US Meat Supply

TigerGrowls

Heisman
Dec 21, 2001
48,076
37,158
113


Trump inherited the smallest beef-cow herd since 1961. You cannot rebuild 30 million breeding animals in six months. You keep ranchers profitable, open grazing land, protect them from drought and losses, expand American processing, encourage them to retain heifers, all of which the Trump USDA is doing —and while those cows reproduce, you temporarily supplement hamburger supply. What exactly is the alternative? Tell Americans to pay $9 a pound for hamburger for three years while we wait for calves to grow up?
 
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Thefunksouljon

All-Conference
Jan 26, 2004
1,823
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I'm not sure what you'd want trump or any other potential president to do about high beef prices. There simply are not enough US bred cattle to slaughter. It's not Trump's fault and it wasn't biden's either. It will likely take a couple more years to get herds back to normal levels.

And, while you might be right, I'm not certain we can blame this drought on climate change. We've had droughts long before the era of global warming and/or climate change...some go back as far as the 1800's and everyone should have learned about the 1930's dust bowl.

Sometimes, things happen and there's nobody to blame.


Well, I guess as a free market capitalist I would say it's a crappy set of events that lead us to this issue but govt intervention by importing meat and artificially lowering the price of beef doesn't benefit our beef production and hurts their margins which they need to help to overcome the recent lower herds. See they needed that extra money to rebuild, but since the price is going to be artificially lower due to his dumba$$ promises about affordability and fixing price issues he doesn't understand why the market is the way it is, he is being an interventionist for votes and not helping the industry.

I was more posting to OP because he is trying to make this a political issue which the reasons for the shortage are NOT originally political but the solutions (which are long term) require science and not market manipulation. The consumers are not in grave danger, we have numerous alternatives.

According to science, one of the major reasons IS climate change (again, who is firing them to have an educated discussion on this topic?). Now you throw on top of that the govt allowing the industry to consolidate and not have processing options, which IS a protection that the govt is charged with... oh, what was the name of the behavior the govt was expected to protect consumers from? So yeah, he has a number of areas here where he is failing to do what he should, and tinkering where he doesn't understand the full impacts. But I blame trump and not republicans as a whole, however, that might be too generous.

Other times, it is pretty easy to see where some blame lies.
 
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Billanole.

Senior
May 9, 2026
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Well, I guess as a free market capitalist I would say it's a crappy set of events that lead us to this issue but govt intervention by importing meat and artificially lowering the price of beef doesn't benefit our beef production and hurts their margins to overcome the recent lower herds. See they needed that extra money to rebuild, but since the price is going to be artificially lower due to his dumba$$ promises about affordability and fixing price issues he doesn't understand why the market is the way it is, he is being an interventionist for votes.

I was more posting to OP because he is trying to make this a political issue which the reasons for the shortage are NOT originally political but the solutions (which are long term) require science and not market manipulation. The consumers are not in grave danger, we have numerous alternatives.

According to science, one of the major reasons IS climate change (again, who is firing them?). Now you throw on top of that the govt allowing the industry to consolidate and not have processing options, which IS a protection that the govt is charged with... oh, what was the name of the behavior the govt was expected to protect consumers from? So yeah, he has a number of areas here where he is failing to do what he should, and tinkering where he doesn't understand the full impacts. But I blame trump and not republicans as a whole, however, that might be too generous.
Bam. Zounds. POW.
Thanks for a great post.
 

Thefunksouljon

All-Conference
Jan 26, 2004
1,823
3,372
113
Bam. Zounds. POW.
Thanks for a great post.


 
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baltimorened

All-American
May 29, 2001
7,997
5,983
113

another confusing post..we have been complaining about Traiffs for over a year - they add costs, increase inflation...ok we all agree....so now trump ditches a tariff and we're complaining about the revenue lost by eliminating a tariff?

are we nuts, or whatever Trump does is bad??
 
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baltimorened

All-American
May 29, 2001
7,997
5,983
113
Sorry MAGA. If Biden got blame for egg shortages Trump is getting the beef shortage. Them’s the rules.
fair enough, but both shortages happened/started during Biden, and you know what, neither were his nor his administration's fault. We just need to blame somebody, and now it's Trump's turn
 

baltimorened

All-American
May 29, 2001
7,997
5,983
113
Well, I guess as a free market capitalist I would say it's a crappy set of events that lead us to this issue but govt intervention by importing meat and artificially lowering the price of beef doesn't benefit our beef production and hurts their margins which they need to help to overcome the recent lower herds. See they needed that extra money to rebuild, but since the price is going to be artificially lower due to his dumba$$ promises about affordability and fixing price issues he doesn't understand why the market is the way it is, he is being an interventionist for votes and not helping the industry.

I was more posting to OP because he is trying to make this a political issue which the reasons for the shortage are NOT originally political but the solutions (which are long term) require science and not market manipulation. The consumers are not in grave danger, we have numerous alternatives.

According to science, one of the major reasons IS climate change (again, who is firing them to have an educated discussion on this topic?). Now you throw on top of that the govt allowing the industry to consolidate and not have processing options, which IS a protection that the govt is charged with... oh, what was the name of the behavior the govt was expected to protect consumers from? So yeah, he has a number of areas here where he is failing to do what he should, and tinkering where he doesn't understand the full impacts. But I blame trump and not republicans as a whole, however, that might be too generous.

Other times, it is pretty easy to see where some blame lies.
if this was an economic decision, it would have been made months ago. We have an election in a little more than 2 months. Trump wants to get votes. He thinks this will help with affordability. We'll likely see some movement on gas prices shortly, if Trump can find a way to manipulate the system
 
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