> A new pick-up truck that once cost $40,000 now runs to $100,000. A wooden fence post has gone from about $6 to as much as $19. A quarter-mile roll of barbed wire has doubled, from $60 to $130. Everything he uses day to day, he says, has jumped in price since the Covid pandemic.
I know why pick-ups have gone up in cost (though I don't think it's quite to 2.5x levels like suggested here since the pandemic), but wooden posts and barbed wire, it's less clear why those are so much more expensive now.
> it's less clear why those are so much more expensive now.
It's basically, because everything else has gotten more expensive. Labor + fuel + wear and tear on equipment + raw materials.
Inflation of a single thing, will have effects on anything down stream of that thing.
And then there is the "greed" aspect, though overstated, where a company will see that costs have gone up in other sectors, so they raise their accordingly. This has been claimed, but I'm not sure how much it actually happens.
>It's basically, because everything else has gotten more expensive. Labor + fuel + wear and tear on equipment + raw materials.
Don't forget taxes (tariffs) have also increased substantially. Even if a supplier isn't paying tariff's, if their competitors are they can often just raise their prices, or their prices go up due to the supply/demand shift.
The "greed" aspect is always bullshit unless there is a specific instance of market failure like monopoly power or collusion. This has definitely happened, so I'm not discounting it, but in those cases folks should just say the issue is monopoly concentration or collusion.
Saying "greed" comes from people who fundamentally believe economics doesn't exist, or don't understand it. Everyone in the economy is "greedy". Consumers want to pay the lowest possible prices, and producers want to generate the most profit. Nobody starts a business to be a charity, and businesses will always set their prices to maximize profits.
If prices have gone up, the question to ask is why. Is there not enough competition? Have input prices risen? Why are consumers willing to pay more? Saying greed is just a bullshit boogeymanization that politicians like to spout.
> And big enough share of demand accepted that new price point.
Exactly - this is literally econ 101, no appeals to "greed" needed.
As they say, the cure for high prices is high prices. You already saw this in a number of different areas. Fast food prices outpaced what people were willing to pay, so people stopped eating out and businesses needed to adjust accordingly.
> As they say, the cure for high prices is high prices.
Your line of reasoning is downplaying the fact that we don't exist in a world with perfect markets or rational consumption habits.
There are multiple clear cut examples of producer collusion and oligopoly formation in the past few years - including in the food industries (see eggs and pork in the past 5 years). Food being essential for life means consumers can't interact with the market rationally, just like they can't for insulin, transportation that enables income, and so on.
Fine, but blaming price increases on "greed" is still just as idiotic. Yes, market participants are "greedy" - sellers want to make the most money and buyers want to spend the least.
If only McDonalds charges $20 for a burger instead of $10, people will go elsewhere.
If everyone charges $20 for a burger, people will still go to McDonalds. In such a state, no individual place would dare charge $10 again. Why cut revenue to nearly half? It’s not like they have the capacity to sell 20x the usual volume…
I’m not convinced that basic economics works when output capacity isn’t fully scalable.
Same reason no lawn care team tries to deeply undercut competitors - they can only mow so many! (Barring that they hire more helpers)
Because, to quote Jeff Bezos, your margin is my opportunity. And did he ever squeeze every drop from that opportunity. Just ask the brick and mortar stores in your street.
> I’m not convinced that basic economics works when output capacity isn’t fully scalable.
Economics works for land, which isn't scalable.
> Same reason no lawn care team tries to deeply undercut competitors
That works right up until Fred down the road loses his job, and then it dawns he could be making more money with his mower because of those sweet fat margins those other lawn care people thought they could keep all to themselves.
That’s an uncompetitive market. No one can outcompete on service, so they can only compete on price, but why would you in such a circumstance, it would only hurt you, so nobody does.
This is what people seem to forget... you don’t need monopolies or collusion for markets to be uncompetitive. Collusion works fundamentally because participants aren't competing with each other... not for the fact people made a secret agreement. It is entirely possible for markets to be completely uncompetitive even without a monopoly or any collusion going on.
It's a shame you're getting downvoted (and I probably will too), but I have to say this is one of the few rational and correct posts in this thread. Most people can't look at markets objectively because they're actively participating in them and are therefore emotionally involved. As you said, the bid side seeks the lowest price and the ask side seeks the highest price. You don't get to judge the motivation of market participants on either side. The price is what it is because two parties decided to make a deal at a certain price level. The seller is no more to blame for rising prices than the buyer is because they were willing to pay it.
For lumber, data at [1] indicates much volatility in North American lumber prices from January 2023 to February 2026. Trough-to-peak prices for 2023, 2024 and 2025 have been over 30% across a given year. The main difference for 2026 so far is the stability of prices which have remain peaked for half a year.
Now is the perfect time for someone being overly dramatic to say "In the 2 years since July 2024, lumber prices have increased 47%, significantly higher than inflation".
But someone else could also say "Lumber prices are the same as July 2025 even though inflation has risen" or "Lumber prices are up just 10% in the 3 years since July 2023, lower than the rate of inflation across these 3 years".
Roughly ~400 index pre-Covid. Roughly ~580 index the past year.
45% inflation, compared to 30% reported inflation by BLS from October 2019 to June 2026.
So yes, lumber prices are definitely beating inflation.
Not sure what you were trying to say by playing around with the numbers in the last 4 years.
People under-estimate the cost of logistics and transport. Every inch of travel for any input, component, or the final product has to be paid; and even a wooden fencepost typically moves between at least 5 different locations before reaching retail.
Let's use wooden posts as an example:
1. Forest. Trees are cut down into logs, and then transported to...
2. Lumbermill. Logs are cut to size, and then transported to...
3. Treatment plant. Without it, your fencepost won't last for every long, and then transported to...
4. Distributor location. And then transported to...
5. Store (e.g. Home Depot or whatever). And then you pick it up, or get it delivered to you.
Every inch, every mile, you're paying for the energy, inefficiencies, and labor involved.
At the beginning of the pandemic all the mills cut production anticipating economic collapse that didn’t come. Prices spiked on high demand and low production.
Mills did ramp back up, but it’s unclear to me if they used it as a chance to do so slowly/preserve margins. Lumber never got close to pre-pandemic levels.
Tariffs probably also play a role here. About a quarter of US lumber comes from Canada, and barbed wire is just steel with a little bit of processing.
For products with little value add there’s not anywhere for the tax to be absorbed, and no real way for domestic producers to quickly scale up, even if they wanted to.
I work with contractors and my family own a GC company. After Covid, construction material prices increased a lot due to multiple reasons like supply chain issues, and high demand from the housing boom. Lumber, fencing materials, and steel products were all affected. Although some prices have go down from their peaks, many never returned to pre-2020 levels, so products like fence posts and barbed wire are still expensive.
Generalized inflation affects everything. Energy prices have gone up, labor prices have gone up.
The people who sell the barbed wire and wooden posts presumably like to be able to eat, so they need to raise their prices to be able to afford groceries, etc.
I am starting to think that there might be lot less competition on free markets than we think. And many markets tend to be established with big enough players. So they have stopped competing. If new entrants try to come well they might be undercut or simply bought out.
It is highly unlikely that big players are even able to emerge in a free market. All big businesses we know are big because they found a so-called moat. But I suppose we'll never know for sure as you have a greater chance of winning the lottery while simultaneously being struck by lightning than ever seeing a free market.
Tariffs I'm guessing. A fencepost in Canada is CAD$8 so $6. A roll of barbwire is US$70.
See UFA.com for Canadian prices. Keep in mind, there's a lot of variance in what people prefer to use, I'm just giving what I've always used and while prices have gone up, it sure hasn't gone up 2.5X here.
I assume the posts come from Canada, so are heavily tariffed. And the barbed wire might be produced in the US, but steel producers have raised their prices to match the level of tariffed imported goods.
> but wooden posts and barbed wire, it's less clear why those are so much more expensive now.
I am seeing way more active paddocks of grazing cattle now as compared to a couple of years ago. The world is complex and there is never an expiation that can be given in a short soundbite, but the primary driver is no doubt that higher beef prices compelled more people to try and raise cattle, which resulted in them needing supplies required to raise cattle, and fences are one of those things you need to establish a secure paddock. The increase in demand for fencing supplies, without a corresponding increase in supply, necessities an increase in price.
yeah, it's called inflation, it really sucks for everyone except the people who receive the new money early (mainly the banking system, but also people w/liquid assets + finance adjacent industries like housing) we should avoid it oh well i guess a bunch of people will go bankrupt and then get bought up at distressed prices by people with access to new money early wait a second...
I realize saying RTFA is against the rules, but this exact point (meat processors profiting off the price hikes) is specifically discussed, and refuted, in the article:
> Four companies - Tyson, JBS, Cargill and National Beef - control around 85% of American beef processing.
> That high level of market concentration has drawn accusations of price-fixing, even from President Trump.
> So you might expect that those four firms are currently making huge profits from high beef prices. Yet the opposite is happening.
> Tyson, the biggest of the four, reported in May that it had lost more than $500m on beef in the first half of its financial year.
In a recent Ezra Klein podcast about data center backlash he mentions being vegetarian and says something along the lines of "being anti data center because of water consumption is hypocritical if people eat meat"
Eh, that's pretty specious reasoning. If I start a business selling space water cannons that anyone can use to spray water at the ISS as it flies by. If these cannons are consuming whole farms worth of water in use and just blasting it out into space, you can still be mad at the water waste because you think that water could be put to better uses like growing animals for hot dogs and chicken nuggets, and not fleeting entertainment for people to have interplanetary water fights.
You have to cut out feedlot finishing to get those benefits on a macro scale, which would drastically reduce beef output. It's the same problem organic has, but maybe even worse since 99%? of cows are feedlot-finished.
Which isn't really a negative to me, but I think people should be honest about what is actually necessary to get the benefits of this form of beef production.
A person eating one single hamburger uses more water than an entire year of LLM use for the same person. Yet we are very concerned about water use in data centers, but nobody cares about McDonalds.
[The water footprint of a single hamburger is *significantly higher than* that of using a large language model (LLM) for a year. For example, the water used for one hamburger is primarily due to the irrigation of cattle feed crops, while data centers like xAI's Colossus 2 consume much less water overall.](https://duckduckgo.com/?q=A+person+eating+one+single+hamburg...)
States that it's significantly higher but the breakdown shows a 660gal vs 1000gal (Single Burger vs 1yr LLM Usage) water usage...
Item Water Footprint (Gallons)
Single Hamburger Approximately 660 gallons
Year of LLM Usage Approximately 1,000 gallons
Results also contain an important disclaimer: "Auto-generated based on listed sources. May contain inaccuracies."
All economic activity is a key driver to climate change. Why single out one thing? You're clearly imposing a self-serving moral judgement on other people.
Shouldn't per-capita consumption be factored in? Otherwise "the global problem" just boils down to whichever country is the "biggest" (by population or by GDP).
That's a deeply biased stance though, isn't it? It seems to say that USA and Brazil eating vast amounts of beef, the latter clearing the Amazon to do so, isn't a problem, it's only a problem now because of the Chinese.
The US and Brazil have eaten a lot of beef for a significant amount of time, so that had already been priced into the market.
A sudden spike in price requires a change in the market - e.g., the Chinese suddenly starting to eat more beef, wildfires wiping out grazing land, fuel price spikes making it more expensive to ship the product around, screwworm outbreaks reducing cattle headcount, crackdown on migrant workers reducing available labor for meatpacking plants, etc.
I don't remember when I first found out, but it blew my mind that sausages in the US are typically beef. Like, what? Sausages are like quintessentially pork products. Like the whole point is that you have a lot of off cuts of a cheap meat and you make sausages. Beef sausages? Yeah, that's like a step change in wealth, haha.
They are? That's not my personal experience, but maybe there's something unusual in the part of the US I live in. I mean, beef sausages exist and you can get them, but you generally have to choose them intentionally.
I don't know well "all other pork" and retail ground beef work as proxies for sausage meat. But ground beef roughly doubled in price from 2010 to the start of 2020. Before it did that, it was very close in price to "all other pork", and before 2000 a bit cheaper.
I wouldn't say they're "typically" all beef. When you go shopping for something like hotdogs for instance, if you just pick up a package of "hot dogs" or "weiners" they'll typically be a mixture of chicken, turkey, pork, and maybe beef. For instance:
Some people really look down on these kinds of products though and see this as a "mystery meat" of extremely poor quality cuts. The whole phrase of "knowing how the sausage is made" comes to mind. So that's then in comparison to "franks", which are often 100% beef and are often seen as higher quality:
Are they higher quality? Eh. They're probably about the same in the end. One big thing pushing up the popularity of beef franks over pork/chicken/turkey mix is an impression of Kosher hotdogs being of very high quality during the time when meat packing was really bad, so lots of even non-Jewish people will often see Kosher dogs as superior. Which, for obvious reasons, have beef and not pork.
> And while meatpacking companies have increased the prices they charge for their beef, there is a limit. This is because supermarkets, restaurants – and US consumers – can, and will, simply switch to buying chicken or cheaper imported beef instead.
I think you would be amazed at how cost insensitive some Americans are and how large that cohort is. Ground beef would have to exceed $20/lb before I would consider altering my routine.
If you are buying one cut at a time and not being very efficient with it, the prices are certainly ridiculous. If each gram of beef is carefully prepared and allocated across weeks of meal prep, the economic situation changes pretty substantially. Batching effects can make it easier to afford expensive ingredients.
For a bachelor lifestyle, eating at home is appallingly wasteful. If I order delivery, I'm tossing out combo meals and unsolicited sides after paying $50+. If I shop for groceries, there are cans of soup too large for one sitting, there are canned vegetables too copious for one recipe, there are too many capers to use up before they expire, etc.
I was clearly deluded about the role of a supermarket butcher. Because when I rocked up to the counter, I saw appetizing cuts of steak and pork and swordfish, all carefully portioned for two or three servings. Now butcher shops have menus and price lists, but they do not come with a brochure, or instructions or a User Manual for the Inexperienced Householder.
So I ring the bell and a guy appears, wearing white coveralls and a hairnet and knows how to use knives. And I ask the butcher man, "could you kindly cut these swordfish steaks in half please?" And the man behind the counter attempts to demur: "oh... we aren't supposed to do that... oh, sanitary regulations... I shouldn't..."
So this is understandable, if post-processing food introduces health risks, I guess, but I stopped purchasing pre-packaged meats and freshly butchered meats, and especially no frozen meat, because the portions were made for couples and families, and regardless if the "expiration dates" were real or not, I could not stand there at home and hack apart a filet before cooking or thawing.
Passing strange, these delusions, that I thought butchers could cut meats for customers. I am seeking professional help.
Beef prices have become simply insane. The value I get from beef can no longer justify the expense, so I've simply stopped buying it at all. I've largely replaced it with pork. Pork used to be the most popular meat in the US. I wonder if it will be again.
Outside of a ribeye, I much prefer pork and eat it way more often. I'm rather selfishly afraid that everyone running from beef is going to cause the pork price to skyrocket, but I haven't seen it quite yet.
Probably, along with “meat fillers” and blends/grinds. And lots of ramen, which seems to have replaced old Depression-era standbys like hot dog casseroles and Campbell’s soup.
>you just substituted a worse product for a better one and our friends in the govt call it good.
I agree that somewhat distorts the effect of inflation, but at the same time it has to be done for inflation measures to make any sense. Otherwise we'd still be measuring the prices of heating coal and whale blubber.
We ar perfectly capable of intelligently changing how we calculate inflation. And the current administration's idea that if an American stops buying something because they cannot afford it anymore, means inflation went down is delusional.
>We ar perfectly capable of intelligently changing how we calculate inflation.
What do you propose then? All the places where the BLS is "intelligently changing how we calculate inflation" creates controversy: hedonic/quality adjustments, substitution/weight changes, owners equivalent rent, the list goes on and on. What it practically boils down to is that people have an agenda (ie. inflation is high or low), and if the official numbers doesn't seem right to them, they accuse the current administration of fudging it, even if there's no evidence of methodology change.
There isn't really one single measure of inflation, despite what is often implied. There are many. The reason for that is that every measurement methodology distorts some aspect of the economy, so you (should) choose the measure that distorts the least for the aspect you care about.
I never said beef was my preferred product, nor that I'm only buying pork because I can't justify buying beef. I like beef and pork equally, and have always bought both.
What I said was that the price of beef reached a point where it's not worth the money for me, so I'm not buying it. I've mostly replaced it with pork (and to a lesser degree, chicken).
Just to head off another potential misunderstanding, this also isn't a case of being unable to afford beef. I'm doing fine on the money front. It's a case of the cost/benefit ratio of beef no longer being favorable for me.
My father-in-law grew up on a small-time farm and then went into environmental engineering as a professor, and briefly worked on the Secretary of Agriculture's staff in the Biden administration. He has told me that there are 3-5 (can't remember the number) colossal meatpacking corporations in the US that have laid waste to smaller-time competition, and now that the market is captured their owners and shareholders can skim basically whatever they want out of the enterprise. He also was advocating to have policy written that would stop chronic underpayment of slaughterhouse and meatpacking workers at these colossal firms and was told it was politically inviable.
Unrelated to this, but I have Alpha-Gal Syndrome, the anaphylactic allergy to red meat, which is spreading rapidly as the ticks colonize every square inch of nature in the US. In Arkansas 20% of people tested on a big free testing day were sensitized to the galactose-alpha-1,3-galactose molecule (AGS is sensitization + symptoms, not just sensitization.)
I think that things are going to get weird with beef in the US in the next few decades.
I just learned about Alpha-Gal Syndrome yesterday through a Radiolab podcast. It was really interesting, but they didn't mention that it was spreading. I guess I shouldn't be surprised, since climate change.
I wouldn't take the 20% figure at face value. If you only test for antibody reaction, you get an implausibly high number.
>A study of blood samples from military recruits, taken between 2001 and 2007, found that nearly half the recruits from south-central Missouri, where Ellison lives, had allergy antibodies for alpha-gal. [...]
>Only a fraction of people with antibodies to alpha-gal become allergic to it, and those who are often don’t realize it. Some react only to red meat. Some also react to milk, cheese, and other animal products that have alpha-gal. The symptoms are so delayed that people often blame them on food poisoning, irritable-bowel syndrome, gluten intolerance. In the U.S., according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, as many as half a million people have alpha-gal syndrome, but other researchers suspect that the number is higher.
The article specifically talks about how some of those huge meatpacking companies are losing money on cattle. I don't think it's them to blame in totality here.
There should be laws ensuring that every market there should be at least 5-6 players and is free or is declared natural monopoly/monopsony and regulated.
The in between you have all the bad from monopolies in the forms of cartels.
"The rancher is selling calves for record sums, but is not better off because he has higher costs. The feedlot company is selling for all-time high prices, but it also has to pay them in the first place. The packers are losing money because there is a limit to what they can charge. Restaurants and supermarkets also can only increase prices by so much."
Many people see this as a problem, but I see it as a normal function of market economies. Disruptions, changes in government policy, changes in consumer behavior, and more will over the long term just work themselves out. Of course some policies or seemingly "voluntary" policies may cause undue price increases, but even those work themselves out.
At the end of the day as more and more people want to consume the same products the prices for those are going to just go up.
When I see folks really hammering on price increases for products like beef or gas I can't help but think of how absolutely screwed we are in terms of addressing climate change if it involves consumer behavior.
A lot of these markets aren't really functioning when there are many middlemen that have an 2-4 company oligopoly that choke out any actual competition.
No, markets still function anyway over the long term (monopolies go bankrupt and are disrupted all the time) and if you are worried about oligopoly you want to ensure that communism and state ownership of the means of production is stamped out to prevent monopolies.
The comment you were replying to said that the reason for high prices is oligopoly and you've replied that the way to prevent oligopoly is to be against communism, so logically it follows that fighting communism would help lower the prices, no?
Well, I guess if the OP was under the mistaken belief that the only reason for high prices was because of an oligopoly, then sure. But that premise is incorrect and it would be a bit bizarre to suggest that given at a minimum we could look to American tariffs or something never mind the pandemic helicopter money that was dispersed.
But if you want to follow that train of thought with that faulty premise, then sure yes we must stop communism to lower prices because the OP says that oligopoly is solely responsible for price increases, so it follows that further restriction on market participants further increases prices. I don't agree with that premise, but if that's your view and the OPs view then it would be logically consistent for you to also advocate stamping out communism to lower prices.
They advocated for competition instead of ogliopoly. You decided to talk about a completely different and irrelevant way there could be a lack of competition. Even if your conclusion is right, that they would be against communism if it was a realistic threat here, there was no reason to bring it up.
I could say that a bunch of badly placed volcanos would reduce competition and they must be against those volcanos. Such a statement is technically true but it's a non-sequitur.
Beef and gas prices are up due to policy (tariffs, war) If anything, it shows how effective government policy can be. Ironically higher beef and gas prices are quite good for reducing carbon emissions.
Well they are up at least in part due to policy such as tariffs and war which unfortunately is imposed upon us in the US (Russia invading Ukraine, Iran destabilizing the Middle East), but I also think an important factor is the increase in global demand for beef and other meat products.
Gas prices are a little less clear as it seems primarily the increases have been due to Iranian destabilization in the Middle East and less so tariffs, but gas prices do effect each country differently so increases here in the US are a lot less painful than, say, Singapore.
I agree with you that increases in the prices of both are good for reducing carbon emissions. I think it's interesting to see how folks are reacting to, what in my mind seem to be still incredibly low prices relative to the negative externalities. If we factored in the destruction and harm we're doing to the planet gas in the US should probably be more in the neighborhood of $20/gallon or something (that's a made up number and I'm just guessing) and beef probably should be quite a bit more expensive too. Though I think it's also worth pointing out gas prices are still lower than when Russia unjustly invaded Ukraine and if we can stomach those we can stomach these too.
Things might not work itself out in desirable ways. I imagine what will happen is that portions will shrink, and become adulterated. For example, a restaurant ostensibly using ground beef might partially substitute something cheaper... Food fraud is rampant in developing countries. One example:
Well if you care about portion size or the introduction of substitutes then you can change your buying habits. We only eat out for dinner at great restaurants because I can cook better food at home in a lot of cases.
You're going to have to change those habits anyway because even without inflation that has been ongoing since the pandemic began you still have a lot of pressure to push prices higher on beef and other "luxury" goods as global demand continues to increase, the environment becomes worse off and requires further regulation, &c. It's perhaps a head start, but the long term trend isn't toward lower prices regardless of the impact of inflation (for example).
> We only eat out for dinner at great restaurants because I can cook better food at home in a lot of cases.
I also rarely eat in a restaurant, but when I do I make it a great one (to me -- I'm not talking only or even mostly about highfalutin places). Aside from being a better inherent experience, it also makes it more of a special event, which increases the pleasure I get from it. Any fantastic thing experienced frequently ceases to feel fantastic.
The truth is that most people can cook better (and healthier) food than most restaurants. The value proposition restaurants provide is mostly experience (a lovely night out in a pleasant environment where you're being waited on is fun) and convenience (just because you could cook it better doesn't mean you want to, particularly for lengthy and involved dishes).
> I imagine what will happen is that portions will shrink
I wouldn't mind this up to a point. One of the things that I find really irritating about most US restaurants (I'm an American, if it matters) is that the portion sizes tend to be far too large.
Inflation mainly. And it's going to get worse as the Republicans appear to keep purposely doing things to cause inflation (tariffs, pointless wars based on ego, negotiating in bad faith and making money from said failed negotiations by insider trading, etc).
As a society, we have organized ourselves in a form where the marketers get the most cut than the producers of goods and services. It’s unfortunate and amendable with capable leaders
> A new pick-up truck that once cost $40,000 now runs to $100,000. A wooden fence post has gone from about $6 to as much as $19. A quarter-mile roll of barbed wire has doubled, from $60 to $130. Everything he uses day to day, he says, has jumped in price since the Covid pandemic.
I know why pick-ups have gone up in cost (though I don't think it's quite to 2.5x levels like suggested here since the pandemic), but wooden posts and barbed wire, it's less clear why those are so much more expensive now.
> it's less clear why those are so much more expensive now.
It's basically, because everything else has gotten more expensive. Labor + fuel + wear and tear on equipment + raw materials.
Inflation of a single thing, will have effects on anything down stream of that thing.
And then there is the "greed" aspect, though overstated, where a company will see that costs have gone up in other sectors, so they raise their accordingly. This has been claimed, but I'm not sure how much it actually happens.
>It's basically, because everything else has gotten more expensive. Labor + fuel + wear and tear on equipment + raw materials.
Don't forget taxes (tariffs) have also increased substantially. Even if a supplier isn't paying tariff's, if their competitors are they can often just raise their prices, or their prices go up due to the supply/demand shift.
Inflation from Covid spending is what got us. It was horrible before tarrifs.
Sorry, I didn't mean to imply tariff's were the exclusive cause, just a reminder that an additional factor is large tax increases.
The "greed" aspect is always bullshit unless there is a specific instance of market failure like monopoly power or collusion. This has definitely happened, so I'm not discounting it, but in those cases folks should just say the issue is monopoly concentration or collusion.
Saying "greed" comes from people who fundamentally believe economics doesn't exist, or don't understand it. Everyone in the economy is "greedy". Consumers want to pay the lowest possible prices, and producers want to generate the most profit. Nobody starts a business to be a charity, and businesses will always set their prices to maximize profits.
If prices have gone up, the question to ask is why. Is there not enough competition? Have input prices risen? Why are consumers willing to pay more? Saying greed is just a bullshit boogeymanization that politicians like to spout.
Because markets are neither rational nor perfectly elastic.
Which was also true before COVID. So what has changed?
Shock moved the price equilibrium to new higher price point. And big enough share of demand accepted that new price point.
> And big enough share of demand accepted that new price point.
Exactly - this is literally econ 101, no appeals to "greed" needed.
As they say, the cure for high prices is high prices. You already saw this in a number of different areas. Fast food prices outpaced what people were willing to pay, so people stopped eating out and businesses needed to adjust accordingly.
> As they say, the cure for high prices is high prices.
Your line of reasoning is downplaying the fact that we don't exist in a world with perfect markets or rational consumption habits.
There are multiple clear cut examples of producer collusion and oligopoly formation in the past few years - including in the food industries (see eggs and pork in the past 5 years). Food being essential for life means consumers can't interact with the market rationally, just like they can't for insulin, transportation that enables income, and so on.
Fine, but blaming price increases on "greed" is still just as idiotic. Yes, market participants are "greedy" - sellers want to make the most money and buyers want to spend the least.
If only McDonalds charges $20 for a burger instead of $10, people will go elsewhere.
If everyone charges $20 for a burger, people will still go to McDonalds. In such a state, no individual place would dare charge $10 again. Why cut revenue to nearly half? It’s not like they have the capacity to sell 20x the usual volume…
I’m not convinced that basic economics works when output capacity isn’t fully scalable.
Same reason no lawn care team tries to deeply undercut competitors - they can only mow so many! (Barring that they hire more helpers)
> Why cut revenue to nearly half?
Because, to quote Jeff Bezos, your margin is my opportunity. And did he ever squeeze every drop from that opportunity. Just ask the brick and mortar stores in your street.
> I’m not convinced that basic economics works when output capacity isn’t fully scalable.
Economics works for land, which isn't scalable.
> Same reason no lawn care team tries to deeply undercut competitors
That works right up until Fred down the road loses his job, and then it dawns he could be making more money with his mower because of those sweet fat margins those other lawn care people thought they could keep all to themselves.
That’s an uncompetitive market. No one can outcompete on service, so they can only compete on price, but why would you in such a circumstance, it would only hurt you, so nobody does.
This is what people seem to forget... you don’t need monopolies or collusion for markets to be uncompetitive. Collusion works fundamentally because participants aren't competing with each other... not for the fact people made a secret agreement. It is entirely possible for markets to be completely uncompetitive even without a monopoly or any collusion going on.
Your examples here are better known amongst economists as the Bertrand–Edgeworth model (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bertrand%E2%80%93Edgeworth_mod...)
Name one thing cheaper than it was 6 years ago…
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This is absolutely untrue. The rational actor model is no longer supported by evidence. In fact, it’s supported by no evidence.
It's a shame you're getting downvoted (and I probably will too), but I have to say this is one of the few rational and correct posts in this thread. Most people can't look at markets objectively because they're actively participating in them and are therefore emotionally involved. As you said, the bid side seeks the lowest price and the ask side seeks the highest price. You don't get to judge the motivation of market participants on either side. The price is what it is because two parties decided to make a deal at a certain price level. The seller is no more to blame for rising prices than the buyer is because they were willing to pay it.
For lumber, data at [1] indicates much volatility in North American lumber prices from January 2023 to February 2026. Trough-to-peak prices for 2023, 2024 and 2025 have been over 30% across a given year. The main difference for 2026 so far is the stability of prices which have remain peaked for half a year.
Now is the perfect time for someone being overly dramatic to say "In the 2 years since July 2024, lumber prices have increased 47%, significantly higher than inflation".
But someone else could also say "Lumber prices are the same as July 2025 even though inflation has risen" or "Lumber prices are up just 10% in the 3 years since July 2023, lower than the rate of inflation across these 3 years".
[1] https://madisonsreport.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/07/IndexG...
Do you have a graph that extends to 2020?
https://tradingeconomics.com/commodity/lumber
Roughly ~400 index pre-Covid. Roughly ~580 index the past year. 45% inflation, compared to 30% reported inflation by BLS from October 2019 to June 2026.
So yes, lumber prices are definitely beating inflation.
Not sure what you were trying to say by playing around with the numbers in the last 4 years.
Logistics and labor.
People under-estimate the cost of logistics and transport. Every inch of travel for any input, component, or the final product has to be paid; and even a wooden fencepost typically moves between at least 5 different locations before reaching retail.
Let's use wooden posts as an example:
Every inch, every mile, you're paying for the energy, inefficiencies, and labor involved.Its a good thing that we didn't start a war for no reason that caused the price of fuel to skyrocket.
And good thing we didn't shitcan alternative (essentially free) energy projects that were in the works.
At the beginning of the pandemic all the mills cut production anticipating economic collapse that didn’t come. Prices spiked on high demand and low production.
Mills did ramp back up, but it’s unclear to me if they used it as a chance to do so slowly/preserve margins. Lumber never got close to pre-pandemic levels.
Tariffs probably also play a role here. About a quarter of US lumber comes from Canada, and barbed wire is just steel with a little bit of processing.
For products with little value add there’s not anywhere for the tax to be absorbed, and no real way for domestic producers to quickly scale up, even if they wanted to.
I work with contractors and my family own a GC company. After Covid, construction material prices increased a lot due to multiple reasons like supply chain issues, and high demand from the housing boom. Lumber, fencing materials, and steel products were all affected. Although some prices have go down from their peaks, many never returned to pre-2020 levels, so products like fence posts and barbed wire are still expensive.
Generalized inflation affects everything. Energy prices have gone up, labor prices have gone up.
The people who sell the barbed wire and wooden posts presumably like to be able to eat, so they need to raise their prices to be able to afford groceries, etc.
I am starting to think that there might be lot less competition on free markets than we think. And many markets tend to be established with big enough players. So they have stopped competing. If new entrants try to come well they might be undercut or simply bought out.
It is highly unlikely that big players are even able to emerge in a free market. All big businesses we know are big because they found a so-called moat. But I suppose we'll never know for sure as you have a greater chance of winning the lottery while simultaneously being struck by lightning than ever seeing a free market.
Tariffs I'm guessing. A fencepost in Canada is CAD$8 so $6. A roll of barbwire is US$70.
See UFA.com for Canadian prices. Keep in mind, there's a lot of variance in what people prefer to use, I'm just giving what I've always used and while prices have gone up, it sure hasn't gone up 2.5X here.
I assume the posts come from Canada, so are heavily tariffed. And the barbed wire might be produced in the US, but steel producers have raised their prices to match the level of tariffed imported goods.
Because people who sell wooden posts and barbed wire use pickup trucks, among other things that have gone up in price.
The pick-up thing is definitely true, and is also affecting the used market just as significantly
> but wooden posts and barbed wire
Less clear? Check your tariffs.
> but wooden posts and barbed wire, it's less clear why those are so much more expensive now.
I am seeing way more active paddocks of grazing cattle now as compared to a couple of years ago. The world is complex and there is never an expiation that can be given in a short soundbite, but the primary driver is no doubt that higher beef prices compelled more people to try and raise cattle, which resulted in them needing supplies required to raise cattle, and fences are one of those things you need to establish a secure paddock. The increase in demand for fencing supplies, without a corresponding increase in supply, necessities an increase in price.
yeah, it's called inflation, it really sucks for everyone except the people who receive the new money early (mainly the banking system, but also people w/liquid assets + finance adjacent industries like housing) we should avoid it oh well i guess a bunch of people will go bankrupt and then get bought up at distressed prices by people with access to new money early wait a second...
Its meat processors having a monopoly.
I realize saying RTFA is against the rules, but this exact point (meat processors profiting off the price hikes) is specifically discussed, and refuted, in the article:
> Four companies - Tyson, JBS, Cargill and National Beef - control around 85% of American beef processing.
> That high level of market concentration has drawn accusations of price-fixing, even from President Trump.
> So you might expect that those four firms are currently making huge profits from high beef prices. Yet the opposite is happening.
> Tyson, the biggest of the four, reported in May that it had lost more than $500m on beef in the first half of its financial year.
monopsony
Animal agriculture is a key driver of climate change: https://sentientmedia.org/how-does-livestock-affect-climate-...
Along with the high price, that's one more reason to not buy it.
In a recent Ezra Klein podcast about data center backlash he mentions being vegetarian and says something along the lines of "being anti data center because of water consumption is hypocritical if people eat meat"
Eh, that's pretty specious reasoning. If I start a business selling space water cannons that anyone can use to spray water at the ISS as it flies by. If these cannons are consuming whole farms worth of water in use and just blasting it out into space, you can still be mad at the water waste because you think that water could be put to better uses like growing animals for hot dogs and chicken nuggets, and not fleeting entertainment for people to have interplanetary water fights.
Respectfully, that doesn’t make a lot of sense.
Beef is particularly egregious.
Poultry and even pork are about an order of magnitude more efficient.
It's interesting how long the market was wildly subsidized to hide the true cost of beef.
There’s research now that high density rotational grazing does the opposite.
You have to cut out feedlot finishing to get those benefits on a macro scale, which would drastically reduce beef output. It's the same problem organic has, but maybe even worse since 99%? of cows are feedlot-finished.
Which isn't really a negative to me, but I think people should be honest about what is actually necessary to get the benefits of this form of beef production.
Link?
A person eating one single hamburger uses more water than an entire year of LLM use for the same person. Yet we are very concerned about water use in data centers, but nobody cares about McDonalds.
Respectfully, I would like to see a source or at least the math for that.
Here it is:
[The water footprint of a single hamburger is *significantly higher than* that of using a large language model (LLM) for a year. For example, the water used for one hamburger is primarily due to the irrigation of cattle feed crops, while data centers like xAI's Colossus 2 consume much less water overall.](https://duckduckgo.com/?q=A+person+eating+one+single+hamburg...)
States that it's significantly higher but the breakdown shows a 660gal vs 1000gal (Single Burger vs 1yr LLM Usage) water usage...
Item Water Footprint (Gallons)
Single Hamburger Approximately 660 gallons
Year of LLM Usage Approximately 1,000 gallons
Results also contain an important disclaimer: "Auto-generated based on listed sources. May contain inaccuracies."
You be the judge ;)
All economic activity is a key driver to climate change. Why single out one thing? You're clearly imposing a self-serving moral judgement on other people.
> All economic activity is a key driver to climate change
what a pointless thought-terminating cliché
> You're clearly imposing a self-serving moral judgement on other people.
Just because you are the wrong side of morality does not mean they are incorrect
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Where I can learn more about the genetic need of people of Sámi heritage to eat animal food?
When I tried to search for the details, I found only that it was a traditionally meat heavy diet.
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Please don't post snark on HN. The guidelines make it clear we're trying for something better here. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
The amount of beef eaten per person per year in the USA is absolutely insane anyway:
USA - 37kg/capita
UK - 18kg/capita
We're not exactly shy of roast beef on this island either - the French nicknamed us "rosbifs" for a reason.
According to the Economist magazine, the global problem is Chinese people eating more meat.
Shouldn't per-capita consumption be factored in? Otherwise "the global problem" just boils down to whichever country is the "biggest" (by population or by GDP).
That's a deeply biased stance though, isn't it? It seems to say that USA and Brazil eating vast amounts of beef, the latter clearing the Amazon to do so, isn't a problem, it's only a problem now because of the Chinese.
The US and Brazil have eaten a lot of beef for a significant amount of time, so that had already been priced into the market.
A sudden spike in price requires a change in the market - e.g., the Chinese suddenly starting to eat more beef, wildfires wiping out grazing land, fuel price spikes making it more expensive to ship the product around, screwworm outbreaks reducing cattle headcount, crackdown on migrant workers reducing available labor for meatpacking plants, etc.
The word "problem" lacks nuance here. But it's a reasonable stand-in for "the factor that shifted and is the root cause".
I don't remember when I first found out, but it blew my mind that sausages in the US are typically beef. Like, what? Sausages are like quintessentially pork products. Like the whole point is that you have a lot of off cuts of a cheap meat and you make sausages. Beef sausages? Yeah, that's like a step change in wealth, haha.
> that sausages in the US are typically beef
They are? That's not my personal experience, but maybe there's something unusual in the part of the US I live in. I mean, beef sausages exist and you can get them, but you generally have to choose them intentionally.
I don't know well "all other pork" and retail ground beef work as proxies for sausage meat. But ground beef roughly doubled in price from 2010 to the start of 2020. Before it did that, it was very close in price to "all other pork", and before 2000 a bit cheaper.
Sausages are typically pork in the us. Hot dogs are often beef though
I wouldn't say they're "typically" all beef. When you go shopping for something like hotdogs for instance, if you just pick up a package of "hot dogs" or "weiners" they'll typically be a mixture of chicken, turkey, pork, and maybe beef. For instance:
https://www.oscarmayer.com/products/00044700000045-bun-lengt...
Some people really look down on these kinds of products though and see this as a "mystery meat" of extremely poor quality cuts. The whole phrase of "knowing how the sausage is made" comes to mind. So that's then in comparison to "franks", which are often 100% beef and are often seen as higher quality:
https://www.oscarmayer.com/products/00044700073377-jumbo-bee...
Are they higher quality? Eh. They're probably about the same in the end. One big thing pushing up the popularity of beef franks over pork/chicken/turkey mix is an impression of Kosher hotdogs being of very high quality during the time when meat packing was really bad, so lots of even non-Jewish people will often see Kosher dogs as superior. Which, for obvious reasons, have beef and not pork.
Brats are usually pork. For example:
https://johnsonville.com/products/original-bratwurst/
This is then true for other kinds of common sausages as well. Kielbasa is usually a pork and beef combination, maybe with some chicken or turkey:
https://www.hillshirefarm.com/products/smoked-sausages/00044...
They even make a point to say "smoked sausage" versus "beef smoked sausage".
https://www.hillshirefarm.com/products/smoked-sausages/00044...
https://www.hillshirefarm.com/products/smoked-sausages/00044...
Things like chicken sausages are also quite popular.
https://www.aidells.com/products/lunch-dinner-sausage/007640...
And one can't forget things like andouille sausage which is quite popular in a lot of Cajun dishes.
https://www.aidells.com/products/lunch-dinner-sausage/007640...
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> And while meatpacking companies have increased the prices they charge for their beef, there is a limit. This is because supermarkets, restaurants – and US consumers – can, and will, simply switch to buying chicken or cheaper imported beef instead.
I think you would be amazed at how cost insensitive some Americans are and how large that cohort is. Ground beef would have to exceed $20/lb before I would consider altering my routine.
If you are buying one cut at a time and not being very efficient with it, the prices are certainly ridiculous. If each gram of beef is carefully prepared and allocated across weeks of meal prep, the economic situation changes pretty substantially. Batching effects can make it easier to afford expensive ingredients.
For a bachelor lifestyle, eating at home is appallingly wasteful. If I order delivery, I'm tossing out combo meals and unsolicited sides after paying $50+. If I shop for groceries, there are cans of soup too large for one sitting, there are canned vegetables too copious for one recipe, there are too many capers to use up before they expire, etc.
I was clearly deluded about the role of a supermarket butcher. Because when I rocked up to the counter, I saw appetizing cuts of steak and pork and swordfish, all carefully portioned for two or three servings. Now butcher shops have menus and price lists, but they do not come with a brochure, or instructions or a User Manual for the Inexperienced Householder.
So I ring the bell and a guy appears, wearing white coveralls and a hairnet and knows how to use knives. And I ask the butcher man, "could you kindly cut these swordfish steaks in half please?" And the man behind the counter attempts to demur: "oh... we aren't supposed to do that... oh, sanitary regulations... I shouldn't..."
So this is understandable, if post-processing food introduces health risks, I guess, but I stopped purchasing pre-packaged meats and freshly butchered meats, and especially no frozen meat, because the portions were made for couples and families, and regardless if the "expiration dates" were real or not, I could not stand there at home and hack apart a filet before cooking or thawing.
Passing strange, these delusions, that I thought butchers could cut meats for customers. I am seeking professional help.
Beef prices have become simply insane. The value I get from beef can no longer justify the expense, so I've simply stopped buying it at all. I've largely replaced it with pork. Pork used to be the most popular meat in the US. I wonder if it will be again.
Outside of a ribeye, I much prefer pork and eat it way more often. I'm rather selfishly afraid that everyone running from beef is going to cause the pork price to skyrocket, but I haven't seen it quite yet.
Maybe americans will start eating Philippino pag-pag? (recycled meat from landfills)
https://youtu.be/c7gDBVmgIRA
Probably, along with “meat fillers” and blends/grinds. And lots of ramen, which seems to have replaced old Depression-era standbys like hot dog casseroles and Campbell’s soup.
Same here, I haven't had beef in over 2 years now. Chicken and pork only now, mostly chicken, like 90% chicken is all I eat now. Insane.
Even discount beef has worse discounts. My grocery store changed out the 50% discount stickers for meat at its sell-by date to 30%.
I think I might just start mainlining lamb and veal. Not much cheaper than the beef these days.
The neat part is that there is no inflation here: you just substituted a worse product for a better one and our friends in the govt call it good.
>you just substituted a worse product for a better one and our friends in the govt call it good.
I agree that somewhat distorts the effect of inflation, but at the same time it has to be done for inflation measures to make any sense. Otherwise we'd still be measuring the prices of heating coal and whale blubber.
Because those are our only two options?
We ar perfectly capable of intelligently changing how we calculate inflation. And the current administration's idea that if an American stops buying something because they cannot afford it anymore, means inflation went down is delusional.
>We ar perfectly capable of intelligently changing how we calculate inflation.
What do you propose then? All the places where the BLS is "intelligently changing how we calculate inflation" creates controversy: hedonic/quality adjustments, substitution/weight changes, owners equivalent rent, the list goes on and on. What it practically boils down to is that people have an agenda (ie. inflation is high or low), and if the official numbers doesn't seem right to them, they accuse the current administration of fudging it, even if there's no evidence of methodology change.
There isn't really one single measure of inflation, despite what is often implied. There are many. The reason for that is that every measurement methodology distorts some aspect of the economy, so you (should) choose the measure that distorts the least for the aspect you care about.
I very much disagree that it's a worse product.
I knew a man who worked in the food industry for forty years. He told me to never eat U.S. pork the way it is processed today.
Anyone that truly knows how the sausage is made, so to speak, will tell you that in any country. Meat processing isn't pretty in any form.
i mean that cant be true if you also admit to only buying it because your preferred product became too expensive.
I never said beef was my preferred product, nor that I'm only buying pork because I can't justify buying beef. I like beef and pork equally, and have always bought both.
What I said was that the price of beef reached a point where it's not worth the money for me, so I'm not buying it. I've mostly replaced it with pork (and to a lesser degree, chicken).
Just to head off another potential misunderstanding, this also isn't a case of being unable to afford beef. I'm doing fine on the money front. It's a case of the cost/benefit ratio of beef no longer being favorable for me.
why weren't you always eating pork then? (I like both, prefer beef usually but buy pork often, dislike how hogs are treated tho compared to cows)
> why weren't you always eating pork then?
That's not what they said.
Why were you buying beef before, then? Hasn't pork always been cheaper than beef?
Historically, I've always bought both. It's nice to have variety. The difference now is that I'm not buying both.
because variety is the spice of life
I think Greenspan called it hedonics.
My father-in-law grew up on a small-time farm and then went into environmental engineering as a professor, and briefly worked on the Secretary of Agriculture's staff in the Biden administration. He has told me that there are 3-5 (can't remember the number) colossal meatpacking corporations in the US that have laid waste to smaller-time competition, and now that the market is captured their owners and shareholders can skim basically whatever they want out of the enterprise. He also was advocating to have policy written that would stop chronic underpayment of slaughterhouse and meatpacking workers at these colossal firms and was told it was politically inviable.
Unrelated to this, but I have Alpha-Gal Syndrome, the anaphylactic allergy to red meat, which is spreading rapidly as the ticks colonize every square inch of nature in the US. In Arkansas 20% of people tested on a big free testing day were sensitized to the galactose-alpha-1,3-galactose molecule (AGS is sensitization + symptoms, not just sensitization.)
I think that things are going to get weird with beef in the US in the next few decades.
I just learned about Alpha-Gal Syndrome yesterday through a Radiolab podcast. It was really interesting, but they didn't mention that it was spreading. I guess I shouldn't be surprised, since climate change.
From the article:
"Four companies - Tyson, JBS, Cargill and National Beef - control around 85% of American beef processing.
That high level of market concentration has drawn accusations of price-fixing, even from President Trump.
So you might expect that those four firms are currently making huge profits from high beef prices. Yet the opposite is happening.
Tyson, the biggest of the four, reported in May that it had lost more than $500m on beef in the first half of its financial year."
> In Arkansas 20% of people tested on a big free testing day were sensitized to the galactose-alpha-1,3-galactose molecule
What effect does this have on the person?
I wouldn't take the 20% figure at face value. If you only test for antibody reaction, you get an implausibly high number.
>A study of blood samples from military recruits, taken between 2001 and 2007, found that nearly half the recruits from south-central Missouri, where Ellison lives, had allergy antibodies for alpha-gal. [...]
>Only a fraction of people with antibodies to alpha-gal become allergic to it, and those who are often don’t realize it. Some react only to red meat. Some also react to milk, cheese, and other animal products that have alpha-gal. The symptoms are so delayed that people often blame them on food poisoning, irritable-bowel syndrome, gluten intolerance. In the U.S., according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, as many as half a million people have alpha-gal syndrome, but other researchers suspect that the number is higher.
https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2026/07/06/the-tick-that-...
they could have an allergic reaction to red meat
The article specifically talks about how some of those huge meatpacking companies are losing money on cattle. I don't think it's them to blame in totality here.
you can increase profits through volume or margin.
right now we are in a whole economy experiment to see how long you can increase margin through price increases and shrinkflation.
There should be laws ensuring that every market there should be at least 5-6 players and is free or is declared natural monopoly/monopsony and regulated.
The in between you have all the bad from monopolies in the forms of cartels.
Save you a click:
"The rancher is selling calves for record sums, but is not better off because he has higher costs. The feedlot company is selling for all-time high prices, but it also has to pay them in the first place. The packers are losing money because there is a limit to what they can charge. Restaurants and supermarkets also can only increase prices by so much."
Many people see this as a problem, but I see it as a normal function of market economies. Disruptions, changes in government policy, changes in consumer behavior, and more will over the long term just work themselves out. Of course some policies or seemingly "voluntary" policies may cause undue price increases, but even those work themselves out.
At the end of the day as more and more people want to consume the same products the prices for those are going to just go up.
When I see folks really hammering on price increases for products like beef or gas I can't help but think of how absolutely screwed we are in terms of addressing climate change if it involves consumer behavior.
A lot of these markets aren't really functioning when there are many middlemen that have an 2-4 company oligopoly that choke out any actual competition.
Many markets don't really have 'competition'
No, markets still function anyway over the long term (monopolies go bankrupt and are disrupted all the time) and if you are worried about oligopoly you want to ensure that communism and state ownership of the means of production is stamped out to prevent monopolies.
Ah, yes, clearly communism is the reason for high inflation in the US...
That wasn't what I wrote or communicated.
The comment you were replying to said that the reason for high prices is oligopoly and you've replied that the way to prevent oligopoly is to be against communism, so logically it follows that fighting communism would help lower the prices, no?
Well, I guess if the OP was under the mistaken belief that the only reason for high prices was because of an oligopoly, then sure. But that premise is incorrect and it would be a bit bizarre to suggest that given at a minimum we could look to American tariffs or something never mind the pandemic helicopter money that was dispersed.
But if you want to follow that train of thought with that faulty premise, then sure yes we must stop communism to lower prices because the OP says that oligopoly is solely responsible for price increases, so it follows that further restriction on market participants further increases prices. I don't agree with that premise, but if that's your view and the OPs view then it would be logically consistent for you to also advocate stamping out communism to lower prices.
So it was just a non-sequitur? Nobody was suggesting communism.
(Also communism doesn't follow the same rules as monopolies.)
No it wasn't a non-sequitur. Instead of repeating myself I'll just link to this good explanation: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49197575
That explanation doesn't work.
They advocated for competition instead of ogliopoly. You decided to talk about a completely different and irrelevant way there could be a lack of competition. Even if your conclusion is right, that they would be against communism if it was a realistic threat here, there was no reason to bring it up.
I could say that a bunch of badly placed volcanos would reduce competition and they must be against those volcanos. Such a statement is technically true but it's a non-sequitur.
You're free to disagree with my explanation but it's logical and consistent and I'm happy to continue to stand by that.
> Many people see this as a problem, but I see it as a normal function of market economies.
Both things can be true.
Beef and gas prices are up due to policy (tariffs, war) If anything, it shows how effective government policy can be. Ironically higher beef and gas prices are quite good for reducing carbon emissions.
Well they are up at least in part due to policy such as tariffs and war which unfortunately is imposed upon us in the US (Russia invading Ukraine, Iran destabilizing the Middle East), but I also think an important factor is the increase in global demand for beef and other meat products.
Gas prices are a little less clear as it seems primarily the increases have been due to Iranian destabilization in the Middle East and less so tariffs, but gas prices do effect each country differently so increases here in the US are a lot less painful than, say, Singapore.
I agree with you that increases in the prices of both are good for reducing carbon emissions. I think it's interesting to see how folks are reacting to, what in my mind seem to be still incredibly low prices relative to the negative externalities. If we factored in the destruction and harm we're doing to the planet gas in the US should probably be more in the neighborhood of $20/gallon or something (that's a made up number and I'm just guessing) and beef probably should be quite a bit more expensive too. Though I think it's also worth pointing out gas prices are still lower than when Russia unjustly invaded Ukraine and if we can stomach those we can stomach these too.
Things might not work itself out in desirable ways. I imagine what will happen is that portions will shrink, and become adulterated. For example, a restaurant ostensibly using ground beef might partially substitute something cheaper... Food fraud is rampant in developing countries. One example:
https://www.foodnavigator.com/Article/2025/07/28/food-fraud-...
https://scijournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/jsfa...
Well if you care about portion size or the introduction of substitutes then you can change your buying habits. We only eat out for dinner at great restaurants because I can cook better food at home in a lot of cases.
You're going to have to change those habits anyway because even without inflation that has been ongoing since the pandemic began you still have a lot of pressure to push prices higher on beef and other "luxury" goods as global demand continues to increase, the environment becomes worse off and requires further regulation, &c. It's perhaps a head start, but the long term trend isn't toward lower prices regardless of the impact of inflation (for example).
> We only eat out for dinner at great restaurants because I can cook better food at home in a lot of cases.
I also rarely eat in a restaurant, but when I do I make it a great one (to me -- I'm not talking only or even mostly about highfalutin places). Aside from being a better inherent experience, it also makes it more of a special event, which increases the pleasure I get from it. Any fantastic thing experienced frequently ceases to feel fantastic.
The truth is that most people can cook better (and healthier) food than most restaurants. The value proposition restaurants provide is mostly experience (a lovely night out in a pleasant environment where you're being waited on is fun) and convenience (just because you could cook it better doesn't mean you want to, particularly for lengthy and involved dishes).
> I imagine what will happen is that portions will shrink
I wouldn't mind this up to a point. One of the things that I find really irritating about most US restaurants (I'm an American, if it matters) is that the portion sizes tend to be far too large.
Inflation mainly. And it's going to get worse as the Republicans appear to keep purposely doing things to cause inflation (tariffs, pointless wars based on ego, negotiating in bad faith and making money from said failed negotiations by insider trading, etc).
As a society, we have organized ourselves in a form where the marketers get the most cut than the producers of goods and services. It’s unfortunate and amendable with capable leaders
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Welcome to the Polycrisis. Climate change, economic collapse, etc...
Just wait till El Nino hits this year.