3mo ago

hey capitalism, how are you doing?

yeah..

65 comments

Link to the actual article. It's a good read, and in no way does it try to justify the raise in egg prices. It talks about the history of chicken and egg farming in the 20th century, the supply chain needed to bring as many eggs to consumers, and is critical of how the growing demand led to factory farming and horrible conditions for the chickens.
- Stop bringing logic to these rage baiters. The vibe gets weird.
- For such a long article it’s really disappointing they didn’t at all go into how chicken farmers themselves are ratfucked by contracts with processing plants and live below the poverty line if they don’t have a second job.
  
  I am not all that knowledgeable on the US egg industry, but wouldn't this mainly just the small scale farmers that would be struggling?
  As it mentioned in the article, the large companies will have the leverage to raise the prices (article describes it as cartelization). And are then encouraged to keep the scale with compensation and I guess subsidies.
  
  John Oliver had a good episode on it. It's been almost 10 years (holy crap) since I've seen it, but I remember it being pretty accurate from my experience.
  https://youtu.be/X9wHzt6gBgI
  Also, apparently they started uploading full episodes because they uploaded this full episode last year.
  https://youtu.be/z3YtQleycpg
- Only female chickens makes egg. Male baby chickens gets throw in the meat grinder alive.
  https://youtu.be/udSiluTAOaQ?t=136
  
  Praise to the EU. Male chicken shredding has been outlawed since 2022!
  Edit: I was pattially wrong about this. The ban is only in effect in some of the members. Namely: Germany, France, Italy Luxemberg and Austria The EU itself is still in the process of deciding on such a law.
- Get a load of this nerd READING like a massive NERD. Just join the rest of us free thinkers in judging by the cover.
- that's capitalism for ya
  thank god you were here to defend it by pointing out the details about how the title is really correct not just sort of correct
  
  Nice ad hominem.
  The screenshot puts the title of the article out of context, and incorrectly frames The Atlantic as defending late stage capitalism. The body of the article is a review of the history of egg farming.

One could argue that Capitalism doesn't have this problem and that the current USA is much closer to how the USSR and China opetate.
Canada has eggs. EU countries have eggs.
- 10 eggs in my EU country is from 2,5 to 3,5€, depending of the way they keep the chickens.
  
  I suspect that in some countries supermarket cartels are using the American egg shortage being in the news to increase their margins.
  
  You can get 15 at ~2,55€ where I live
  
  Well in the USA they were about over $2/dozen in previous years and rose to an all time high of over $8/dozen a little while ago, so the 2.5 to 3.5 seems a bit inconsequential.
- We had so many eggs this week the dogs got one as a treat lol.
- One could also argue that the USDA killed like 12 million chickens under Biden.
  
  Clearly not enough. Bird Flu kills 90% of infected birds, if culls and management had been more efficient then it wouldn't have spread as much as it has.
  I believe even as far as January over 134 Million poultry in the USA had perished and another 111 Million birds between February and March.
  Canada, despite sharing borders and markets, has seen much lower casualty rates because their farms are smaller, about 25k birds average compared to US farms as large as 1 Million birds.
  Whatevers going on in the USA is because of lack of government intervention, and it absolutely will continue to get worse under Trump.
  Luckily there have been no new major outbreaks in March, leading to a decline in price, for now.

Don't know about anyone else, but I was thinking they are an excellent, versatile and easily prepared protein source, dense with nutrients, which does not involve the taking of a life.
Edit: I'd been thinking of dumping social media entirely, due to the discouraging number of trolls, self-righteous moralists, snarks and ideologues, but thought it would be reddit that went -- it really has become depressing to consider the future if redditors are indicative. Guess it's not just reddit, mmm?
For the amusement of folk jumping to firm conclusions, I have raised chickens, lived on the Indian subcontinent (and you left out the fate of the Eid cows among Muslims -- the streets run with blood), eat a lot of beans, and will remember in future that it is wisest to stick to my own company rather than set off people who don't think I know how to use a search engine.
Tata.
- Ohh but ii absolutely does involve taking many lifes These chickens do not tend to live long as they are cruelty breeds.
  
  Get some chickens.
- There is definitely less chickens being killed per gram of protein of egg compared to meat so I don't want to attack you, but there are a lot of chickens being killed because of how the industry is organised. I googled this for you:
  "Typically, layer hens are killed after about a year of laying due to a decrease in their productivity. Because these hens are raised as a group with other birds of the same age, productivity can be evaluated on a group basis and not based on the individual bird. For this reason, even if an individual bird is still producing well they may still be culled simply because their cohort of hens has dropped in productivity.
  ... there are two different kinds of chickens: those raised for their meat and those raised to produce eggs. In chickens raised for meat, also known as “broiler” chickens, there is no differentiation based on sex, as these chickens are not generally allowed to live long enough to produce eggs. When it comes to birds raised for laying eggs, male chicks are unable to lay eggs, so serve no purpose in the industrial system that has produced them. Male chicks are routinely killed before they can grow to be more than a few days old." (https://www.farmforward.com/issues/animal-welfare/chick-culling/)
  If you'd like to take less life's, consider adding beans to your diet.
  Here is another article: Eat Beans, Not Beings—10 Reasons to Stock Up on This Superfood https://www.peta2.com/lifestyle/beans/
- They also have environmentally friendly packaging.
- Uh https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chick_culling
  We kill like 7 billion chicks annually because they are male and therefore can’t produce eggs.
  I agree with you on the other points, but our farming industry is bonkers and full of killing.
  Perhaps if you only buy your eggs from a local farmer or produce them yourself, but due to capitalism that’s not an option for every person
- you're going to be disappointed with the whole doesn't involve taking a life thing, at least I hope you will be.
  
  Yup, we kill billions of bacteria when we cook those delicious gametes.

I'm so fucking sick of hearing about egg prices. It's the least important thing happening in this dumpster fire of a country right now. I still eat eggs everyday by the way. It costs like $2 more each week. Oh no.
- It's important because it's the central promise of our system. Capitalism/Liberal Democracy/Whatever, it doesn't promise equality, or world peace, or spiritual enlightenment: It promises that you can buy cheap consumer crap, and now it can't even deliver that.
  
  Exactly. Capitalism is only tolerable as long as the material conditions of the working class improve decade after decade. The average worker has been in steady decline for 50 years, but over the last 25 years nearly the entire working class has been suffering.
- But hey! We aren't talking about innocents now being slaughtered by our operations halfway across the world (again)... almost like a recurring theme...
  
  The media is just playing to the electorate there, I'm afraid.
  I watched the YouTube stream of a recent Maryland townhall: dark blue state, all Democrat Representatives and Senators speaking and taking questions, hosted by a Democrat county executive. Someone got up and confronted them about the immigrants abducted by ICE being held in Baltimore Harbor and not allowed to see their lawyers. Multiple people in the live chat started complaining that they weren't discussing real issues like Social Security and Medicare. ... Even though they had discussed it earlier. Americans are fundamentally selfish.

If you really think about it a ton of things are way too cheap so in a lot of scenarios it's way cheaper to buy something new compared to repairing something old.
Think of a nail for example, from digging up some rocks that contain a bit more iron than other rocks, process them through many stages many of us (including me) have no idea, just to ship them around the planet. But if you have a bent or really messed up nail, everybody would just throw that refined material away because it's cheaper than a cent.

"I didn't even want those eggs in the first place and besides, they're probably sour."

Yeah war on eggs!! You're a traitor if you eat eggs!!!

The amount of manufactured consent is too damn high!
- Yep eggs are cheap because chickens shit them out profusely. It only takes a small flock of 4+ birds to make more than a family needs. I know several people with backyard coops and pens who have more eggs than they need, giving them away.

tl;dr: Is this meant to normalize higher egg prices?

Protein replacement for poor people who could not afford meat. I don’t know what to recommend now. No one wants to live on beans, that’s misery personified.
- What's wrong with beans and lentils?
  
  They're disgusting, not a source of all amino acids and give you diarrhea. Fuck em!
- Lentils are the way: it’s cheap and pretty tasty as a stew or a curry !
  
  Im sorry but lentils taste like dirt.
- I just posted this link on another comment but the content validates me being considered a spammer imho
  Eat Beans, Not Beings—10 Reasons to Stock Up on This Superfood https://www.peta2.com/lifestyle/beans/
- what we do to the animals is misery personified.
  
  Eat or be eaten.

65 comments