There’s a lot of food for thought here. Somehow all the eggs are appearing to be loading into one basket. As consumers, we are always looking for a bargain. It’s scary to think that some storm or pandemic has the ability to affect the world’s economy because an outfit had the ability to offer its goods at lower prices longer than the small producers and then gobbled up competition. We like a bargain, but we seem to be destined towards paying for it the end.
And you know all too well the impact consolidation had had on farm communities, Art. When I was doing some freelance work out your way a couple of years ago, a banker in Sac City our age who grew up there said when he was kid you could fill a school bus in two square miles from all the farm families. Not so now.
Deere announced new products coming out of Waterloo just a few months before it began laying off several hundred workers -- after mounting hiring fairs just three years ago coming out of the pandemic. The plant floor, a large portion of which was devoted to tractor cab assembly, was under renovation in preparation for those new products - a new massive tractor, and, earlier, a self propelled "autonomous" tractor. Impressive products, but they take fewer people to operate, and maybe to produce. With earnings running 30 percent below the previous year, making bigger products at proportionately lower unit cost, and moving some of the traditional work to places where it can be made less expensively, probably makes corporate economic sense, but at a socio-economic cost within a community that one can only hope has bottomed out. Kind of like laying out and printing newspapers at regional design centers and printing facilities. Or the automakers cranking out more and bigger trucks and SUVs and much fewer cars and light pickups, and dumping former plant sites on local communities to redevelop.
Interesting that you quote old IBP CEO Robert W. "Bob" Peterson. I remember about 40 years ago he was quoted in The Des Moines Register as saying, "We like to think of ourselves as the Oakland Raiders of the meatpacking industry." That was back when John Madden, Ken "The Snake" Stabler & Co. were the unquestioned badasses of the NFL. Mr. Peterson was probably more accurate in the long run than he could have even fathomed. The Raiders have moved from Oakland to L.A., back to Oakland and now to Las Vegas. Snake and Big John are dead and gone and "Da Raidahs" have had just two winning seasons since their last Super Bowl appearance in 2002-03. IBP ownership changed hands like the Raiders changed cities and successor Tyson's profits dropped by half and half again in 2022 and 2023, respectively.
But do I glean a small sliver of symmetry with Mr. Trump re: consolidation of overseas ownership of security interests? Likewise elsewhere: opposition to carbon sequestration by global-warming enthusiasts?
I have always believed we have common goals but disparate means--but apparently our jumbled times are provoking some cross-currents.
It's somewhat hard for consumers to see what's going on because for the most part, these industries figured out how to leave producers out of the profit--farmers work for free and the mega corps take all the profit. The exception has been egg producers who increased their profits by something like 700% when eggs went from $.89 to $4 per dozen.
There’s a lot of food for thought here. Somehow all the eggs are appearing to be loading into one basket. As consumers, we are always looking for a bargain. It’s scary to think that some storm or pandemic has the ability to affect the world’s economy because an outfit had the ability to offer its goods at lower prices longer than the small producers and then gobbled up competition. We like a bargain, but we seem to be destined towards paying for it the end.
And you know all too well the impact consolidation had had on farm communities, Art. When I was doing some freelance work out your way a couple of years ago, a banker in Sac City our age who grew up there said when he was kid you could fill a school bus in two square miles from all the farm families. Not so now.
Deere announced new products coming out of Waterloo just a few months before it began laying off several hundred workers -- after mounting hiring fairs just three years ago coming out of the pandemic. The plant floor, a large portion of which was devoted to tractor cab assembly, was under renovation in preparation for those new products - a new massive tractor, and, earlier, a self propelled "autonomous" tractor. Impressive products, but they take fewer people to operate, and maybe to produce. With earnings running 30 percent below the previous year, making bigger products at proportionately lower unit cost, and moving some of the traditional work to places where it can be made less expensively, probably makes corporate economic sense, but at a socio-economic cost within a community that one can only hope has bottomed out. Kind of like laying out and printing newspapers at regional design centers and printing facilities. Or the automakers cranking out more and bigger trucks and SUVs and much fewer cars and light pickups, and dumping former plant sites on local communities to redevelop.
Interesting that you quote old IBP CEO Robert W. "Bob" Peterson. I remember about 40 years ago he was quoted in The Des Moines Register as saying, "We like to think of ourselves as the Oakland Raiders of the meatpacking industry." That was back when John Madden, Ken "The Snake" Stabler & Co. were the unquestioned badasses of the NFL. Mr. Peterson was probably more accurate in the long run than he could have even fathomed. The Raiders have moved from Oakland to L.A., back to Oakland and now to Las Vegas. Snake and Big John are dead and gone and "Da Raidahs" have had just two winning seasons since their last Super Bowl appearance in 2002-03. IBP ownership changed hands like the Raiders changed cities and successor Tyson's profits dropped by half and half again in 2022 and 2023, respectively.
Art: Your editor missed an small error. Ms. Khan's first name is Lina -- Federal Trade Commission Chair, Lina M. Khan.
https://www.ftc.gov/about-ftc/commissioners-staff/lina-m-khan
Old Radio Guy should not be catching a grizzled, ink stained editor. Old Radio Guy was helped by savvy friend.
Love it!
But do I glean a small sliver of symmetry with Mr. Trump re: consolidation of overseas ownership of security interests? Likewise elsewhere: opposition to carbon sequestration by global-warming enthusiasts?
I have always believed we have common goals but disparate means--but apparently our jumbled times are provoking some cross-currents.
It's somewhat hard for consumers to see what's going on because for the most part, these industries figured out how to leave producers out of the profit--farmers work for free and the mega corps take all the profit. The exception has been egg producers who increased their profits by something like 700% when eggs went from $.89 to $4 per dozen.