You're probably right. I just said "shrimp" because that is what I buy most often.
Not just shrimp, is it?
I thought they were also importing crab and something else, cant remember what it was.
I would imagine, if US pork production ramps up as much as the articles hint at, about the only way this could work is if rail does the land haul part, I don’t think they could run that many trucks fast enough.
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Well, I DO hope that a railroad is crafty enough to get the land side transportation of this export once it ramps up. it'd be nice to think about at least a chunk of the money staying on these shores. It would make a nice backhaul for those containers of frozen shrimp Kroger is bringing stateside.
Lonestar isn’t really beer, its simply drunk fuel in a can.
Pearl is like Jax…if there is nothing else, at all, left….
rrnut282putting hogs in front of the First Class cars? What was the conductor thinking?
Swine before pearls?
I always thought "Pearl" was the better Tejas beer.
rrnut282 greyhounds Semper Vaporo hee hee hee... you ain't never lived downwind from a hog lot! Oh, I grew up in hog land. They called it the smell of money. We call it the same thing, too. There is a great picture in the book "Chicago and Illinois Midland" of a passenger train ready to depart Peoria with a carload of hogs cut in ahead of the two car "first class" consist. I grew up in a very small town served by the C&IM thinking Peoria was the ultimate big city. So I know the smell. putting hogs in front of the First Class cars? What was the conductor thinking?
greyhounds Semper Vaporo hee hee hee... you ain't never lived downwind from a hog lot! Oh, I grew up in hog land. They called it the smell of money. We call it the same thing, too. There is a great picture in the book "Chicago and Illinois Midland" of a passenger train ready to depart Peoria with a carload of hogs cut in ahead of the two car "first class" consist. I grew up in a very small town served by the C&IM thinking Peoria was the ultimate big city. So I know the smell.
Semper Vaporo hee hee hee... you ain't never lived downwind from a hog lot!
hee hee hee... you ain't never lived downwind from a hog lot!
Oh, I grew up in hog land. They called it the smell of money. We call it the same thing, too.
There is a great picture in the book "Chicago and Illinois Midland" of a passenger train ready to depart Peoria with a carload of hogs cut in ahead of the two car "first class" consist. I grew up in a very small town served by the C&IM thinking Peoria was the ultimate big city. So I know the smell.
Well, a couple things come to mind.
If you study old pictures you'll see that loaded livestock cars were placed immediately behind the engine. This would minimize the effects of slack action. Slack action could knock the critters off their feet and hurt them. Humane considerations and the fact that the railroad would face a claim for damaged freight would dictate a rule that livestock be placed immediately behind the engine.
Second, the hogs were to be set out en route. Where else would you put them?
Railroads expedited livestock and made sure the cars kept moving. Why else would a passenger train get a load of hogs? That car, I reckon, got all kinds of special handling in Peoria.
I've got a friend who farms in central Illinois. Like me, he's now in his 60's. But he was a farm boy and worked the farm basically since he could walk. He remembers getting sheep from the C&IM and driving them down the road to the farm.
Our local John Morrel plant still has tracks leading in through the front gate. The tracks seem to lead into the older part of the packing plant complex. Right next door, is the $10 million refrigerator plant that our city gave to Morrels the last time they threatened to leave town. How hard would it be to gear up and start shipping out by rail?
Thanks to Chris / CopCarSS for my avatar.
No, no…say it isn’t so….
What will we eat while drinking Lone Star and driving our pickup trucks?
Better get used to the fake, wheat puffs that are seasoned like pork rinds.
As long as they don’t mess with the spicy ones…basic good ole boy snack food.
The new ones, of course, with sweet/sour sauce baked in! [witless effort at sarcasm]
C&NW, CA&E, MILW, CGW and IC fan
The regular ones or the spicy hot ones?
BucyrusAll I have done here is pose questions about how the deal will play out in terms of market economics.
{sarcasm} Just for the good ol boy network, perhaps there IS a sinister motive? Maybe the Chinese have figured out that we will never make good on our debt, and have decided to hedge their position by cornering our food production?{/sarcasm}
$20.00 /bag for pork rinds? SAY IT AIN'T SO!!
Johnny
greyhoundsWe're way off topic here. But I do work with several people who immigrated from China. These immigrants aren't "The Wretched Refuse of Your Teeming Shore" as inscribed on the Statue of Liberty. They're highly educated competent people. They were chosen for employment by a world class company because they were identified as the best candidate after an extensive selection process. They're raising their children as US citizens and we're fortunate that they're here. People of this caliber didn't leave their homes and families because things were better in China. We know there are all kinds of problems in China. But that doesn't mean that a Chinese company shouldn't buy a US company. If it's mutually beneficial for both the US and China to move US produced pork to China, just haul the freight. I cannot think of a better outcome. The Chinese get high quality safe food. The US producers get needed money. And the US railroads get some more freight to haul. Why does anyone have a problem with this?
People of this caliber didn't leave their homes and families because things were better in China. We know there are all kinds of problems in China. But that doesn't mean that a Chinese company shouldn't buy a US company. If it's mutually beneficial for both the US and China to move US produced pork to China, just haul the freight.
I cannot think of a better outcome. The Chinese get high quality safe food. The US producers get needed money. And the US railroads get some more freight to haul. Why does anyone have a problem with this?
I agree with all of that, but it has absolutely nothing to do with any point I have made in this thread. Your response makes it seem that you believe that my questioning of this deal amounts to bigotry and a racial prejudice against the Chinese.
I never said nor implied that a Chinese company should not buy an American company. I have not even said anything whatsoever that would indicate that I oppose the deal or any part of it. If I believed that, I would come right out and say it. Perhaps you are interpreting my comments and questions as innuendo meaning that I oppose the deal. A lot of people use innuendo to avoid coming right out and saying what they mean. I don't do that.
All I have done here is pose questions about how the deal will play out in terms of market economics. There are dozens of articles on the Internet that ask the same type of questions and search for the same answers. Many of those articles talk about how people are missing this point or that point in their analysis. Everybody is asking what the deal “means.”
You brought up the topic of the deal and the potential it has for increasing rail traffic. My general conclusion (if anybody took the time to understand it) is that rail traffic will be increased even further than what is obvious on the surface. And I have made an effort to explain it in the clearest terms possible. It has nothing to do with hating the Chinese.
greyhounds Below the surface, well I've seen absolutely nothing to indicate that there is anything below the surface
Researchers often "steer" their results based upon what they hoped to find, perhaps that has become a factor here for you as well? My thoughts are not that anything sinister or hidden is part of the equation. I simply believe that those who cannot see higher pork prices for North American consumers as the outcome of this little "free market" end run, are either misguided or fooling themselves.
greyhounds, you said it beautifully!
I have no idea why the author thinks this will increase tensions. It makes no sense and the author doesn't explain why. Here's a good thought: "When trade goods cross borders soldiers don't."
We're way off topic here. But I do work with several people who immigrated from China. These immigrants aren't "The Wretched Refuse of Your Teeming Shore" as inscribed on the Statue of Liberty. They're highly educated competent people. They were chosen for employment by a world class company because they were identified as the best candidate after an extensive selection process. They're raising their children as US citizens and we're fortunate that they're here.
I only used the reference to water, land, and air as an environmental metaphor, and was wondering if it limits production at some point. I assume that the premise behind the Smithfield acquisition implies a very large production increase, maybe several times the current rate of production. I would think that the price would naturally come down when ramping up to much higher production levels.
So, if the price falls as Chinese demand is supplied by rising production, I don’t see how price is going to be what limits Chinese demand. Thus, the only limit to what we can supply is what the natural resources can sustain. I have no idea if we would ever get to that limit. I thought somebody might know.
I agree that a little farm smell is not going to be a showstopper. But, as I understand it, Shangui is 33 times larger in production than Smithfield and Shanghui can’t meet demand. I don’t know how short Shanghui is, but if you doubled Smithfield, it would only increase Shanghui production by about 6%.
Here is an interesting article that says many theories are being advanced to explain the Smithfield deal. After exploring some of those theories, it concludes that the real reason for the deal is that the environmental pollution in China is so hampering food production that it is cheaper to buy foreign food producers than it is to clean up the pollution in China. If that theory is true, then it shows that China has indeed reached the limits of its water, land, and air.
http://finance.fortune.cnn.com/2013/06/04/smithfield-china/
From the article:
“The real story behind this transaction is that far-sighted Chinese entrepreneurs fully understand that, because pollution has contaminated major parts of China's food chain, their future profit opportunities lie in buying the entire food-production process abroad. Bagging Smithfield, in this sense, is not about getting its hogs, pork-processing technology, or even premium brand. It is really about owning access to America's safe farmland and clean water supplies.
This strategic calculation is truly brilliant. Based on official Chinese data, more than two-thirds of its waterways are polluted. A sample study of farmland conducted in the late 1990s showed 10% contaminated with heavy metal. A three-year national survey of soil conditions completed in 2010 must have yielded such alarming data that the Ministry of Environmental Protection declared the data a "state secret."
Given the fact that cleaning up land and waterways despoiled by heavy metal and other carcinogens requires huge amounts of money and takes a long time, buying food producers that own their land and have access to safe water supplies is a far more attractive proposition.
If this analysis is correct, the Shuanghui purchase of Smithfield is a harbinger of things to come. Pressured by the catastrophic consequences of environmental degradation, Chinese food producers will have no choice but set their sights abroad. No doubt, this will present great business opportunities for many, but a rapid increase in Chinese acquisitions of food companies overseas will almost certainly create tensions between China and the rest of the world. Sadly, there are no good policies in place to address this challenge.”
Why would a rapid increase in Chinese acquisitions of food companies overseas create tensions between China and the rest of the world, as the article says will almost certainly be the case? It is only a matter of free trade, free market, and free will transactions.
DeggestySmell: there are several hog farms in Utah, and the people who live near them are unhappy when the wind blows from the hog farms towards their homes. Certainly, the people who live near any location of a new hog farm would be unhappy.
Any new hog farm requires a sanitation system that rivals that of many small cities.
ROAR
The Route of the Broadway Lion The Largest Subway Layout in North Dakota.
Here there be cats. LIONS with CAMERAS
Oh, I grew up in hog land. They called it the smell of money.
greyhounds Bucyrus What is the practical limit to pork production in the U.S.? There is only so much water, land, and air. How much added production is needed to feed the Chinese market opened up by the acquisition of Smithfield? Would tripling U.S. production be enough? Do we have the natural resources to triple production? Air? The extra hogs are going to use up all the air? {snip}
Bucyrus What is the practical limit to pork production in the U.S.? There is only so much water, land, and air. How much added production is needed to feed the Chinese market opened up by the acquisition of Smithfield? Would tripling U.S. production be enough? Do we have the natural resources to triple production?
What is the practical limit to pork production in the U.S.? There is only so much water, land, and air. How much added production is needed to feed the Chinese market opened up by the acquisition of Smithfield? Would tripling U.S. production be enough? Do we have the natural resources to triple production?
Air? The extra hogs are going to use up all the air?
{snip}
Semper Vaporo
Pkgs.
Hog production will increase to meet (meat?) the extra demand until the marginal revenue equals the marginal cost. It's an economic limit, not a "practical" limit. Resources in the US will be diverted and brought into production to meet the increased demand for hogs. This will include employing more people. (veterinarians, truck drivers, farm workers, hog killers, hopefully railroaders, etc.) It will also involve bringing marginal land into agricultural production.
This will continue until the marginal cost of production on the last extra hogs produced equals the revenue that can be realized from those extra hogs. That's the limit. The marginal cost will go up with increased production.
At some price a Chinese consumer will decide that US pork cost too much and take a pass. That will be the point of "Peak Pork", or, as you call it the "Practical Limit".
Just let the markets work. Things tend to work out better that way.
Deggesty Water: water is not in plentiful supply in the West. Smell: there are several hog farms in Utah, and the people who live near them are unhappy when the wind blows from the hog farms towards their homes. Certainly, the people who live near any location of a new hog farm would be unhappy.
Water: water is not in plentiful supply in the West.
Smell: there are several hog farms in Utah, and the people who live near them are unhappy when the wind blows from the hog farms towards their homes. Certainly, the people who live near any location of a new hog farm would be unhappy.
Murphy Siding There's a couple of other reasons why hog production won't quickly move to the west coast. First, hog production does require water. Second, it produces a lot of hog manure. Mass quantities of pig poop on the west coast would raise some enviromental concerns. There is a good use for it though. It makes good fertilizer, for things like corn, that hogs eat.
There's a couple of other reasons why hog production won't quickly move to the west coast. First, hog production does require water. Second, it produces a lot of hog manure. Mass quantities of pig poop on the west coast would raise some enviromental concerns. There is a good use for it though. It makes good fertilizer, for things like corn, that hogs eat.
As Ernie Banks used to say, "Pugnemus duo!" What you say on pork makes a lot of sense, with good illustrations of why. Thank you.
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