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.'"
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!
... a hair below the capital gains rate will feed me peanuts and allow me to upgrade my housing from pizza boxes to refrigerator boxes.
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
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.
My work here is dung.
Guess I'll just just have to forgo bacon in the morning. I'll just have sausage or ham instead.
What political party do you join when you don't like Bible-thumpers *or* hippies?
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.