What Happened Today: June 8, 2022
Meat monopolies push up grocery bills; Eichmann not as banal on tape; acrobatic golfers on Saudi tour
The Big Story
Top poultry producer Foster Farms has been acquired by Atlas Holdings, a $14.5 billion private equity firm, just as several federal agencies are conducting antitrust probes into the U.S. meat market. With the four biggest meat companies producing more than half of the U.S. chicken supply and roughly 70% of the nation’s beef and pork, major meat producers are being accused of abusing their market dominance to raise prices during the worst inflation in four decades.
Though general food prices now compared to April 2021 are slightly above overall inflation, meat and poultry products are significantly higher, with prices up 16% for chicken, more than 14% for beef, and almost 23% for eggs. Unlike other grocery items, meat products are generally considered to be inelastic—consumers will still buy their burgers, milk, and eggs and cut the extra costs elsewhere from their budget. Although labor shortages, bad weather crops, and other disruptions have driven up production expenses, meat producers are still seeing massive profits. In the second quarter of this year, one of the largest meat producers, Tyson, reported that production costs increased by about $1.5 billion, leading the company to hike up its prices by $2 billion—meaning it passed on a net surcharge of $500 million to consumers. Moves like that have led the Justice Department to investigate how global food powerhouses Cargill and Continental Grain Company are trying to acquire the third largest chicken maker in the United States, Sanderson Farms. A separate investigation also involving the Agriculture Department was prompted by complaints from worker groups and consumer advocates who say that meat producers have abused their market power by inflating prices without passing added revenues on to workers. A group of poultry plant workers recently brought a civil suit against 20 companies that account for roughly 90% of grocery store chicken. Several defendants settled without admitting they were guilty of holding regular meetings among top executives to share compensation so that they could keep worker wages down.
Read it here: https://www.wsj.com/articles/private-equity-firm-atlas-holdings-to-buy-chicken-company-foster-farms-11654631740
In The Back Pages: The Democrats’ Voter Problem
The Rest
→ Washington legislators led by Senators Chris Murphy (D-CT) and John Cornyn (R-TX) say they will finalize new gun legislation by the end of the week, as families of victims and survivors from the recent mass shootings of an elementary school in Uvalde, Texas, and a grocery store in East Buffalo made chilling testimony to lawmakers in a hearing today on U.S. gun violence. To secure the necessary support of at least 10 Republicans, Democratic senators have given up their pursuit of an assault weapon ban, with the negotiations now addressing mental health assessments incorporated into stricter background checks and a potential age requirement of 21 to purchase a firearm.
→ At about 2 a.m. this morning in Chevy Chase, Maryland, U.S. marshals and local law enforcement arrested a California man carrying a knife, gun, and what The Washington Post called “burglary tools” near the home of Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh, after the man had made several threats against the judge. The arrest comes after protests outside the home of Kavanaugh and several other justices in reaction to the leak of a draft court opinion that will likely overturn Roe v. Wade. The Department of Homeland Security said that abortion advocates on both sides of the issue have ratcheted up their calls for violence against not only judges but also other government officials, as well as reproductive health care providers and those with opposing views. Republican lawmakers have called on the House to pass a Supreme Court security bill to increase protection for the families of the nine justices.
→ In what might be a bid to blow up his pending Twitter purchase, Elon Musk is claiming that the social media company has a big bot problem and that it’s not being forthcoming about how many of its users are robots. Musk says at least 20% of Twitter users are in fact bots—and has demanded documents from Twitter that detail how many of the platform’s users are real. Twitter has publicly reported that 5% of its users are bots and has claimed that it has shared the requested documents with Musk. According to Bloomberg, Twitter executives are unfazed by Musk’s theatrics, informing their employees that Musk is now legally required to go ahead with the $44 billion buy as agreed. The Scroll had previously speculated that the complaint about bots might be a negotiation tactic Musk was using to drive the sale price down. That may still be the case, but it’s also possible as the stock market continues to crater and tech stocks get hit especially hard that the Tesla CEO is looking for an exit strategy.
→ BY THE NUMBERS: The average cost of a gallon of gas is now more than $5 in 10 U.S. states, with the national average inching ever closer to the $5 mark. In California, the highest average price sits at $6.24 a gallon.
→ QUOTE OF THE DAY: “There was not much human capital available during the pandemic. So, the robots were a way to supplement that lack of talent available in the labor market.”
Vaughn Davis, the general manager of the Los Angeles Dream Hollywood hotel. As the hospitality industry struggles with widespread labor shortages, more robots are stepping in to fill the vacuum—or to vacuum, period, as well as haul luggage, bring extra pillows to rooms, and greet guests.
→ Never one to give up an opportunity to embroil itself in another scandal, Wells Fargo has halted its diversity hiring program after a New York Times investigation last month found the bank’s wealth management executives were conducting sham interviews of women and minority candidates to satisfy the bank’s recruitment program requirements, even though the positions had already been offered. Called Diverse Slate, the 2020 program was rolled out to ensure hiring managers filing positions paying above $100,000 interviewed a candidate pool where at least half of applicants were either minorities or women. But it turned out the program was more of a publicity stunt than an actual policy, with Wells Fargo employees reportedly being told to conduct fake interviews to goose the numbers. The bank has suffered through several high-profile episodes of misconduct in recent years, paying billions of dollars in fines for practices that included creating millions of checking accounts for customers without their knowledge.
→ Housing is nearing record-low affordability, with May marking the worst market for homebuyers in 16 years, according to Black Knight, a real estate analytics firm. While homebuyers suffered, however, mortgage holders watched their equity swell, as “tappable equity”—the amount homeowners can borrow against the value of their homes—increased by a record-breaking $1.2 trillion in the first quarter of 2022, an average of $207,000 per homeowner. “It really is a bifurcated landscape—one that grows ever more challenging for those looking to purchase a home, but is simultaneously a boon for those who already own and have seen their housing wealth rise substantially over the last couple of years,” said Black Knight President Ben Graboske. “Depending upon where you stand, this could be the best or worst of all possible markets.” Where one stands in this instance has a lot to do with age. Boomers comprise 22% of the population but account for roughly 42% of homeowners, while millennials, who have historically low rates of homeownership, are now eyeing the worst market in years.
→ With housing prices at all-time highs, this might come in handy for those looking at ever-remote options. China has just released the most detailed map of the moon ever made, which includes includes “12,341 impact craters, 81 impact basins, 17 rock types, and 14 types of structures, and it is “expected to make a great contribution to scientific research, exploration, and landing site selection on the moon.”
→ A few years before he was captured in Argentina by the Mossad and put on trial in Jerusalem, Adolf Eichmann spoke at length with a Dutch journalist about his work exterminating millions of Jews. “Had we put 10.3 million Jews to death, then I would be content and would say, ‘Good, we have destroyed the enemy,’” Eichmann is recorded saying to the journalist, William Sassen. “It is a difficult thing to say and I know I will be judged for it, but this is the truth.” Those recordings, long thought lost, are now at the center of a new Israeli documentary, The Devil’s Confession: The Lost Eichmann Tapes, which opened the 2022 Docaviv International Documentary Film Festival in Tel Aviv in May. Contrary to Hannah Arendt’s famous formulation that Eichmann embodied the “banality of evil”—a bureaucrat merely following evil orders—the recordings from these interviews, which were obtained with much difficulty by Yariv Mozer, the documentary’s writer and director, signal Eichmann’s knowledge of and agency in his crimes. “Eichmann said several times during the trial that he didn’t know about the extermination of the Jews, Mozer said, “but the recordings show that he most definitely did.” The recordings, however, were barred from Eichmann’s trial in Israel as the prosecutors could not procure the original tapes.
→ A fragile cease-fire in Yemen—the first in six years—has inspired hopes that this civil war between the Iranian-backed Houthi Rebels and the Saudi-U.S.-backed Yemeni government might soon come to an end. Yemen is the Arab world’s most impoverished nation, and the eight years of conflict have already claimed the lives of more than 350,000 civilians and created a widespread refugee crisis that has rippled across the region. This latest cease-fire and round of talks ended, at least temporarily, the siege of Taiz, a city in central Yemen that Houthis have encircled and cut off from the rest of the country.
→ As President Biden prepares for an upcoming trip to the Gulf and Middle East, some of golf’s greatest players are making similar preparations, as Saudi Arabia has recently launched the LIV Golf series, a new, lucrative league funded by the country’s sovereign wealth fund. Appearing at a press conference, LIV Golf logos all around them, golf greats were asked if the league is intended to help launder Saudi Arabia’s reputation, especially as it relates to the country’s record of human rights abuses. “Take the Khashoggi situation,” Graeme McDowell, a former PGA Tour champion, said when asked about his decision to join a league funded by the nation that kidnapped and dismembered a Washington Post journalist in 2018. “We all agree that’s reprehensible. Nobody is going to argue that fact.” He then went on to explain that golf is a force for good and that “I just try to be a great role model to kids.” Who knew these golfers were so acrobatic? Perhaps they’re inspired by Biden, who has been doing some diplomatic twists of his own, having called Saudi Arabia a “pariah” before the current energy crisis, which then sent him scrambling to visit the country as soon as possible.
Additional reporting and writing provided by The Scroll’s associate editor, David Sugarman
The Democrats’ Voter Problem by Jacob Siegel
The only thing larger than the disconnect between the Democratic Party and American voters is the elaborate machinery the party uses to hold on to power despite its waning popularity. Part media spectacle and part security state, the machine furnishes an endless series of crises that only the party can solve while distracting from the day-to-day problems, like crime and inflation, that actually matter to voters.
President Biden’s approval ratings are at an all-time low, according to a new poll released Wednesday. The Morning Consult/Politico poll shows the president’s approval falling below 40% for the first time since he took office. Meanwhile, San Franciscans voted Tuesday to recall the city’s district attorney, Chesa Boudin, who became the face for the progressive criminal justice reforms championed by activists and supported by tens of millions of dollars in funding from prominent donors, including George Soros. Later Boudin became the face for out-of-control violent crime and disorder in the Bay Area.
The response? When all else fails, just call voters racists and accuse them of spreading disinformation.
Channeling the zeitgeist of the party and its functionaries, a headline in Tuesday’s New York Times announced that “Embattled Democrats Hope Jan 6 Hearings Will Motivate Voters.” These same hearings, as The Scroll noted yesterday, have enlisted a former television executive at ABC News to build a rousing, vote-driving dramatic event out of what is supposedly an oh-so-grave inquiry into the horrific events at the U.S. Capitol.
But do voters actually care about the Jan. 6 commission? No more than they cared about the Russiagate conspiracy, but that didn’t stop leading Democrats from spending four years obsessing over Trump pee tapes while former Democrats grew progressively more estranged from the party.
Democrats have abandoned the party’s traditional strategy of appealing to the fundamental interests of middle-class and working-class voters. To make up for that abandonment, the party’s strategists turn to polarizing spectacles. “House Democrats,” notes the Times, “plan to use a landmark set of investigative hearings beginning this week to try to refocus voters on Jan. 6.”
Will it work? Not likely. The top five issues influencing American voters, according to a Monmouth University survey from May: the economy, abortion, health care, immigration, gun control, and taxes.
“Bread & circuses,” that’s what the Dems’ strategy reminds me of - the bread is too expensive at this point, of course, and the circuses feature oh so many clowns.
The Democrats have doubled down on Obama and Clinton's comments about middle class Americans and their values and have jettisoned them as a constituency in their pursuit of and support of the woke agenda