A DOJ investigation on beef prices is a red herring

Anyone who has been to the grocery store recently knows, White House claims to the contrary, that food prices are not “way down” or even “down.”

The October Consumer Price Index shows average grocery prices have increased 2.7% in the past year and eating away from home will cost you, on average, 3.7% more than 12 months ago.

Up. Not down.

Want some more? Average grocery prices jumped up .06% from July to August. That’s the biggest spike in three years.

Of course the facts are a bad look for the president of the United States, who campaigned on the promise of lowering food costs on day one.

According to POTUS, the price of groceries are down except for one pesky food category that’s gumming up works. Meat. And more specifically beef:

To the White House’s way of thinking, rising beef prices are due to price gouging among the nation’s major beef packers — Cargill, Tyson Foods, JBS, and National Beef — collectively known as the Big 4.

Together they account for 80% of the beef market. And by and large, they’ve had their way when it comes to federal scrutiny of their operations.

And when the feds do come out of their meat-induced slumber to penalize the industry for breaking the rules, the fines are far too often insignificant. The feds hardly ever require the Big 4 to admit they’re guilty of their crimes, either when convicted or as part of a settlement. Big Meat will do what Big Meat wishes to do. Full stop.

Still, the White House needs a fall guy to explain why beef prices aren’t blue light specials. And with two of the Big Four owned by foreign conglomerates — JBS is a subsidiary of Brazil’s JBS S.A. and National Beef is controlled by Brazil’s Marfrig Global Foods SA — unsubstantiated claims against the Big 4 play well into POTUS’ Make America Great Again dogma:

“I have asked the DOJ to immediately begin an investigation into the Meat Packing Companies who are driving up the price of Beef through Illicit Collusion, Price Fixing, and Price Manipulation. We will always protect our American Ranchers, and they are being blamed for what is being done by Majority Foreign Owned Meat Packers, who artificially inflate prices, and jeopardize the security of our Nation’s food supply.”

U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi was more than happy to comply, posting on X, “Our investigation is underway!”

For good measure USDA Secretary Brooke Rollins also climbed aboard the Brazil hate fest:

“For far too long, hardworking ranching families have been squeezed by massive foreign-owned meatpacking corporations manipulating prices and driving family operations out of business. These global monopolies profit while everyday Americans pay more at the grocery store and rural communities struggle to survive.”

Rollins spent the last several months crafting the USDA Plan to Fortify the American Beef Industry. Nowhere does USDA directly take on Big Meat’s market monopoly, much less its connection to foreign ownership.

Then Rollins changed her tune after POTUS started the ball rolling: “One hundred percent, yes, when you have four major processors, two owned by the Brazilians, you have a major issue when they are processing 85% of the beef in America. We have to decentralize, deregulate, invest in and incentivize smaller processors.”

Yes, America has a Big Meat consolidation issue. But that doesn’t account for the rise in beef prices this year. What the U.S. has is a cattle problem. And more accurately a lack of cattle problem.

The U.S. beef herd is the smallest since at least 1973. Fifty-two years. And counting. Economists don’t expect much change in the data next January when end-of-year numbers are tabulated.

Meanwhile, consumers are just now beginning to lower retail beef demand. Frankly, there hasn’t been much incentive to repopulate the U.S. herd.

At its core, what the White House has is a beef supply and demand problem. And a Justice Department investigation isn’t going to change that. But gee, it sure sounds ominous.