaw" back. The cattle markets have been my livelihood for decades. Both feedlots and cow/calf.
Let's just do that "smell test" on the data in the chart you posted. The chart put out by the paper pushers in the government offices. I did a quick average of profitability over the 30 years that chart covers, and I come up with $29/year/cow. Now, I think anyone here would agree that a 300 cow herd is a pretty good amount of work for one family. Would you agree to that? Simple math from there, I think, gives an average over 30 years of a grand total of $8700/year profit.
If you are in that group, I do feel sorry for you. You should find another line of work, IMHO. There is no way you can support a family on $8700/year - you are right.
What is even more interesting is that if you do the averaging for the years prior to 2003, you would have to conclude that there would be no producers left. They and their families would have starved. But we do still have a fair number of cattle, so I have to say, the data put out by the pencil pushers in government does not pass the "smell test."
As far as Cattle-Fax goes - they live and die by the usefulness of the information they put out. The only reason they exist is because producers give them accurate information - because it is in the interest of those producers to do so. Can the same be said for polls taken by government bureaucracies? Does anyone at all feel it necessary to give information at all, much less accurate information, to government bureaucrats? Go ahead and continue to believe that packers have been profiting too much on the backs of cow/calf operators, but it is clear that this is a belief not backed up with facts. I know - it just feels good . . .
Agree on feeders at 1.70 and fats over 1.40 - looks to me like the cycle is finally going to turn. Now we might see just how good beef demand is. But to suggest this is caused by anything other than normal market forces, without doing the necessary math to show proof, is lazy. | |
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Have packers beat the dog so much it won't come when they call
