US Agricultural Economists Say Bacon Shortage Is Hogwash

PolygamousRanchKid writes "The economics of the current drought are likely to nose up prices for bacon and other pork products next year, by as much as 10 percent. But U.S. agricultural economists are dismissing reports of a global bacon shortage that lent sizzle to headlines and Twitter feeds last week. Simply put, the talk of scarcity is hogwash. 'Use of the word 'shortage' caused visions of (1970s-style) gasoline lines in a lot of people's heads, and that's not the case,' said Steve Meyer, president of Iowa-based Paragon Economics and a consultant to the National Pork Producers Council and National Pork Board. 'If the definition of shortage is that you can't find it on the shelves, then no, the concern is not valid. If the concern is higher cost for it, then yes.'"

Comments

As a Software Developer I Too Have Very Scary News

[eldavojohn]

Yea verily, we may have escaped the terrifying "bacon shortage" foretold by our farmer-sages but as a ones-and-zeros smith, I will reveal a much scarier future that is imminent and knocking at our door: a ones and zeros shortage. Yes, that's right, you heard me, Earth has reached its quota of ones and zeros. As our localized reserves of information go up, elsewhere in the universe entropy must be accounted for in order to preserve the Second Law of Thermodynamics. We have all but destroyed Alpha Centuri with viscous randomness as we greedily ate up our own terrestrial order and logic. Physics has heard of our blasphemy and she is vengeful!

What can you do? Well, as a developer who can write in many languages including C, I will be able to squeeze much more usage out of your precious ones and zeros than, say, my Indian counterparts. Oh, sure, now software is cheap but the demand is imminent and workers like myself will be harder to find than a two on your hard drive. Knowing that violent unrest will break out when people can no longer access their Farmvilles and pornography, I offer my services at a meager rate so nigh our hour of darkness. Friends, readers, Romneys, rich and potential employers -- I am not asking for much to protect your software as a ones and zeros guardian ... a hair below the capital gains rate will feed me peanuts and allow me to upgrade my housing from pizza boxes to refrigerator boxes.

Thou hath wrought the wrath of thine swine overlords and thou hath felt its mighty cloven hoof. Now I am simply asking you that, in your cellars where you have squirreled pound upon pound of bacon inside deep freeze upon deep freeze inside freight container upon freight container, you employ me and house me to ensure all your computing needs are safe and secure among thine horded cured brine meats.

I urge you, take this offer now before the coming very real and very well explained (see above) shortage renders my colleagues and I safe inside massive corporations and extremely financially secured without need for employ.

Nothing to see here

[drinkypoo]

The concern is increased prices, it has never been that you won't be able to get bacon but that you will have to pay twice as much for it.

Re:Nothing to see here

[Anonymous Coward]

speaking as a card-carrying Republican, I would suggest that perhaps not everyone DESERVES bacon. I see no reason we should provide bacon to people that don't work for it. I'm sick and tired of going to the store to buy bacon, and on the way home I see people carrying bacon down the street that they were given for free. It makes my bacon that much less valuable. If the price of bacon doubles tomorrow, that just means the freeloaders are getting a more valuable handout.

Re:Nothing to see here

[CommieLib]

It does get tiring explaining basic economics every few months. Look...

Farmer Brown (or, more likely, subsector 12 of Hive 11 of the Archer Daniels Midland Collective) raised x pigs over the past couple of years. The value of x was determined by figuring out how much money they could make versus raising, say, chickens. The price of pork has risen now, so now the value of x has risen. There's a lag, as we have to wait for the piglets to mature, but farmers are in it to make money - the price has spoke, the market wants more pork.

So if we do engage a price control, that is, we limit the amount that Farmer Brown can charge for the pork, he won't trim his sails, he'll just keep raising chickens, despite that what people really want is more pork. A price control is a statement that "yes, people want this more, but you cannot profit from it." And thus people will not take the extra measures to provide it that people would prefer.

Re:Nothing to see here

[FreeFire]

Are Americans so obese that they can't live without cutting their bacon intake in half?

I just came back from the store where I purchased the largest chest freezer that they have. I intend to stockpile a month's worth of bacon for myself until the crisis recedes. My wife indicated that perhaps I should have also purchased a freezer for her.

Is she planning to freeze herself until the crisis is over?

I'll just eat sausage instead

[crazyjj]

Guess I'll just just have to forgo bacon in the morning. I'll just have sausage or ham instead.

Re:As a Software Developer I Too Have Very Scary N

[somersault]

Well, at least his post lived up to his sig this time

Bacon Prices On The Rise

[cfulton]

NOOO. Bacon is the central pillar of my diet. BLTs, Bacon Omelets, Bacon wrapped meat of all kinds, Bacon wrapped bacon. How will I live without my lovely bacon?

Re:Government Economists

[dkleinsc]

A shortage is a situation where the demand for a product at a particular price is higher than the supply of that product. Basic capitalism responds to that by raising the price of the product until demand matches supply (this goes back to at least Adam Smith, possibly earlier). Hence the price of the product reflects, in part, the scarcity of that product.

And in the case of bacon (or other forms of pig meat), there are plenty of substitute goods, so what will happen is that people who are willing and able to pay the higher price for it will get it, and those that aren't won't get it. It's that simple. And longer term, because the prices are higher some people who would have done other businesses will focus on producing hogs because that's where the money is, which means the problem will solve itself.

Isn't amazing when capitalism does what it's supposed to?