"Beef Prices at All-time High, and Going Higher" Topic

Apparently, it's official, as if you didn't already know, if you eat the stuff.

Beef prices are at an all-time high, and are expected to climb further.

Recently, I saw Filet Mignon for $24 USD a pound at the Raley's grocery store, and New York Steaks for $20 USD a pound (grass-fed, at Safeway. I suppose grain-fed would cost even more.).

Can't imagine what it would cost at the butcher shop. No doubt, it would cause a heart-attack.

Not sure which is the better long-term commodity investment, e.g. gold and silver bullion, or beef futures.

Right now, it appears beef futures are, since they are climbing, while metal bullion is falling.

Some day soon a gang of desperados will appear at a grocery store. They will leap from their horses and dash into the store. Brandishing their weapons, menacing all in sight, they will demand, not money, but hamburger.

Egads! Around here the highest beef price I have seen (for good quality oven roast) is c. $5.60 USD per pound. Move out to the West, young man, go West….

Stew meat is no longer cheap.
However, there is a $2 USD a pound difference between my favorite grocery store on the way home and the one on the OTHER way home.

Haunt your grocery store until you learn on which day
they turn-over the meat case.

Typically, meat (especially beef) which is close or at the
'sell by' date will be reduced, often as much as 60 %
or more.

I bought some nice NY strip steaks yesterday which had
been marked down by 50 %.

Elk is the way to go. We have a freezer loaded with a bull and cow.

Heading out tomorrow to see if we can fill the last bull tag – last day. Hoping to down 4 more cows in late season (December).

Of course then we might have to give some away as the freezers would be overflowing…

Just grilled a tenderloin tonight.

Liver and onions last Thurs (probably another batch tomorrow. As Alton Brown says – thems good eats…

Stop subsidizing ethanol production and meat prices will fall.

Some day soon a gang of desperados will appear at a grocery store.

The customary way to steal beef is on the hoof. It transports itself, makes the whole process simpler and more rewarding.

That assumes your common desperado of today even knows that beef comes from cattle. I default to my anatomy student in Oklahoma who was shocked, shocked I tell you, to learn that meat is muscle.

Yea, I wish they'd get off the ethanol thing, since that's when all meat and poultry prices really spiked.

Let them make ethanol with weeds, and garden waste/lawn clippings, instead of with corn (I'd be fine if they wanted to use the cobs, and stalks though).

I'm in Cali, and the further West I go here in the state, the higher the prices get, due to the urban megacity by the bay. Someone's gotta pay for all the overpaid bureaucrats and legislators salaries with their exhorbitant taxes.

Problem with Beef is that is the most wasteful meat to produce. Would be better if Cows fed on glass & not soya meal. Once the ogallala aquifer runs out the dust bowl area will only be suitable for Beef production.

People are working on using plant waste instead of corn for ethanol but have problem with breaking down the cellulose & other material to allow the enzyme & bacteria make ethanol, are getting there slowly.

Instead of brewing ethanol would be better to use electric vehicles. Their range is limited at present but fast charging is close & is worth looking into flow cell batteries (instead of filling up with gas, fill up with replaceable & reusable fluid).

Instead of brewing ethanol would be better to use electric vehicles. Their range is limited at present but fast charging is close & is worth looking into flow cell batteries (instead of filling up with gas, fill up with replaceable & reusable fluid).

The problem here is efficiency and the power grid. Whether your engine is gas or electric, it takes the same amount of energy to move a given mass at a given rate of acceleration. That energy has to come from somewhere. In an internal combustion engine, it comes directly from burning hydrocarbon fuel. In an electric engine, it comes indirectly from the power grid, which likely derives that power from power plants that burn hydrocarbon fuel. So the question of efficiency thus becomes how much energy is lost in the processes of moving the various components of the vehicle's energy system (its engine and power source) and the payload (passengers and cargo) at a given rate a given distance. In the case of a direct internal combustion engine, the overall efficiency involves not only the internal efficiency of the power system, but also the efficiency of the infrastructure necessary to obtain, process, store and distribute the fuel used by the vehicle. This is compared to the efficiency of the infrastructure necessary to produce and distribute the electricity that powers an electric vehicle (as well as that vehicle's own electrical storage systems).

Further, one must consider whether the current power system within a given region has the capacity to produce and distribute the power to meet the demand of electric vehicles. We certainly could not sustain an immediate full switchover to electric vehicles necessary for the world's current transportation usage! No, we'd have to build the power plants necessary to make that electricity, and we'd have to mine/collect, process, etc. whatever fuel is used by those power plants. And, of course, that still leaves aside the issue of whether that entire process would actually be more energy efficient, environmentally friendly, and economically sustainable than the current model.

There's no easy panacea here.

But the truth remains that ethanol from corn is not the solution, either now or in the foreseeable future, and in actuality only makes the situation worse on all fronts-- economically and environmentally.

"Beef Prices at All-time High, and Going Higher" Topic

every thing does – its called inflation.

As the world becomes more affluent the market for beef increases. Demand equates to higher prices. Beef is probably the least efficient mass foodstuff to produce.

Given the chemical crap which is pumped into US beef, why not look for safer alternatives?

Most people, myself included, could do to eat a bit less meat anyways.

What's that thing the priests of economics say? The market solves everything?

Tripling of prices, in just a few years, isn't regular inflation, it's due to "quantitative easing", or as some referred to it in the good old days, devaluing the currency by printing $1 USD Trillion a year to prop up the stock market, thus causing massive commodities inflation.

Got a pound of hamburger today for $7.00 USD! I can remember when that was the price of a steak.

An easy to follow report from the University of Guelph (analogous to Texas A+M in the US):

PDF link

While it deals with food prices in Canada, I'm sure there are parallels with the US situation. It does state that inflation has a mininimal impact on food prices.