Originally from: Burkie
                        
Dear Joyce and Farmtalking Friends:

Yes, I think you have "just about got it", but I would add that it's also known as "Market Manipulation by design," with the purpose of capitalizing that manipulation for immediate capital gain.

My neighbor has been in the cattle business all his life....he is now in his 70's. Last night, he drove into my driveway to stop in for a quick visit. This man has fed thousands of cattle, operated two livestock auction markets, operated a commercial cattle feedyard, bought and sold cattle on order for customers for over 40 years.

He said he had sold a pen of "plain fat cattle" this past week for $89.50 per cwt...which means that these cattle brought over $US 1,200.00 per head on the hoof...and that that was the highest price he'd ever received in all his years of trading cattle.

Then, last week, another friend of mine that feeds cattle for himself, to grow and sell as "fats," asked me to go to a special calf sale, so we did. We saw a group of really nice Angus/Hereford crossbred steers aka "Black Baldies" weighing 662 pounds bring a gross dollar of $702.50/head. That's the most I've ever personally see steers that size ever sell for.

Now then, don't forget, after the UK FMD outbreak, we had a "false alarm" reported outbreak, here in Kansas; following that false alarm, fat cattle traded down to as low as $62.00/cwt...and it took over six months to get the price level back up to the $70.00 level. So, looking back up to the previous paragraph, that means that a calf is now bringing what a "fat" did, just a little over a year ago.

Don't forget, we've had four back-to-back years of drought...so cow herd numbers were reduced, too...because hay was scarce, a lot of the older folks that had cow herds liquidated them, and they quit.

By participating with this group, we all have been informed of all kinds of animal disease outbreaks or non-infected countries that have used that type of information to affect export beef prices.

So, what I am trying to impart, (which you've already grasped) is that the news media blasts of a disease somewhere in this-or-that country, has absolutely, most definitely been used to create demand for beef....with the blessings and trappings of animal disease regulatory agencies world-wide, and with the full blessings of the Free Trade proponents who constantly "harp" how important it is to have the mis-nomer of "Free Trade."

Just look at this Canadian BSE situation...a dodgy one cow, with no visibly-expressed symptoms of Mad Cow, questionable time lapse for a UK lab to be used to test her brains, and a slapped-down ban on Canadian Beef imports into the U.S.A....with cattle prices rising over $10.00/cwt., here, since that time...a Japanese ban on Canadian beef imports...and Canadian cattlemens "shorts-in-knots" (and Canadian government, too) about how to get this all corrected, while the poor Canadian cattlemen go broke!

So where am I going with this?: Well, there is only one group of businesses in the food chain that is consistently the gainer in all this hype.

And we don't ever hear ANYTHING from that group, either.

So, for fun, which group do you think that might be?

Hint 1: water, water, everywhere, doing business in nearly every country that's been mentioned on this group forum Hint 2: world-wide meat business
Hint 3: "masked" ownership of various businesses in the food chain, ie, operating and doing business under a guise and long list of company names, aka as "subsidiary companies" Hint 4: Big Business, with heavy influence on tariffs, export documentation, customs clearances, cold storage of meat. Hint 5: Lots and lots of "additional Food Miles"
Hint 6: Great advocate of Harmonized Code implementation
Hint 7: Great influence on banking industry
Hint 8: Always get paid for the work they do...and paid a lot
Hint 9: Would starve to death without world trade in meat
Hint 10: Key words: "Blue Star" and "ANZDL" for starters.

That's right, Joyce, it's the Maritime Ocean Reefer/Steamship owners and operators...they are the only ones that have benefited consistently, using shifts in the import/export trade to capitalize on bans, free trade agreements, government-sanctioned quarantines, you name it.

That's the way I see things from Kansas, this beautiful fall day.

All the Best,

Burkie