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14 thoughts on “Raw data: The ups and downs of egg prices”

  1. bbleh

    Ah, but the salience of egg prices has nothing at all to do with actual reality like biology and economics and all that elitist stuff and everything to do with what's gonna get clicks and gin up the Republican rubes.

    I swear at this point it's become almost Pavlovian. Fox rings a bell and the cultists (and the media echo chamber) start barking.

  4. rick_jones

    “As % of average weekly earnings”. Would that be individual weekly earnings or household? If we’re going for Everyman shouldn’t that be median?

    1. Anandakos

      Does it really matter? The point is, inflation-adjusted egg prices are broadly speaking flat, except when there is an outbreak of Bird Flu. Whether it's 0.3% or 0.5% of average or median or whoop-te-do wages is a completely different issue of "Class Equity". But it has nothing to do with the panic about the price of eggs bankrupting everyone.

      1. DButch

        Or a bird flu claim. There was an article not too long ago in the Seattle Times about a rather large settlement the WA AG reached with a consortium of egg producers, broiler chicken suppliers, and a couple of tuna suppliers for price gouging. I also saw announcements from some other states about a settlement in federal court in Chicago - Kraft and other supermarket chains also sued egg suppliers and won.

        In the WA case the price gouging had been going on for quite a while and, oddly enough, the egg producers were making big money on the perceived scarcity while boasting to their investors about their profit margins.

    1. Crissa

      But that's because if it rains, you get more, if it's hot too long you get less, as well as if it frosts too long.

      That an onions swing wildly based upon just random timing of weather events.

  8. NeilWilson

    Aren't you being inconsistent?

    You say everything should be inflation adjusted but here you are using earnings instead of purchasing power?

    I think the chart is fine. But I know that Kevin Drum would disagree.

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