Let Them Eat Steak!

Let them eat cake

The original The French is Qu'ils mangent de la brioche. It has been suggested that the speaker's intention wasn't as cynical as is generally supposed. French law required bakers to sell loaves at fixed prices and fancy loaves had to be sold at the same price as basic breads. This was aimed at preventing bakers from selling just the more profitable expensive products. The let them eat brioche (a form of cake made of flour, butter and eggs) would have been a sensible suggestion in the face of a flour shortage as it would have allowed the poor to eat what would otherwise have been unaffordable. It's rather a mouthful, so to speak, but if the phrase had been reported as 'let them buy cake at the same price as bread' we might now think better of the French nobility.

Fortunately, this issue does not apply to meat. If a cow is slaughtered to make hamburger there will be leftover steak. It too must be sold even if the typical family can no longer afford it. I therefore exclaim, "Let them eat steak!"

WASDE: Lower Meat Production, Tighter Cattle Supplies

Cow inventories declined in 2007 and with relatively high cow slaughter expected in 2008, cattle inventories will be smaller and result in fewer cattle marketings during 2009. Marketable supplies of cattle may be further reduced if producers begin retaining calves from this year's calf crop for addition to the breeding herd to rebuild herds. Pork production is expected to decline as producers reduce sows farrowing later this year and into next year in response to poor returns.

The Death of Real Yields ("poor returns") strikes again.

Purdue Outlook: Crop Supply & Demand, Still Lots Of Questions

On the demand side, the biggest question may be about likely feed and residual use of corn. Use during the 2008-09 marketing year is projected at 5.3 billion bushels, 850 million less than projected for the current year, but only 298 million less than used in 2006-07. The wide swing in use the past two years means there is some uncertainty about the size of the feed demand base. How much reduction is really required and how much livestock liquidation has already started? Price behavior following the release of the report suggests that the market believes that much of the needed rationing of use is already underway.

This post inspired by a comment left anonymously.

...but this man does not live on bread alone. - Anonymous