The Economy

Indeed. My whole purpose in life is "blind support" of "Big Agra." It has nothing to do with not being a moron.

Two things I never understand. 1) If it's possible to unilaterally set prices (greed!), why the fuck did eggs ever cost less than they are costing right now? What happened suddenly to make people so "greedy"? 2) And whenever these conversations come up (the price of gas!), why don't I ever get an explanation for why they suddenly decided not to be greedy when the price comes off a greed-induced spike higher?

So many people who buy into idiocy like that over and over again. ... but none of them will actually go into the egg business themselves, which apparently is as good as just printing money.

 

One of the more amazing aspects of this is that the St. Louis Fed tracks egg prices: Average Price: Eggs, Grade A, Large (Cost per Dozen) in U.S. City Average

And working back from memory a couple of things happened (that are supported by their series).

There was an avian flu outbreak in 2014 / 2015 that sent egg prices higher. Then from 2016 to 2019, egg prices dropped back into the range they had been, even a bit lower. Then the pandemic hit. ... and throughout 2020 (early in the pandemic), the price of eggs actually plummeted for several months from about $2 a dozen to $1.35 a dozen, as there was a giant decrease in demand at the beginning of the pandemic (where was the "greed" then?).

Then consumer prices started to take off. Supply and demand are the natural regulators of prices, but inflation is primarily a monetary phenomenon, and the massive increase to the money supply spilled over from being just concentrating in bubbled up risk assets the way it was throughout more than a decade of QE into the prices of consumer goods and services, because all of the "stimulus" everyone wanted created the predictable: too much money chasing too few goods and services.

So prices of eggs rose, just as the prices of just about everything has risen. And then an avian flu outbreak last year causes the deaths of 43 million hens leading to egg inventories being down almost 30 percent (by December), just in time for the holiday season when demand for eggs goes up.

You'd think people would go right for the obvious: A persistent drop in supply of eggs (the main factor) that builds into a time of increased demand = skyrocketing prices of eggs.

But nope. It's "greed" or "gouging."

So again, when the price of eggs plummeted when demand was weak during the first year of the pandemic, does it mean that the same exact people who are now greedy were overly generous then?

It's the same old stupidity to the nth degree.