Republican administrations, including the current edition, profess to love free markets. I believe them. This administration does indeed love free markets. The only problem is that it loves a lot of things. It is when free market principles collide with other interests that we can see whether its affection is a school girl crush or real love.
When free markets for steel ran up against the President Bush’s political interest, it turned out that votes in Pennsylvania and West Virginia were the administration’s true love and its affection for free markets was just an infatuation.
The example of Creekstone Farms is also instructive. Creekstone, a small Kansas company, runs a small, state of the art operation to produce and sell high quality beef. The Washington Post describes Creekstone’s operations:
As a small, upscale slaughterhouse and meatpacker, Creekstone … specializes in premium-quality Black Angus beef, accepts fewer and fewer animals that have been fed antibiotics or hormones, and can trace the origin of each animal it receives…The Creekstone packing plant does not look, smell or operate like a traditional slaughterhouse. It is an entirely contained building that, from the outside, looks as if it could be manufacturing computer chips or cooking apple pies, rather than slaughtering 1,000 cattle a day.
Its production line is intentionally slow to enhance worker safety and ensure that the animals are dead before butchering begins. In 2001, previous owners built state-of-the-art holding pens and walkways for cattle heading to slaughter, designed by animal welfare specialist Temple Grandin to keep the animals calm.
Creekstone decided to do something about that problem. It proposed to privately test each of their cows for mad cow disease so as to open the Japanese market. The testing would be done at an academic lab approved by the USDA but Creekstone would pay the entire cost. The Post reports:
In order to satisfy its very important customers in Japan -- customers the company needs to survive -- Creekstone wants to test for mad cow disease every one of the cattle it slaughters.To do that, Creekstone has spent more than $500,000 to build the first mad cow testing lab in an American slaughterhouse, and it has hired seven chemists and biologists to operate it. The company made the investment after Fielding returned from a trip to Japan convinced that officials there would lift their ban on American beef -- imposed after an infected cow was found in Washington state last December -- only if American companies adopt the Japanese practice of testing every animal.
Creekstone said the company potentially can test 300,000 cattle for about $18 a head. The USDA's upgraded surveillance program, meanwhile, will cost $72 million to test approximately 221,000 animals, or $325 a head."The Creekstone Farms' plan will cost less than $6 million using the identical test kit, and our customers are willing to pay for it," Creekstone wrote.
Creekstone seems to be an example of the type of company that Mr. Bush just loves. It is small (compared to others in the industry such as Tyson or Swift). It seems to be a good corporate citizen providing (relatively) good jobs in a good work environment. As the Post notes:
The average wage is between $11 and $12 an hour, and Arkansas City Manager Curtis Freeland said the company is about as good a corporate citizen as it could be. "The turnover rate at the plant is low, and they want to work with the community," he said. "This is not what people imagine when they think of a slaughterhouse."
Creekstone has everything it needs to implement its plan except the kits used to test the cattle. Creekstone is willing to pay full market price for the kits but is having trouble finding a seller. The Post reports:
But there is a big obstacle in the way of Creekstone's mad cow initiative: The U.S. Department of Agriculture will not allow it.The company has all the equipment it needs, but it does not have the kit of chemical reagents needed to run the tests. In the United States, the USDA controls the sale of those kits, and the agency ruled last week that only labs in the U.S. government's testing program can buy them.
The stated reason is as follows:
USDA officials say that they sympathize with Creekstone and similar operations hurt by the bans imposed by Japan and other nations, but that agreeing to the company's request could imply there is a safety issue with American beef and usher in an era of expensive testing that has no scientific justification.The issue is not the effectiveness of the testing itself, as Creekstone would be working under the auspices of an academic lab that the USDA has approved for mad cow testing. Rather, the agency objects to the very idea of testing every animal, including younger ones.
If the testing shows that younger cows are not infected with mad cow disease, the USDA position will be vindicated. If the testing shows that younger cows carry the disease, then the USDA will know that its current policy of testing only older cows is faulty.
What the USDA fears is consumer choice. If Creekstone, and perhaps other producers, provide testing beyond what the USDA requires, consumers may choose to pay a premium for tested beef or may choose to buy lower priced beef that has been subject to USDA’s testing regimen. Why the USDA would fear consumers having such a choice can not be based on food safety concerns as additional private testing can only make our food supply safer.
Perhaps the USDA’s position has nothing to do with science and has everything to do with politics. Who opposes the Creekstone plan to test all of its cattle? The Post reports:
While all American beef exporters have been hurt by the ban on sales abroad, Creekstone is especially vulnerable because it is small -- with less than 1 percent of the market -- and it only packs beef. The big players in the business -- companies such as Tyson Foods, Swift & Co. and Smithfield Foods -- also sell pork and chicken and can weather the beef ban much better.If Japan will not buy their beef, the more diversified companies can sell pork, which they are doing now at a tidy profit. As a result, Fielding says, the beef export ban works to the advantage of the big firms and could end up squeezing many small operations such as his out of business…
The largest and most powerful meat-packing companies are dead set against Creekstone's proposal, as is the group that represents ranchers and feedlot owners, the National Cattlemen's Beef Association.
Association President Jan Lyons said that allowing one company to test all its cattle could quickly snowball into a situation where all companies would have to do similar testing. "If testing is allowed at Creekstone and other companies, we think it would become the international standard and the domestic standard, too," she said. "But it's a standard that's not based on science, would be very expensive and so is something our government definitely needs to resist."
It should be the job of the USDA to ensure a safe food supply, not to make choices for consumers among safe alternatives.
The large companies just want the government, in the form of the USDA, to insulate them from free market competition. The Bush administration, in the form of the USDA, is doing so.
The Bush administration may be infatuated with free markets and small entrepreneurial companies but its true love is big business. No surprise there.
Maybe they can buy test kits from Japan!
Then the Japanese can also be certain that the tests are valid, and not a US scam [scam? US?]
Scorpio
Eccentricity
I think you'd be more correct to say that businesses like free markets in labor, and they like the langauge of free market in regulation (whereas "free market" doesn't actually work in things like pollution control, etc.). But they do not like, in any way, shape or form, free markets in sales. That's why, as an example, you can generally buy US grown apples cheaper in Canada than you usually can in the States (and limes, and advocados, etc.).
Posted by: QrazyQat at April 17, 2004 12:06 PMThis is a lot like the BGH deal a few years ago - some companies which didn't want to use BGH (Bovine Growth Hormone) wanted to label their packaging that it wasn't used in the production of their product, but that was disallowed.
Am I remembering this right? Which administration was this during - Clinton's methinks.
Not a bush apologist here - he's an idiot who needs to get out, but I think this type of thing isn't really new or isolated to the repugnants.
Posted by: SalParadise at April 17, 2004 12:09 PMThis is an amazing story, Dwight. The argument is truly weightless; if, in a true "free market," I choose to do something my competitors don't, that's my prerogative. Particularly galling is the fact that Creekstone has agreed to to pay the extra costs, rather than asking for a subsidy of some kind, or (perish the thought) asking the FDA/USDA to do their jobs. The connections between "Big Business" and this administration are truly scary...best government you can buy!
Posted by: Beefeater at April 17, 2004 12:16 PMQQ---
businesses don't like free markets in labor, either.Human Rights Watch has reported that workers effectivly no longer have the right to organize unions for themselves in the US.
Workers can bargain fairly with owners and managers only when they can bargain as equals.
A peasant who reaches an agreement with a king is not in a free market.
Linked here by Atrios. I think this is very well done. It goes without saying that this article should be in a newspaper. This is the kind of watchdog journalism newspapers used to do.
I learn about many things, even regional and state news, from blogs. My local and regional newspaper is useless. Clueless on most subjects where politics intersects with public interest.
Is there a directory of blogs? How can I find out who is blogging on what, when and where?
Mooser, I agree w/ your comment. There are many blog directories: try Googling "blog directory". Also try www.bloglines.com for blogs w/ an RSF (?) feed - you can sign up for the ones you want to see and get the updates at that site. Also, I don't know what you're looking for in blogs, but try clicking on blogs linked from ones you like (the "blogroll" is usually in the margin). I found a lot of great left-leaning blogs on the Links page of Tom Tomorrow's blog (www.thismodernworld.com) and I often leave that page open. Welcome to the blogosphere.
Posted by: tp at April 17, 2004 12:42 PM"But it's a standard that's not based on science,..."
Why don't they just say the standard is "Faith Based"? That ought to do it.
Posted by: Mooser at April 17, 2004 12:43 PMI was also linked here by Atrios. But I must say I have some problems with the premise of private meat inspection replacing government meat inspection. regardless of the niceness of the company which you described.
If private meat inspection were to replace government meat inspection, it would take the corporate charlatans about 30 seconds flat to set up bogus inspection companies which would do a crummy job- no, make that a LETHAL job.
Here in Ontario where I live, the now-deposed neo-con morons replaced government water inspection with private inspection to whittle the provincial budget down and help make their idiotic tax cuts less obviously bad for the provincial budget's bottom line.
result: in a little town called Walkerton, about half a dozen people died as a result of their water being poisoned by agricultural fecal run-off.
The whole purpose of having a private corporation is to limit your liability when something bad happens. The government, on the other hand, cannot go bankrupt to avoid the consequences of fucking up the meat inspection. Which one do I really want inspecting MY meat? Hmmm, now let me think...
Posted by: glenstonecottage at April 17, 2004 12:43 PMWhew.
Posted by: chimbo at April 17, 2004 12:54 PMAlso here via Atrios, Scorpio's comment was perfect in the first post.
Let them buy the kits from foreign competitors. The Japanese themselves might be more trusting of their own approved kits than perhaps those of another country's say... the United States?
If the kit's themselves are even cheaper from third world nations then that helps them as well.
But I would expect the USDA to find some way to block the effort if they did go this route.
This would be a perfect topic for the Dem's to tackle as proof of their support for free-market capitalism and counter the bogus 'socialist' claims made by wingnuts.
Too bad there aren't any Democrats in Kansas. I know cause I live in Kansas City and I don't know of any. Perhaps someone here can suggest this plan to Creekstone themselves and ensure they're aware that it was lefties and liberals who came up with it?
MYOB'
.
Gkenstonecottage:
I too would have a problem with private meat inspection replacing government inspections. That, however, is not the case here. The issue is whether to permit private meat inspection in addition to not as a replacement for government inspection. There is no reason to prohibit a tighter inspection regime.
The situation is analogous to the government prohibiting air bags in cars because it only requires seat belts. Requiring air bags may be good or bad policy (good in my view) but to prevent private companies from spending their own money to provide additional safety is just crazy.
Posted by: dwight meredith at April 17, 2004 01:02 PMSalParadise,
The rBGH case is different in several respects. Companies like Ben & Jerry's were sued by Monsanto because they made controversial claims about the deleterious effects of rBGH on human consumers. Organic dairy companies are allowed to use labels that say their cows were not given rBGH, but the phrasing must address the FDA's ruling:
"We Oppose Recombinant Bovine Growth Hormone. The family farmers who supply our milk and cream pledge not to treat their cows with rBGH. The FDA has said no significant difference has been shown and no test can now distinguish between milk from rBGH treated and untreated cows."
For more info check out this press release. My belief, in this case is that the FDA was remiss in evaluating a too narrow criteria of the effects of rBGH use and were dependent upon Monsanto's data. The FDA allowed rBGH to enter the market instead of subjecting dairy producers to more stringent regulation, as I believe it should have.
Posted by: adm at April 17, 2004 01:04 PM"businesses don't like free markets in labor, either.Human Rights Watch has reported that workers effectivly no longer have the right to organize unions for themselves in the US."
They don't view unions, or any form of worker organization, as being part of a "free market" in labor -- quite the opposite -- the business idea of a "free market" in labor is things like so-called "right to work" laws and other union-busting moves, as well as moving businesses anywhere they want.
Posted by: QrazyQat at April 17, 2004 01:07 PMSalParadise,
Btw, contrary to the FDA's ruling, I've seen credible reports that, in fact, milk from rBGH treated and untreated cows CAN be distinguished by insulin-like growth factor concentrations.
In contradition to Jan Lyons's statement that the testing would be "very expensive," Gary Weber, also of the National Cattlemen's Beef Association, said in a story in the NY Times, that the resistance was "absolutely not about the money."
Posted by: BayMike at April 17, 2004 01:40 PMglenstonecottage --
I would think that the regular USDA monitoring is in place.
If the company were meeting the Fed regs and wants to go farther it should be up to them.
Via slashdot, another possible example: the National Association of Broadcasters requesting that the FCC bar XM and Sirius from providing local traffic and weather.
Posted by: Ken C. at April 17, 2004 02:28 PM... I have some problems with the premise of private meat inspection replacing government meat inspection.
Well, since the USDA won't test every cow for the disease, I'd say your "problem" is non-existent, isn't it?
Posted by: dave at April 17, 2004 02:40 PMSo how do the Big Boys and the Cattlemen's Association - the latter definately a group concerned with nothing but cash - figure Creekstone's testing methods are "not based on science"? Is it because they insist on testing both younger and older cows, rather than just the older ones? Sorta sounds like when Creationists claim evolution requires faith to me.
Posted by: Backslider at April 17, 2004 02:55 PMI was wondering how the USDA could stop them from testing. What isn't quite clear is why the USDA controls the specific reagent used in the test.
Hopefully the market will provide one.
As to the science question. Well the testing is of course junk science. That would be any science which doesn't adhere to The Party line. Dr. Lysenko lives!
Long live The Party!
Posted by: Jorma at April 17, 2004 03:14 PMIf anyone wants a great discussion of how the (mal)administration's interpretation of and use of science is virtually always bogus, see Chris Mooney's The Intersection (http://www.chriscmooney.com/blog.asp).
What's truly astounding is that the US beef industry is following the path taken by their UK counterpart, which was disastrous for them. By the time the UK burned their cows, trust of the government and beef industry there had been radically damaged.
Come to think of it, we could use a healthy dose of skeptical activism in this country...
Posted by: tinman at April 17, 2004 03:21 PMThey actually wouldn't be doing the testing themselves. They'd be sending the tests to the same labs who do the testing for the government.
Posted by: julia at April 17, 2004 03:43 PMAnother Ontarian here. I'd like to warn that while Creekstone apparently wants to run tests in addition to USDA standards, this private testing might be used by others as an example of how private testing can be cheaper and more effective.
Creekstone's lower price per head is almost certainly based on the economies of scale from testing every animal on site (instead of a random sampling from around the country).
So while the efficiency argument wouldn't hold industry wide it could still be used to usher in cut rate privatized standards for beef.
Posted by: Ian Gillespie at April 17, 2004 03:49 PMWhat Creekstone wants to do is comply with the wishes of its customers.
I'm in the computer business and over the last 30 years I have done a lot of things that I knew were a total waste of time for no reason other than "that's what the customer wants". You don't argue with customers, you either sell them what they want and you don't sell to them.
I worked with developers in SoCal and was totally amazed by the "impact fees" battle. While the politicians argued about impact fees for new development, the developers were saying "who cares, I make a percentage over cost". This is about politics, not business.
For Creekstone the choice is simple: test everything and sell, don't test everything and go bankrupt.
Posted by: Bryan at April 17, 2004 03:59 PMADM -
Thanks for setting me straight - I was hoping I was over-simplifying when I wrote that.
-sal
Posted by: SalParadise at April 17, 2004 05:01 PMSounds like the USDA should make some changes to Kosher and Halal labelling, to make this enforcement uniform. :-)
Posted by: Mike Huben at April 17, 2004 05:33 PMI served in the military in the 1980s and was stationed in Germany for 2 years. As a result, I can no longer donate blood in the US, because of US government concerns regarding mad cow disease (which has been a problem in Europe).
Look up blood donation regulations yourself -- 6 months or more in many European countries since 1980 and you're off the list. http://www.redcross.org/services/biomed/0,1082,0_557_,00.html#cjdmcd
What better way to prevent this from becoming a problem in the US than for the government to bury its head in the sand?
-- Skippy X
http://www.lemonde.fr/web/article/0,1-0@2-3226,36-361523,0.html
Posted by: Eric at April 17, 2004 06:39 PMMaybe my take is all wrong but I wonder if USDA/cattle ranchers are afraid of finding BSE in the American cow pool. With an 100% testing policy, Japan has found 11 cases of BSE this year. And I believe their ranchers have been vigilant about BSE far longer than our ranchers.
Ian Gillespie, thank you for articulating more clearly my concerns about setting a precedent of "two-tier" meat inspection.
Once the corporations start doing their own inspections privately, their next demand will be to be excused from government inspections... just like some of our wingnuts here in Ontario have been arguing that since THEY send their kids to private schools, why should THEY have to pay taxes to support the public school system? This kind of bogus logic inevitably leads to the destruction of public services of all kinds.
I happen to think the Japanese happen to have a good point. Why not inspect every cow?
I know that our Canadian beef industry has been decimated by the fact that one cow was randomly found to have had BSE, and the US border was closed just in case any more diseased cows were out there. After a few months of economic hardships in Alberta, wingnut Alberta premier Ralph Klein made some veiled public remarks about how ranchers should have just buried the diseased cows on their own ranches rather than let the facts about the disease become public. And you can bet that this is exactly what will happen from now on, in both Canada and the U.S.
Inspecting every single cow is really the only way to instill confidence in the public that the meat they buy is completely safe.
Posted by: glenstonecottage at April 17, 2004 09:46 PMMakes sense to me.
Let's don't test the blood supply either--that would suggest that there might be a problem with redblooded American . . . blood.
Posted by: degustibus at April 17, 2004 10:41 PMThe other thing that hasnt' been mentioned here is that USDA, like the Forest Service and several other agencies, has essentially become a captive to the industry it regulates. It has dual missions: one to promote US Ag and one to regulate it. This situation begs for conflicts of interest, so it gets them.
Posted by: Linkmeister at April 18, 2004 01:18 AMhttp://www.organicconsumers.org/madcow.htm
the farmers at my local farmers market - in downtown st. paul minnesota - tell me they would never eat beef from a farm that they did not know ... something tells me this is a train that has left the station for the bush administration and the beef industry. they simply refuse to believe it.
good for creekstone ... real americans.
Posted by: spk at April 18, 2004 01:47 AMMore crony capitalism from the credibility-challenged Bush regime.
Revolution NOW dammit. I can't wait until November.
Posted by: renato at April 18, 2004 02:12 AMSounds like an epidemic waiting to happen. I haven't eaten hamburger (except from an organic market) since that first cow was found here.
My logic at the time was, even though the government was saying our beef was safe, this was the same gov. that told the EPA to get the word out that the air quality was safe in NYC immediately after 9/11.
Now after seeing the link posted by spk, I'm not sure I will eat any Beef that is not organically grown (we had been eating steak considering that to be pretty safe). Apparently I was wrong.
I'm inclined to believe that the real reason that the USDA won't allow the testing is because they are sticking their heads in the sand. They don't want anyone to independently find that there IS an epidemic. I'm not saying there is, it just seems to me that they are worried there is and they want to avoid a panic and a complete meltdown of the industry. My opinion is that testing every cow is a good thing, so their unwillingness to do so is irresponsible in the extreme.
Posted by: DeepThought 42 at April 18, 2004 07:58 AMFor a fellow Scorpio, you sure am dumb.
Posted by: Buck at April 18, 2004 08:58 AMWell, verifying the tests was one of the conditions the japanese government put forward to open the market for Creekstone beef, in case you aren't one of the Scorpios who clicks through.
Posted by: julia at April 18, 2004 01:56 PMIs this any surprise? Bottome line: Kerry was 100% correct when he said these people were "the most crooked, lying" people he'd ever seen. Their entire "free market" argument is just one more house of cards in their dysfunctional platform.
Posted by: Maverick at April 18, 2004 03:00 PMFrom National Cattlemen's Beef Association:
"Federal farm programs can influence, change and distort the price and supply of beef cattle. The National Cattlemen’s Beef Association supports agricultural policy that is based on private enterprise, competitive markets and minimum government intervention. Government programs are sometimes necessary in disaster and emergency situations or to aid market access and expand information availability, but that is where it should end. NCBA encourages private enterprise in marketing and risk management as the alternative to government programs."
Lol Mooser..yes this is faith based. I pray each time I have beef that this one wasn't a mad cow.
But the problem is bigger than beef isn't it? Every bit of cow that is ground up for use in animal feed goes to sheep, chicken etc. etc. doesn't it? Isn't it throughout our entire meat supply?