Tag: economics

Advocates Take to Social Media to #BreakUpBigAg

OCM Staff

Between Monday, June 10th and Friday, June 14th the Organization for Competitive Markets led a social media campaign called #BreakUpBigAg to support the Agribusiness Merger Moratorium Act. Organizations and individual advocates published their pictures along with statements in support of the moratorium on Facebook and Twitter. In their pictures, participants were holding posters with facts about consolidation in our farm and food systems. These facts included: “1950s: farmers received 50% of the food dollar. Today: farmers receive 14.8% of Read More …

Senator Warren’s Speech on Monopoly

Mike Callicrate

Yesterday, straight off her high-profile campaign appearance Monday with Hillary Clinton, Sen. Elizabeth Warren gave a keynote address about industry consolidation in the American economy at a conference at the Capitol put on by New America’s Open Markets program. Though the speech has so far gotten only a modicum of attention—the press being more interested in litigating Donald Trump’s Pocahontas taunts—it has the potential to change the course of the presidential contest. Her speech begins at minute 56:45 Read More …

Occupy Langdon: We Are Less Than One Percent

Mike Callicrate

by Richard Oswald The Occupy Wall Street Movement has been called “a potent political and cultural conversation”. On the other hand Occupy movements in cities like Washington DC have been called over reported and under attended. That is definitely not the case here because Occupy Langdon has been completely off the radar screen, totally undiscussed, and one hundred percent unreported. Until now. I’m breaking this thing wide open. Here around Langdon and all across the USA, less than Read More …

OCM Briefing Paper: Broken Markets Broke Cattlemen

Mike Callicrate

broken_markets Vested interests in animal slaughter have mounted a campaign against reinvigoration of laws designed to protect the market for producers’ market-weight animals, and for retail use by consumers, too. The facts are no barrier to what is said from time to time. This OCM Briefing Paper declares that it is time for a meaningful discussion on how to fix cattle markets and restore profitability to beef cattle production in the United States. Read OCM’s Briefing Paper above.

Forget Oil, Worry About Phosphorus

Mike Callicrate

“The following was authored by C. Robert Taylor, Alfa Eminent Scholar and Professor of Agricultural Economics at Auburn University and OCM Senior Economic Fellow and published in the Daily Yonder.” (all charts, graphs and illustrations can be found in the Newsletter archives, October 2010 edition) The world’s agriculture depends on a mineral that is declining in production and is controlled by a cartel of companies. Troubling, ain’t it? Modern farming methods depend increasingly on fossil fuels and major Read More …

Restoring Economic Health to Beef Markets

Mike Callicrate

restoringbeefmarkets C. Robert Taylor and David A. Domina Law have released a paper addressing how to restore economic health to the beef market. The paper addresses market power in the food industry, the status of the U.S. Beef Market for slaughter in 2010, the status of contract swine production in 2010, a detailed description on the flaws of the beef market and solutions to fix the problems.

Briefing Paper: When Small Is Big

Mike Callicrate

By David A Domina & C Robert Taylor, PhD Livestock economists who look only at cash movement and do not analyze profitability outcome sometimes conclude that the effect of market power and captive supplies is “small.” They dismiss this “small” impact lightly, but ignore the fact that the impact they concede is the difference between profit and loss – the economic equivalent of the difference between life and death. Read more.