Livestock “The greatest homage we can pay to truth is to use it.” – JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL DECEMBER 15, 2011 • www. aaalivestock . com
Riding Herd
MARKET
Digest Volume 53 • No. 13
by LEE PITTS
Crazy Old-Fashioned Me ome suggest that I am living in the past; that I’m too old fashioned. I’m the first to admit that we have made progress and are a lot better at some things than we used to be. As a society we are not as racist and women are finally getting the rights they should have had all along. We’re more aware of our environment and most of us don’t throw candy wrappers or beer cans out the car window anymore. However, this crazy old-fashioned guy thinks we’ve thrown the good out with the bad. We’ve overdosed on too many things, from pop culture to pills to political correctness. I’m so old-fashioned I feel you shouldn’t buy something unless you have the money to pay for it. How archaic is that! And that goes for our government, too. I’m so stuck in my old ways that I believe if you sign on the bottom line, or make a handshake deal with someone, then you ought to honor your commitment. I feel strongly that if someone is paying you to work eight hours a day then you owe them eight hours of work, and you shouldn’t be talking on your cell phone for two hours of it. I know I sound like my Grandpa when I say that thugs who murder, rape and kidnap little girls ought to be put to death. And the sooner the better. We shouldn’t have to support these beasts until they get out of prison or die. I’m not some Wild West vigilante but would a little common sense and justice in our courts be too much to ask? These days, when obese people are routinely getting lap band surgery, gastric bypasses and having their stomach shrunk, I admit I have some beliefs that seem rather backwards. For instance, I believe that unless you have a glandular problem, if you get fat it could be your fault. Perhaps you are not a victim and McDonalds didn’t cause
S Nothing’s Changed “Don't get mad at J somebody who knows by Lee Pitts
ust as an army wins or loses the next war by its actions during peacetime, our industry is being shaped far into the foreseeable future by what’s happening in Washington, D.C. during this period of prosperity in the cattle business. One only has to look at this country’s recent past to see what happens when citizens gorge on the good times, with nary a consideration about what happens when the party is over. The events of the past 60 days will come back to haunt cow-calf producers. Sure, things are great right now, with a strong export market and record high prices, so what’s there to worry about? Never mind that our exports are largely the result of a low dollar, and the higher cattle prices can be attributed to the smallest cow herd in the last 50 years. Look below the surface and you’ll see beef consumption and rancher population numbers that are plummeting faster than Congressional approval ratings.
Crooks And Liars
NEWSPAPER PRIORITY HANDLING
Barrack Obama was the candidate for change, or so he said. People voted for him because they thought he was the more promising candidate. And the voters were right, in a twisted sort of way, because Obama promised and promised, only to
more than you do. It ain't their fault.” spend his Presidency breaking almost every promise he made. The Chicago-trained politician offered false hope, saying he would “fight to ensure family and independent farmers have fair access to markets, control over their production decisions, and transparency in prices.” He promised to curb the power of the big four meat packers who control well over 89 percent of production. His USDA and Jus-
tice Department spent countless hours and taxpayer’s money traversing the country to “listen” to ranchers beg for the government to enforce the Packers and Stockyards Act. For the first time in this writer’s career it looked like something would actually be done about captive supplies, the packer’s practice of staying off the cash market by killing cattle it held captive, and then pricing their formula or
captive cattle on the live market it helped drive down. Cattlemen proved in a court of law that Tyson used captive supplies to price fix. They won $1.28 billion in damages until a judge ruled that it’s all right for an individual to be cheated, just as long as the marketplace as a whole was not harmed. But what the heck does that mean? That was the packer’s loophole and the new GIPSA regs proposed by the Obama Administration were going to close it. But it all proved to be nothing more than a traveling circus. At the last minute, under pressure from the big meatpackers and their lackeys, the NCBA and National Pork Producers, Obama and Vilsack caved in. Apparently they had their packer-purchased hearing aids turned off during those “listening” sessions. They were just toying with us. On Oct. 28, 2011, Ag Secretary Vilsack waved the white flag and continued on page two
Sierra Club leader departs amid discontent over group’s direction Sierra Club Chairman Carl Pope, whose leadership has stirred dissent, steps down. Some believe the organization has compromised its core principles by LOUIS SAHAGUN, Los Angeles Times
he chairman of the Sierra Club, one of the nation’s most influential environmental groups, has stepped down amid discontent that the group founded by 19th century wilderness evangelist John Muir has strayed from its core principles. The departure of Carl Pope, 66, a member of the club for more than 40 years, comes as the nonprofit group faces declining membership, internal dissent, well-organized opponents, a weak economy and forces in Congress trying to take the teeth out of environmental regulations. Pope became chairman of the club in 2010, after serving for more than 17 years as executive director. He was replaced by Michael Brune, 40, a veteran of smaller activist groups, who has pledged to concentrate on grass-roots organizing, recruit new members and focus on such issues as coal-fired power plants. “We have different approaches,” Brune said of his relationship with his predecessor.
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Pope said he will leave his position as chairman to devote most of his time to “revitalizing the manufacturing sector” by working with organized labor and corporations. That emphasis caused schisms in the club, most notably when he hammered out a million-dollar deal with household chemical manufacturer Clorox to use the club’s emblem on a line of “green” products and, more recently, with its support of utility-scale solar arrays in the Mojave Desert, the type of place the club made its reputation protecting. “I’m a big-tent guy,” Pope said in an interview in the group’s San Francisco headquarters. “We’re not going to save the world if we rely only on those who agree with the Sierra Club. There aren’t enough of them. My aim is getting it right for the long term. I can’t get anything accomplished if people think: ‘This guy is not an honest broker. He’s with the Sierra Club.’” Pope led the Sierra Club’s efforts to help continued on page four
continued on page twelve
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