Inflation Watch Thread - Holy Guacamole

[BIG_DADDY]

I guess some of that liquidity is hitting the system now. Just went grocery shopping and stopped at the Fish Market. After that I went to Target to pick up a foam roller. $3 avocado, really? $43 a pound for King Crab up $5lb. in just the last week. $30.76 a pound for Halibut. Target had a foam roller for $26.95 plus tax for a piece of friggen foam. Hello Amazon. Went to SF the other day and got two martini’s. The damage, $30 plus tax and tip and some other fee they hitting customers up for these days to pay for their employees health care, all for a couple splashes of vodka. The black market is really going to start flourishing. I already source and buy all of my food directly in Southern Oregon and bring it back down with me. It’s all cash only, even the butcher. I would like to have those kinds of contacts here but it is a lot harder. Southern Oregon is a unique place. So what’s it like where you live and where are you seeing inflation and how are you dealing with it? Unfortunately I think this is just the very beginning especially when it comes to quality food.

[Mr. Laz]

Originally Posted by mikeyis4dcats.

sorry, I should have phrased it better, I wasn't questioning, just saying how cheap a new one is to operate versus and old one. and pointing out how bad uprights are compared to chests.

Ours is rated at $39/yr, but it's just a cheap $150 one from Sams.

no problem

yea, just looking to get a cheap chest freezer to dump bulk stuff into ... probably wouldn't even have it plugged in all the time, i dunno.

I hate the upright one i use now. Frozen stuff is constantly falling out when you open the door and almost crushing a toe.

[Mr. Laz]

Originally Posted by Bwana

You could do some Cattle Rustling. Just don't get caught.

well if one of these days you hear of a KC guy getting caught for rustling, then you know what happened.

first case of cattle rustling in decades

[BigRedChief]

Originally Posted by Laz

no problem

yea, just looking to get a cheap chest freezer to dump bulk stuff into ... probably wouldn't even have it plugged in all the time, i dunno.

I hate the upright one i use now. Frozen stuff is constantly falling out when you open the open and almost crushing a toe.

Always thought the uprights would be better to find what your looking for instead of those big deep freezers. I never thought about that aspect.

[lewdog]

Originally Posted by mikeyis4dcats.

sorry, I should have phrased it better, I wasn't questioning, just saying how cheap a new one is to operate versus and old one. and pointing out how bad uprights are compared to chests.

Ours is rated at $39/yr, but it's just a cheap $150 one from Sams.

Yea I was thinking about going to Sams and getting a cheap one. I really could use the smallest size for my needs. Doesn't have to be massive.

But Bwana brings up a good point about older models lasting longer although the research I have read says many older models can be real energy hogs which concerns me living in Phoenix with how damn hot it is here.

[R8RFAN]

Originally Posted by Saulbadguy

I'm sure your local golden corral has both on the buffet, hayseed.

I have eaten there once in my life.... I don't do Buffets

[Mr. Laz]

Originally Posted by BigRedChief

Always thought the uprights would be better to find what your looking for instead of those big deep freezers. I never thought about that aspect.

frozen stuff doesn't stack worth a shit so you need to use basket shelves or it just falls out all over.

If you are just going to dump stuff in baskets then you might as well use a chest freezer, which is just a big basket anyway. A chest freezer sucks for people too short to lean over the edge but it's more functional over all imo.

lemme tell ya ... hurts like a mofo to have a pound of frozen hamburger land on your bare foot.

[mikeyis4dcats.]

Originally Posted by Laz

well if one of these days you hear of a KC guy getting caught for rustling, then you know what happened.

first case of cattle rustling in decades

actually cattle rustling happens all the time.

[Bwana]

Originally Posted by mikeyis4dcats.

actually cattle rustling happens all the time.

Yes it does.

[In58men]

I wish beef jerky would go down.

[Setsuna]

Originally Posted by Bwana

Do you feel the east coast is in some kind of a secular universe, immune from price increases?

I just assumed the drought was affecting the midwest and we have our own industries over here and the drought isn't affecting us.

Edit: Wait is there a drought in the Middle East? I'm clueless.

[WV]

Speaking of freezers.....Something else to consider as well is that most upright freezers are frost free, sounds great in theory but you get frost/ics build up on the stuff close to the door and in the door from the damn thing defrosting itself. Our chest freezer is at least 8 years old and I think I've defrosted it once and that was when we moved.

Love my chest freezer and we buy a half of beef every year from a local farmer. If you haven't experienced farm fresh beef you won't mention stocking up when stuff is on sale. Even if you pay a little more the quality isn't close and it's so worth it.

[ghak99]

Originally Posted by qabbaan

The drought is being used as an excuse but the drought is 2-3 months old

You're wrong on the 2-3 months. A large portion of Texas was destroyed last year and was worked over pretty hard the year prior. Parts of Kansas really struggled last two years prior to getting finished off this year. Portions of Oklahoma have also struggled for the past two years as well. It's been building for about 3 years, but just got "news worthy" in the past few months when the areas of the Midwest that are not normally affected by drought finally realized their subsoil moisture was gone. We're going to need snow this winter & a lot of it to get going again next spring.

We, and people in our area, have been selling our old stocks of reserve hay to drought stricken areas for 3 years. Several farmers over sold trying to cash in and are now in the same hole with the guys they were selling to in the past.

[ghak99]

Originally Posted by Buehler445

That's what I've heard, but I'm not a cow man. Last year, there was a lot of hay in the north half of the country. Now the Texas drought has lightened, but there isn't hardly any hay in the system. As I understand it.

Here high crop prices the past few years have raped the pasture/hay production acres. Even with the national cow herd near an all time low, hay reserves are so low I see a new all time low coming. Assuming there is a demand to drive it and an environment to allow it to happen, the "rebuild" is something that takes at least 3-5 years to accomplish. High commodity prices create scary situations from several perspectives. Interest rates and input prices being where they are have several guys who rode through the '80s scared shitless of what's to come while stuffing cash in their pockets leaving the generation below them wondering just what the hell their long term plans should be.

[HonestChieffan]

Beef economics and the prices at retail are rather complex. Calves are born on grass not in feedlots and calf production is dispersed across the country. Under normal conditions those calves are kept on the farm on grass till weaning (350-400#). If the producer has grass he will evaluate prices for that weight compared to futures on 500-700 pounders and may hold them till heavier weights. They sell them to what are called backgrounders. Backgrounders are not cow/calf. They run cattle on grass till reaching weight to go into a feedlot.

What is happening now is the weaned calves are getting sold at depressed prices compared to last spring because the grass stocks are virtually nil in the main drought areas. Also, pasture cattle are dependent on water. Water is in the form of ponds...they are drying up. So what we call lightweight cattle are moving into the feedlots.

Lightweights require more corn and hay and mineral in the feedlot since they come in light. As this flows, the feedlots will begin to kill lighter weight fat cattle. When they start killing lighter cattle the supply of finished meat in the supermarket will go down. Prices at that point will rise.

Compare timelines on chicken and pork to beef and you can see why those meats react faster to cost of production changes. Chicken from egg to table is a matter of weeks, Hogs from birth to breakfast is months. Beef is over a year.

Total cows(breeding females) is down and will drop further causing more inflationary pressure on meat. Some say we could see $10 corn. That will be a huge factor on beef but even more on chicken and hogs. Example of this is its always been a rule of thumb that to feed a pig from 40 pounds to butcher weight of 220 it will require roughly 10 bushels of corn and whatever is needed in soybean meal and mineral. a corn move from $5 to $10, and beans moving from $12 to $20 will roughly double the cost to raise a pig. Producers can influence their selling price rapidly by breeding fewer sows.

Drought plays a major role on decisions here forward. We will run out of hay if we dont get fall rains to get grass growing. That is impacting us now when you see producers sell cows. Grain prices and range conditions will hit backgrounders and feedlots hard.

Consumers have an opportunity now to buy low cost beef in supermarkets because we ar killing a lot of cattle to make room for the light cattle coming in and we have a temporary glut of meat(beef)

Dunno if this helps but there it is...AgEcon 101 sorta

[HonestChieffan]

Originally Posted by ghak99

Here high crop prices the past few years have raped the pasture/hay production acres. Even with the national cow herd near an all time low, hay reserves are so low I see a new all time low coming. Assuming there is a demand to drive it and an environment to allow it to happen, the "rebuild" is something that takes at least 3-5 years to accomplish. High commodity prices create scary situations from several perspectives. Interest rates and input prices being where they are have several guys who rode through the '80s scared shitless of what's to come while stuffing cash in their pockets leaving the generation below them wondering just what the hell their long term plans should be.

Well said. Cattle structure is being impacted by two years of drought not just this summer