5 ms·

Well for starters that is an economic impossibility.

jononomo 4y ago
I buy my beef by the cow and I get the whole thing for less than $4/pound, whether it be ribeye steaks or ground beef or roasts. That price is for the cow bought at auction, slaughtered, butchered, packaged, and frozen. Note that I don't spend money on any other food, since I only eat beef. You save massive amounts of time, since you only go shopping for food once or twice a year, you never deal with vegetables or chopping, pealing, etc, and your food never goes bad. Sometimes I'll go to Wegman's and buy fifty ribeye steaks and then just eat ribeye steaks for a while -- that can run me about $700 since I've been able to find them for $13/pound and they're about 1.1 pounds each. But the crazy thing is the health benefits you experience -- three dozen minor issues are cured.
- algoatecorn 4y ago
  That's great, and I believe you've experienced positive benefits in many ways. I myself eat a large amount of meat. But it's a privilege for individuals in high income countries. The economic impossibilities are tied to the resource side: water, energy, land-use. Again, I'm far from anti-meat but I am a food systems researcher and the world cannot extract enough resources to feed ourselves mostly beef - or meat for that matter. Nor could we do it at cost. Perhaps there is a scenario where a majority of the population is directly involved in agriculture and we spend >50% of our income on beef. But then you have a massive reduction in total GDP because more human capital is pulled away from other sectors.
  - quotemstr 4y ago
    > ...the world cannot extract enough resources to feed ourselves mostly beef - or meat for that matter. Nor could we do it at cost. I wouldn't be so sure: markets find ways to satisfy demand. People made similar statements about photovoltaic panels, but here we are, with solar competitive with coal. I'd prefer to let markets organically allocate scarce inputs to their highest and best use over asserting that this technology or that behavior is unsustainable. If you're right, markets and prices will take care of modulating the demand and there's no need to tell individuals that their habits and preferences are a "privilege".
    - algoatecorn 4y ago
      Do you realize current food prices are already propped up with government subsidies? And we aren't even pricing in the negative externalities associated with our current agri-food system. You're boiling down one of, if not the most, complex industry on earth to simple supply and demand. Econ101 doesn't hold up in this territory.

I buy my beef by the cow and I get the whole thing for less than $4/pound, whether it be ribeye steaks or ground beef or roasts. That price is for the cow bought at auction, slaughtered, butchered, packaged, and frozen. Note that I don't spend money on any other food, since I only eat beef. You save massive amounts of time, since you only go shopping for food once or twice a year, you never deal with vegetables or chopping, pealing, etc, and your food never goes bad. Sometimes I'll go to Wegman's and buy fifty ribeye steaks and then just eat ribeye steaks for a while -- that can run me about $700 since I've been able to find them for $13/pound and they're about 1.1 pounds each. But the crazy thing is the health benefits you experience -- three dozen minor issues are cured.

algoatecorn 4y ago
That's great, and I believe you've experienced positive benefits in many ways. I myself eat a large amount of meat. But it's a privilege for individuals in high income countries. The economic impossibilities are tied to the resource side: water, energy, land-use. Again, I'm far from anti-meat but I am a food systems researcher and the world cannot extract enough resources to feed ourselves mostly beef - or meat for that matter. Nor could we do it at cost. Perhaps there is a scenario where a majority of the population is directly involved in agriculture and we spend >50% of our income on beef. But then you have a massive reduction in total GDP because more human capital is pulled away from other sectors.
- quotemstr 4y ago
  > ...the world cannot extract enough resources to feed ourselves mostly beef - or meat for that matter. Nor could we do it at cost. I wouldn't be so sure: markets find ways to satisfy demand. People made similar statements about photovoltaic panels, but here we are, with solar competitive with coal. I'd prefer to let markets organically allocate scarce inputs to their highest and best use over asserting that this technology or that behavior is unsustainable. If you're right, markets and prices will take care of modulating the demand and there's no need to tell individuals that their habits and preferences are a "privilege".
  - algoatecorn 4y ago
    Do you realize current food prices are already propped up with government subsidies? And we aren't even pricing in the negative externalities associated with our current agri-food system. You're boiling down one of, if not the most, complex industry on earth to simple supply and demand. Econ101 doesn't hold up in this territory.