CanDoCook hit it right on the head. If it's popular, it's expensive. Beef is still the prefered meat in the U.S. and Canada and so comands a higher price than does pork or chicken. It is partly a prestige thing. You feel good about yourself when you can serve steak to someone. Add to that the cost of fuel increases and you see feel the results as your wallet or pocket-book is lightened.
When fuel goes up, it literally affects everything. the cost of producing feed goes up as the the increased fuel costs for the farm equipment is passed to the rancher. Then there's the cost of the machinery used to support the cattle, including transportation. The cost of electricity to run the processing plants increases, and is also passed to us. And finally, there's simple greed.
The costs of producing pork and poultry have similarily risen, but have not affected those products nearly as much as they have beef. And I can't say for sure, but it just doesn't add up in my mind.
A perfect example of the "supply and demand" dynamic is squid. It first hit my home town at about 75 cents per pound. Nobody around here knew what it was and basically went "yuck!". Then some people realized that it was squid that was transformed into the calimari they had eaten at the local Itallian restaurant. Suddenly, as people started purchasing it, the price jumped to over $4 per pound.
The only way to bring prices down is to boycott a product. And that is something that Americans seem unwilling, even unable to do. It is our only defense against exhorbitant cost, and is never applied. I will keep purchasing over-priced beef, and overpriced clothing, and overpriced everything else because I live in a semi-isolated area that has to have most products shipped in from somewhere else. And just like every other American, I will not boycott the car industry as I need my vehicle to get to work, to do my job, and to get me anywhere I need to go. The winters here are unrelenting, and the distances long. And yet, this is where I choose to live, in a small town, with fewer amenities than are offered in more metropolitan areas, and fewer violent crimes, etc. We live in the society we created. And we do little, as a society, to put pressures for true better life quality on employers, on polliticians, on the captains of industry, etc. We are a content people, riding our contentment into oblivion.
I just realized how cynical all of that sounds, even if it's true. So I apologize for the cynicism, but let stand what I posted as something to think about. And now, I'm going to find a thread that will help lift my spirits, and in which I can maybe do the same for someone else.
Seeeeeeya; Goodweed of the North
