Experts say high food prices are here to stay. Here's why
Some experts say there's really nothing the government can do about high food prices.
Not a single word of this article explains why. It only says that food prices will remain high, and probably go up more when the tariffs are enacted, and we should just suck it up and deal with it because there's "nothing anyone can do."
Which is obviously bullshit.
The reason food prices remain high is simple corporate profitmongering, and the (US) government absolutely could do something about it but they won't. Food is a product -- the product -- with a notoriously inelastic demand, so retailers and middlemen in every step of the supply chain can and do pad their profits by as much as the market will bear plus a little more on top. Because they know they can get away with it and the vast majority of people will have no choice but to pay whatever it is, or starve.
The margin on prepared packaged food items is typically in the order of 15-35% per link in the supply chain (supplier -> manufacturer -> distributor -> retailer). Everybody wants too big of a slice of the pie. The government absolutely could step in and pass a law stipulating thou shalt not charge more than 10% (or whatever) over your invoice, under pain of us confiscating every penny above that mark via taxes and using them to pay for soup kitchens. But That Would Be Socialismtm, so it'll never happen here.
(And yes, the margins on unprocessed foods like produce and meat are slightly lower.)
Yes please, I'll take the soup kitchens and socialism
I looked into what happens in the meat industry, and found out it's actually pretty highly processed. It is incredibly disturbing the supply chain workflow that meat moves through
They basically walk through all that in the video version. Including playing clips of companies saying their raised prices are sticky, and they expect more profit as a result when inflation cools.
They showed that percentage stuff in an animated graphical explanation of passing costs through to the customer.
We need to start organizing (in person), grab-n-go demonstrations en masse. People, in person, get together, plan to all arrive at a store around a certain time, shop for 20-30 min, at a specific time, leaflet-bomb the store, and everyone runs out. Free food, taken from the culprits (organize only at corporate retailers), and a dent in their most delicate jewels: their fuckin wallets (and their black hearts). If you want to be smart about it, take less than 1k worth of food (probably much less because you gotta take as much as you can carry and stow away quickly enough.
The trend spreads, and a point is made. Did I mention the free food?
Because they realized money is fake and they can charge whatever they want with no consequences?
There will be consequences. Who knows how long it will take. Seems like we're getting close to that breaking point. There always used to be that fine line were they took just enough so people can survive. Now they are all just extra greedy and took too it all. Tons of people have now used their savings, safety nets, and maxed out credit cards to survive. There's already more people than ever going homeless and defaulting on loans and credit cards. It won't be long before an even higher percentage of people have no more options and get desperate. These price increases are just one of the direct causes for failing to survive. I say there's only a few more years until something big happens.
Just my opinion. I am one of the people effected by price increases and I feel like I make a decent living. I can't imagine how people who make even less do it...
Let me guess, it's because once in a lifetime weather events are annual these days
They don't say why. But look, nobody cares about inflation if it is evenly distributed or benefits the working class more. The point is that wages and pensions need to go up to match the cost of living.
Because we've passed peak agricultural land. The land committed to growing crops and pasture used for grazing livestock has peaked. The global population, however, continues to increase. There are methods for maximizing yields from farm land, and we haven't exhausted those, but there's only so much food that can be produced on a hectare of land. We also have to deal with top soil depletion, the risks of monoculture, the effects climate change could have on crop yields, and many other problems.
Edit: I think I need to clarify a few things...
I want to be clear: I am not saying we have reached peak food production. I don't believe that has happened yet, though I think that could happen soon. I'm saying, we've reached peak agricultural land.
There are ways that we can increase the amount of food produced on the same amount of land, which would allow food production to increase even if the total amount of land committed to agriculture stays the same. However, increasing crop yields might require things like using expensive fertilizers, which increase production costs that get passed on to the consumer.
There are other ways to increase food production using the same amount of land, like converting animal pasture land to crop land. But, this would make meat, especially beef, much more expensive (since we would be producing a lot less of it). This could be a good thing, however, since a plant based diet is healthier and much better for the environment. Still, people are probably going to be upset about the price of meat going up.
Capitalism, naturally, also plays a huge role. Many producers are motivated to produce food that will yield the highest possible profits. This, however, does not necessarily maximize efficiency. Land used for raising cattle for instance, produces less calories per hectare than crop land. But people like beef, and they're willing to pay for it, so it's profitable for the beef producers, even so much that some might convert crop land to pasture land, thus further reducing efficiency (in calories produced per hectare).
If we had a different system, we could prioritize efficiency, which would help manage costs. However, even under a different system, we would still have to deal with the fact that land is a finite resource. Even under a maximally efficient food production and distribution system, there would be a limit to how much food we could produce. That being said, it is unequivocally true that such a system would be able to feed many more people than the current one.
Yes nothing to do with price gouging, nothing to with with inefficiency in distribution.
Also, it is not like US is self sufficient in food production with a solid chunk of worlds most productive farm land.
This theory smells of peak oil that was shilled price gouge hydrocarbon. Some truth but it has nothing to do with the current food market conditions.
This propaganda is just priming pedons to to accept the price gouging to owner class.
Yes nothing to do with price gouging, nothing to with with inefficiency in distribution.
These are probably factors as well.
Also, it is not like US is self sufficient in food production with a solid chunk of worlds most productive farm land.
The food market is global. Food produced in the US is sold all over the world. Population is growing in the US and it's growing globally.
This theory smells of peak oil that was shilled price gouge hydrocarbon.
Peak oil production is also a real phenomenon, and peak oil production is inevitable because oil is a finite resource, just like agricultural land. I don't know when peak oil production would be reached, but there's reason to believe peak agricultural land has been reached, as evidenced by the graph I linked to.
Poverty is a crucial foundation for violently forcing people to serve capital. And the state is constantly printing money to punish the poor and further enrich the extremely privileged.
So food prices have never and will never go down. It's a feature, not a bug.
In most cases printing money by the state (as opposed to quantitative easing by central banks) benefits the poor more than the rich. Austerity is what hits the poor the most, as well proven in the last two decades in Europe.
Inflation itself is a bit of a mixed bag, but it is basically a tax on having money, so it is also not really effecting the poor in the medium term at least. The best defense the poor have against the short term negative effects of inflation are unions that make sure their wages are always inflation adjusted.
According to experts who make money from food, high prices are here to stay.
