Cattleman: You may well be right. However when we consider the packer’s captive supplies the notion of supply and demand driving live prices becomes harder to accept. When I see price increases of 10 cents per pound almost overnight I tend to think something other than changes in supply or demand would be behind it. Could be driven by trying to squeeze a competitor…
We have only to remember how the packers dropped the price of fats on the same day as the Federal Government announced the first BSE support program in 2003 so that the packers could capture the government subsidy for themselves. That had nothing to do with supply or demand. Also, prices increased when the packers were under government scrutiny for price fixing.
We have only to remember how the packers dropped the price of fats on the same day as the Federal Government announced the first BSE support program in 2003 so that the packers could capture the government subsidy for themselves. That had nothing to do with supply or demand. Also, prices increased when the packers were under government scrutiny for price fixing.
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