The GIPSA Bubble

by Randy Stevenson, President When the market moves, there is usually more than one single factor involved. This is especially true the more long-term we look at the market. But it is also common that one factor or another may have a stronger influence at any given time on the status of the market. It seems strange that over the past few months a rise of price in the cattle…
Read more...Put Up or Shut Up: Wanted, Documented Evidence of the Existance of Competition

by Randy Stevenson, President We have listened for quite a long time to a number of experts expound on the virtues and flaws of the cattle market. We’ve seen surveys (some masquerading as “studies”) that purport to give us a picture of what is happening in the cattle market. But we have a couple of questions we would like to put out to the public to see what kind of…
Read more...Tags:cattle market , competition , Consolidated Beef , diminishing number of buyers , OCM , Randy Stevenson
Distorted Incentives: The Simple Arithmetic of Captive Supply

incentivepdf The dominant captive supply arrangement is a marketing agreement with a base price tied to the residual cash market price. Such agreements distort buyer incentives. This is basic Econ 101! These distorted incentives are apparent in the following statement made by a fed cattle buyer to Randy Stevenson:
Read more...Tags:Briefing Paper , captive supply , cattle market , GIPSA , GIPSA rule , GIPSA Rules , Packers & Stockyards Act , PS&A , Randy Stevenson







