Viewing a single comment thread. View all comments

[deleted] t1_j5f8jun wrote

[removed]

187

dba1990 t1_j5fw4fd wrote

Just like computer chips. Just like eggs right now.

All these “shortages” are (in some capacity) effects of corporate/Wall Street greed wanting more profit with excuses of ‘inflation’ and ‘product scarcity’ thanks to the COVID pandemic.

79

The_Drizzle_Returns t1_j5fz2dy wrote

> Just like eggs right now.

Not like eggs, Eggs is due to bird flu which has required millions of chickens to be killed.

84

mabhatter t1_j5g28b2 wrote

The Avian Flu outbreak really shows how seriously the FDA takes this stuff to keep out food supply and public health safe. It's not all a conspiracy... people really actually do their jobs quite often.

84

moeburn t1_j5g0hs4 wrote

Yes like eggs. We don't have the increased prices in Canada because we have supply management for eggs.

That's where we compel all egg producers to make X amount of eggs, whether people actually want to buy them or not. And if people don't buy them, the government buys them instead.

So all the egg producers are always producing the same number of eggs regardless of demand, and they're always making the same amount of money.

End result is we were paying slightly more than you guys during times of plenty, and now we're paying way way less than you guys ($2 CAD/doz here in Ontario) during times of scarcity.

Your government was about to do that with baby formula, and then voted against it.

34

[deleted] t1_j5g6tbo wrote

[deleted]

49

Eurocorp t1_j5grcde wrote

Yeah like the US buys a ton of milk products to help the price of milk keep stable because of the dairy subsides.

All the subsidies of an industry mean little if the cows or chickens start falling sick.

16

moeburn t1_j5gfecc wrote

No but when they were always producing 20% more than Canadians ever bought, and the avian flu problem results in a loss of 19% of your eggs, you still have a surplus, and prices don't change. That's the point. The government says "please make all this extra food every year, don't worry we will pay for it if nobody wants it. We just want it to be available in case there's a shortage one year."

The American government instead says "here's $100,000, please make food with it". And you hope that they vote to increase or decreases that amount as farmers need it.

13

PMmeserenity t1_j5hazsk wrote

Good thing climate change isn’t an issue in Canada! No reason not to be extremely wasteful with industrial production...

8

moeburn t1_j5hbd8m wrote

> to be extremely wasteful

It's actually less wasteful this way. Your American farmers are still dumping all their excess milk when they can't sell it, they just don't have any government intervention to protect them when it all goes tits up, so they either produce even more to try and make more money (which gets dumped), or they go bankrupt and get bought up and consolidated by billionaires.

>Farmers with perishable products such as milk were at the mercy of processors who knew they could pressure farmers into accepting lower prices because the alternative was a spoiled product worth nothing. If individual farmers each tried to compensate for low prices by producing more, the result was a market glut which further depressed prices. Often the solution was to dump the excess milk, wasting it. Processors could threaten to refuse delivery and lower prices by encouraging competition among producers, allowing the price to be set by the most desperate farmer. Consumers were subject to price volatility, erratic supplies and seasonal shortages. Furthermore, it was difficult to ensure consistent quality when farmers could not rely on a fair return for their efforts and investment.

1

PMmeserenity t1_j5hcbzb wrote

So it seems like your whole story is just full of shit. Canada’s laws haven’t helped it avoid egg price fluctuations, Canada had just been lucky enough to avoid significant bird flu before 2022 but that’s changing. So let’s see how price controls do going forward, now that you’re actually dealing with the issue.

Also, I don’t know know where you live in Canada, but it seems like most of the country has seen steep egg price increases this last year. You might find them for 2/dozen, but in Toronto the average price is $4.45. Kinda seems like you’re just making shit up?

9

moeburn t1_j5hii68 wrote

> Canada’s laws haven’t helped it avoid egg price fluctuations,

That's exactly what they do.

>Canada had just been lucky enough to avoid significant bird flu before 2022

Right... the bird flu epidemic causing steep increase in egg prices in US and UK and elsewhere was in 2022. Hence the prices today, in 2023. We were all affected by it, but your country is seeing more expensive price increases because of it than mine because of a different policy.

>in Toronto the average price is $4.45.

I don't know where you got that number, but that's okay, because I got my own numbers, and they're both in the same currency, $USD:

https://i.imgur.com/arliV75.png (https://www.expatistan.com/price/eggs/toronto/USD)

https://i.imgur.com/5W0sJt0.png (https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/APU0000708111)

So people in Toronto are paying 3/4 what people in major US cities are paying for a dozen eggs.

Especially weird considering almost everything is almost always more expensive in Canada due to our smaller population and lack of economies of scale.

2

PMmeserenity t1_j5hl8yr wrote

> I don't know where you got that number

It's in the article I linked.

And even if what you say is true, I'd rather not pay extra for eggs all the time to avoid rare price spikes. There's plenty of other foods to eat, and no reason to tolerate constant inefficiency (both carbon footprint and cost) in order to make sure prices don't fluctuate. It's not like those controls will help you avoid inflation overall, just occasional spikes. If my whole grocery bill is smaller in the US, why does it matter that eggs cost more sometimes?

And the reason everything is more expensive in Canada (and I agree, it is, at least where I travel for work) might have something to do with these price controls.

There's a lot of things about the US that deserve criticism, but food supply really isn't it. If there's anything we are good at, it's making a ton of commodity foods, cheap.

1

PMmeserenity t1_j5hcrvg wrote

And the US government actually does buy a ton of milk and cheese, both to maintain prices and production capacity, and to create a national reserve. I think we’ve got about 1.5 billion pounds of cheese in storage.

5

razorirr t1_j5h64e9 wrote

So the canadian government is paying piles of money to keep farmers making too much of a livestock product, when we all know livestock products are a huge waste of energy, land, water, and emit more GHG compared to just making plants and telling people to not have an ommlette every morning?

6

moeburn t1_j5h8tjz wrote

>telling people to not have an ommlette every morning?

We do it with all dairy and poultry products. Basically every staple perishable calorie we produce en-masse in Canada has supply management.

3

happy-cig t1_j5gfc8i wrote

You can say that because Canada doesn't even consume close to the amount of eggs the USA consumes.

6

moeburn t1_j5gg8zi wrote

No because we're a smaller country with fewer people and fewer chickens :/

These arguments never make any sense. Compare Canada to any individual state with around 30 million people then, like California.

The point is the supply management system. It's this weird semi-socialism thing where the government tells the industry of some life-essential product to always make more than people will actually buy, they mandate production quotas on them. And then the government pays them for all the extra that they don't sell, so that it doesn't actually burden the producers and make the industry collapse. That way one bad year when there's an avian flu outbreak or a baby formula factory contamination, there's still enough surplus to make up the difference and the prices/availability don't change at all, because you made sure the industry was always making enough to cover it.

9

happy-cig t1_j5idj28 wrote

Well its about scalability right?

Canada - population ~38mil, consumption ~38mil eggs

USA - population ~331mil, consumption ~339mil eggs

So with the Avian flu if we lose any percentage of our chickens then we get rekt, as shown by current times.

​

Also USA Egg production - 96.6 billion

vs

Canada 839 million

​

We are producing 11.5x times the eggs as Canada. while you are only 9x our population.

5

neonlexicon t1_j5hjm9b wrote

Also doesn't help that big poultry farms have been pumping chickens full of hormones & screwing up their genetics to the point where their immune systems are practically nonexistent, allowing avian flu to just rip through them by the millions.

4

FizzWigget t1_j5g2h25 wrote

Pork industry as well. Lied about the shortage and took bets on who would catch covid

40

polysciguy1123 t1_j5f9l1m wrote

Whose design?

52

8BitSk8r t1_j5fimy3 wrote

Republicans. They literally voted against increasing baby formula supply.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/05/19/republicans-baby-formula/

349

martin4reddit t1_j5ftx4h wrote

Oh, but the dairy industry couldn’t possibly be made to compete with foreign corporations! Because French suppliers have -checks notes- ahem, lower safety standards and animal welfare practices.

And the other corporations that don’t pay tax don’t want the tax burden increased by uhhh a few hundred million dollars (divided by a few hundred million taxed entities)!

54

digitelle t1_j5h59nw wrote

But they…. Want people that have more babies?

Why would it matter if they voted against it? It’s odd the company doesn’t work for supply and demand..?

16

lokithegregorian t1_j5hbcak wrote

They want those babies born starving and therefore compelled to compete and produce. In effect, before the new people figure out whats going on (late 20s at best), they will replenish the work force, and create a demand for police, as the legalization of abortion had a significant effect on crime. You can't control the poor without turning one half against the other.

They need the unwanted half to feed the machine.

40

Remembers_that_time t1_j5lwzuq wrote

They want more people that are poor and stupid. More babies is the method, not the goal.

1

unfinished_diy t1_j5lt6yk wrote

Just to clarify, this article says they voted against additional money for the FDA, do you know what the plan was for the FDA money? I know I should just Google myself, but was curious.

2

bildramer t1_j5hf7lw wrote

The FDA are the very ones responsible for the mess. Paying them more money is supposed to accomplish what, exactly?

−25

DefinitelyNotAliens t1_j5i0p58 wrote

The FDA is responsible for taking reports, investigating them, issuing multiple warning to a private company they are out of compliance, starting a plan to fix the issue, private company not complying and then shutting down a facility that killed babies due to unsafe food standards?

Timeline here. Pdf of the intitial complaints.

They had gotten a warning several months prior, and then sicknesses started. Of the batches of formula sampled, none actually turned up as positive for bacterial contamination. After several sicknesses they arranged a site visit to Abbott anyways. Abbott was notified of the visit due to COVID and then said they had an active outbreak. The visit was delayed. At this point, no formula from the homes of sick/ deceased infants had actually tested positive, just the children. But all their formula came from one facility.

When Abbott tried for a second delay, the FDA showed up anyways, found dilapidated equipment, roof leaks and multiple swabs came back positive for bacterial contamination. The facility had not made any changes since the prior warning but understaffing at the FDA had poor follow up. They confirmed bacterial contamination on Feb 13 and had a recall by the 17th after delaying voluntary recall. On Feb 17th the FDA issued a statement to not use those baby formula cans and the company finally recalled them.

Better funding for more frequent inspections and more follow up could have stopped them from having the facility get that bad and better enforcement of repairs once the issues are found.

16

bildramer t1_j5j9ilv wrote

The FDA is also responsible for the insane regulations that don't let anyone import foreign baby food in the first place. Not because of any nutrition requirements, or safety, but labeling requirements. Why not temporarily suspend those? I guess babies don't matter that much after all.

The FDA is responsible for closing the plant two+ months after they had multiple reports about the same issue leading to baby deaths, relying on "maybe if we tell them they'll stop on their own" when they had less reports I guess, and for somehow not finding any of the clearly contaminated baby formula. Or maybe that means there wasn't any, and the contamination in the plant was confirmation bias and not significant? If they were trustworthy I wouldn't question that, but they aren't. The FDA is responsible for not responding quickly to the issue after the fact, taking entire months to sign paperwork and plan meetings when babies are potentially dying. The FDA is responsible for wanting increased control over the baby formula supply chain but having no sensible plan and communicating nothing to the public when a real crisis came. "Let's just kill the majority of the country's supply for months, and wait, maybe some day we'll reopen it" is not a plan.

I don't see how giving them more staff could fix the dumb decisionmaking.

I guess you're right in that it's not only them. The WIC contracts are responsible for Abbott having all this monopoly power, and the NAFTA is responsible for enormous tariffs on Canadian formula.

−10

DefinitelyNotAliens t1_j5jt8zu wrote

They did allow import other countries formula. We eased import regs almost immediately and the FDA is changing rules to make it a permanent shift and working with overseas suppliers to keep formula incoming, especially with our ongoing shortage.

They had four cases. Two illnesses, two deaths. They and the state department of health (Texas and Minnesota) and the CDC were all involved in testing and none of the formula tested was contaminated in testing. Some bacteria doesn't mean the entire can was evenly contaminated, especially since the infections weren't widespread. Unless you think multiple state departments of health and CDC were in on the grift, too. They also had the CDC sequence DNA of the bacteria and knew the cases were linked and it wasn't just environmental which is why they focused on formula without contaminated supply in any of the homes. They also sequenced DNA of bacteria in the plant.

Given the fact it wasn't a pattern at first - and four is bad without being a mass outbreak - the babies shouldn't be affected at all, but October to February given mass pandemic slowing everything at the Dept of Health in those States and the CDC and three days to shutdown after confirmation is downright fast. With the first few cases being in Minnesota, it was potentially environmental and not food related. The third case was Texas.

They did immediately start a plan to reopen the plant, and they shut down in February and the plant failed multiple reopening inspections because subsequent tests still had contamination on tested swabs. They did reopen in May, and shut in early June. It flooded due to storms, damaging supply again.

You're mad at the FDA over things they actually did do and are continuing to do. They didn't flood the factory immediately after opening. And they are permanently changing import rules.

5