Chickens, Eggs, Corn And Hanger Steaks
RTWNews Service (Atlanta, GA) There's another tragic result of the world oil problem. There are a lot of ethanol plants coming on line and they are buying up all the corn. Farmers are planting more; but, the price is up about 60% over last year. NYTimes, online.
The tragedy? Cattle farmers are slaughtering younger animals resulting in less prime beef on the market (.5% rather than 2%) driving up beef prices. Peter Lugar in New York is taking fewer reservations and closing earlier at night. NYTimes, online. Wall Street denizens are up in arms, making irrational trading decisions, further driving up the price of crude oil.
In an under-reported side story, Venezuelan beef supplies disappeared from Venezuelan supermarkets last February, "leaving only unsavory bits like chicken feet on store shelves" according to The Washington Post, online.
"Venezuela's government plans to import… 11,000 tons of Bolivian Beef a year," The Washington Post, online, further shrinking the global supply of beef, sure to run up the price of a good hanger steak, in this author's opinion.
(An aside, when did skirt steak, "a long, flat piece of beef cut from the diaphragm muscle" used for fajitas after marinating, become hanger steak? When restaurants figured out they could sell more and charge more by changing its name. They eat a lot of fajitas in Venezuela don't they?)
The average spot price per barrel of Venezuelan crude is up a bit more than $9.00 since February. Energy Information Administration (U.S. Government). Chavez is paying for Bolivian hanger steak with petro dollars!
So, which shortage is driving which shortage? I say there's a simple solution. Vegetarianism. No more beef. We'll drive those Iowa farmers to their knees. The Venezuelans and Saudi's won't be far behind.
Author's note: The only unsupported "fact" in this hard-hitting investigative piece is that Peter Lugar is the cause of the irrational activity on Wall Street. On the other hand, the author's fanciful conclusions drawn from the facts are for your entertainment only. You shouldn't rely on them. Or should you?
3 comments:
Here in California, in the time of Spanish land grants, cattle were raised for hides. No refrigeration so the meat was mostly thrown out. It was perfectly acceptable for a person wandering through to kill a steer or heifer to eat (the probably .1%) as long as he put the hide in a place where it would cure properly. Of course, there was less demand for oil in the 1800s, too.
The increased price of corn was an issue in the recent Mexican election -- and American demand for ethanol was blamed.
Of course, we're still paying farmers not to grow things, right?
And the Brazilians -- who have converted from gas to alcohol fuel -- use a sugar-based product, as I understand it, not corn. But a lot of plants will make alcohol... and I'm here to tell you that's true....
Hiya,
I'm here for a little FYI... just giving you the heads up that my blog will be changing to a private blog.
If you'd like access to it, just leave me a comment on my blog. I can add your email address to my 'approved readers' list.
Cheers,
Michelle
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