There is a short legal phrase, "but for", which generally relates to negligence cases. For example, but for A firing his gun at B, B would not have been injured.
There is no doubt an argument can be made that U.S. dairy farmers have been harmed. When you come to the "but for" the likely culprit(s) would seem to be the traders at the CME in block Cheddar.
One could say for the past two days Jerome has been the seller and Jacoby has been the buyer. But, the harm to farmers is not caused by the traders. The "but for" is USDA.
"But for" is USDA's formula obtusely attached to the CME trading, no harm would occur. No law firm is very willing to tackle the government (USDA). Not enough politicians are willing to demand transparency.
There is no doubt but what the dairy farmers have been harmed, even though milk production continues and the milk is on the shelves.
Just as with the financial crisis, panic will have to set in before change can even be considered.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
Very well put! It is so simple but yet so impossible!!
ReplyDeleteYet they hold the DIAC meetings to give the appearance of doing something for the farmer.
ReplyDeleteThe proverbial fox guarding the hen house.
EVEN THOUGH THE SAME PLAYERS HAVE BEEN INVOLVED SINCE LAST FALL NO RED FLAGS HAVE BEEN RAISED EITHER.nO OTHER COMPANY HAS TRADED ANYWHERE NEAR WHAT jEROME HAS BUT THEY APPEAR TO BE UNDER THE RADAR.
ReplyDeleteWhat the above writer may have said was "but for the trading done by Jerome Cheese" the cheese market would have been much more stable for the last eight months.Each time the price has moved down drastically they have been involved.
ReplyDeleteToday on the CME there was a bunch of cheese traded and offered to lower the price again to $1.3625. I'm sure the players haven't changed. It makes you wonder when one company can control the milk price for an entire country doesn't it?
ReplyDeleteHow can the California NFDM price of $1.28 on 5 million pounds sold last week be 3 cents higher than CME who had little or no sales?
ReplyDeleteWho is Jerome?
ReplyDeleteWho owns the company or parent company?
Who is the CEO?
How many employees or do they even have employees?
Is this just a fake company set up to "trade" (control prices)?
Jerome Cheese in Jerome, Idaho. Parent company is Davisco, CEO is John Davis.
ReplyDeleteJerome cheese is owned by Davisco Foods International headquartered in Le Sueur, MN.
ReplyDeleteWord is their "cheese" is not fit for human consumption (perhaps that's why they sell cheap?)
Jon Davis is the chief operations officer and Mark Davis is the CEO. Phone is 507-665-8811.
Give them a call and thank them for being so kind. They really appreciate it. Especially if you ask if they are acting on DFA's behalf.
Rusty
Jerome cheese has been doing this for years and making a lot of money doing it. Lower cheese price means higher consumption and lower input costs (milk price), a win-win situation for any manufacturer. This is the biggest problem we have in the dairy industry right now.
ReplyDeletePretty sure there is not a USDA rule forcing plants to baseline their price off of CME prices.
ReplyDeleteGoogle them-nice picture-all in thier taylored suits. The rest I better not say!
ReplyDeleteMost of what they have to offer sounds like toxic chemicals, not milk and certainly nothing I would want to eat.
ReplyDeleteI notice someone from Jerome was offended by the assumptions here and informs us that they don't have to go by CME prices. This may be true but plants also don't have to continually screw farmers either.
ReplyDeleteWonder what the public would think if full page ads were taken out that exposed Jerome and Kraft for selling "plastic" cheese?
ReplyDeleteInstead of Walmart, there needs to be a NOTch (not china)store that sells local "real" food and products that are GRAS.
Jerome cheese brings up a good point. Why do so many price off CME anyway? Is there another one that would work better? NASS? I don't see how we can trust those numbers anyway.
ReplyDeleteWhy is it only price fixing when prices are low? Was someone fixing prices when prices were over $20?
ReplyDeleteIf I give a moments hesitation to a question from NASS, I've had the person on the other end of the phone tell me to estimate. Usually I am at the computer looking up info, so why do they want me to guess?
ReplyDeleteIt appears to me to be a matter price fixing when our prices are so far below world prices!!!
ReplyDeleteSteve Barton
Nice can o worms here John. Too bad this discussion isn't on the front page of some major newspapers.
ReplyDeleteMaybe John would give us permission to print out his entire blog, take it to Kinkos, have copies made to mail to every government official and ask for a response. Think we would get one?
ReplyDelete