Category: Uncategorized

The American meat packing industry is a monopoly built from regulation, not free market economics. As you might have read before, “Four companies slaughtered about 85% of U.S. grain-fattened cattle that are made into steaks, beef roasts and other cuts of meat for consumers in 2018.” This level of concentration (four companies) is not a mistake. It was deliberately created by lobbyists and politicians to line the pockets of large companies while hampering competition from smaller meat packers.

As Joel Salatin states in the below YouTube video, “It’s not that there aren’t farmers like me that want to do this. It’s not there aren’t eaters who want to eat it. It’s not that the economies aren’t there. It’s not that we don’t know how to do this. It’s not that we need more infrastructure development to figure out how to do this. It’s that these very arbitrary and capricious regulations that were designed to keep industrial short cutters and opaque food systems in check, that don’t then scale down and apply in a local, transparent neighborhood friendly kind of operation.”

The steps for a small, local meat processor to turn their livestock into commercial-grade meat has become a boondoggle.

Kate Miller outlines the need for more small plants in this post, however, she also outlines the many obstacles presented for a new plant owner. Not only do owners need to understand the regulations, audits, insurance, and testing required to sell USDA-certified meats but they also need to have a sales pipeline sufficient enough once they get through all of those hurdles. She says “The reality is that a small plant asks ownership to be skilled traders of two inherently different commodities while being technically skilled operations managers. Does this sound reasonable to you? It doesn’t to me. It sounds like a lot of sleepless nights and heartburn.”

The Biden Administration has attempted to alleviate this situation by providing small meat processors with $1 billion in federal grants available. Although this sounds like a large investment into improving small farmer operations, the industry does not fully agree. As pointed out in the linked Missouri Independent article, Greg Gunthorp says “It’s a complex problem to solve, I don’t know that they delved into it hard enough.” Indeed, it is a complex problem created by regulation. “They’ve exceeded any efficiencies associated with economies of scale and are now engaged in controlling the marketplace” said Bill Bullard, CEO of R-CALF USA, which advocates for independent cattle producers.

What Regulations Created This Mess?

Some research delving into the history of meat processing regulation in benefit of large meat processors.

What Are the Next Steps?

“Man nobody out here’s got it figured out” – v.3005, Childish Gambino 

We live in an imperfect world, with imperfect signals and humans are imperfect beings. Yet, we try to tell others the best way to live each other’s lives. Nobody’s got it figured out. All we can do is try to be the best version of ourselves, whatever that version may be, and keep on keeping on.

Relationships are dynamic. Life is dynamic. All the blog posts I read and the podcasts I listen to seem to simplify life into a 3-minute read or an hour-long listen. But life isn’t a static set of paragraphs, life is happening around us 24/7/365 for decades. We have to be able to build a lifestyle that deals with dynamism, over a long period of time.

I struggle all the time figuring out what’s right vs. wrong. I think we all do. But if we were to read all of the blog posts about happiness and consume all of the content about freeing our minds, we’d believe that everything is simple once we have figured out the secret.

The secret doesn’t exist. One day you might be happy, the next not so much. Some days take more energy to persevere, others seem fruitful without lifting a finger. Your mood can swing from happiness one minute and bitter agony the next. Life is dynamic and ever-changing.

I haven’t found the solution, nor have I created the lifestyle I want. I’ve had glimpses of success but most of the time I end up back in the cycle of life. I’ve never found the secret, and I don’t think I ever will. Instead, I try to focus on Stoicism. I trust that if I take care of what I can, I will be happier moving forward. It might have its ups, it will definitely have its hiccups, but life, moving forward, is much better than looking back in despair.

I’m back for the Twelve Days of Christmas! I’ll be publishing a post each day until Christmas regarding my faith in humanity.

Too many people worry about arriving at success. If you atune your mindset to being grateful for your today, you’ll realize you’ve already arrived at success and each day is another day to soak it in.

We need a break from the world when we’re connected all the time. This weekend I’m laying low. 

Yesterday, I wrote a pretty lenthy piece on the silent revolution coming to beuacracies, big corporations and banks. I used the word “middleman” to describe their rise to power and how they’ve maintained their power. However, that doesn’t mean all middlemen are bad or shouldn’t be around in the new economy.

I still think trusted advisors are heavily necessary in the peer-to-peer economy. From real estate agents to recruiters to marketers to handymen, lawyers, mechanics, and financial advisors. They will still have their role.

Their role is far different than the middleman who have typically derived power. Instead of using their knowledge to push regulation or to help themselves, these middlemen use their expertise to help connect peers to other peers. They are a connection within the economy, not a way of building barriers of entry.

I cannot see a world without middlemen but I can see a world where middlemen’s powers are limited to their ability to help others.

Boxers that don’t bunch. Like spandex made out of cotton.