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Comment by bzb4 | Hacker News Reader

I worry that once that time arrives the government will force us to consume it by severely taxing actual meat.

Great, meat SHOULD cost a fortune. The actual cost of meat is not what you pay for it, the only reason it’s even affordable is because the taxpayer shoulders the burden of the farm subsidies. Cut those out and a $5 Big Mac would cost almost $15.

Add to that the environmental impact, insane water usage, and the fact that meat production will continue to destroy economies through pandemics, and it should cost 10-15x more than it does now.

You don’t need taxes to offset subsidies, of course. You just need to end the subsidies. But yeah, there are likely major environmental externalities that could be eliminated by taxation.

I don't have the numbers in front of me, but this doesn't seem like it could be true. My Dad always raised cattle as a pastime, just a handful, one for meat and sold the rest. Never subsidized, and he usually broke just about even. A big mac has a fifth pound of beef. $75 a pound for ground beef? He'd buy hundreds. So would I, and everyone else. Why bother cutting out steaks, just grind the whole thing down.

So I'm curious where that number comes from.

Agricultural subsidies that affect beef, either directly or indirectly, have been in place in the US for almost a century. So either your father is quite old, did not live in the US, or that meat was subsidized.

OK, but I'm asking for -how-, truly. My father is getting up there, but still raises cattle to this day. He buys them as calves, and sells them the next year. They mainly eat grass and hay, but admittedly there is -some- corn feed in the winter, which I understand as one source of subsidy, but I can't see it amounting to much in the grand scheme just based on the amount. When selling them, after accounting for initial cost, medicine, and extras, he breaks even. And that's at today's 'cheap' beef prices.

Industrial Carrie farming has additional costs. Like wise they need to be transported, butchered, packaged, etc. This adds cost.... Your dad's break even is still losing money for anyone doing this as a business.

Thanks for putting into words why I don’t want this to happen :)

Most people in society like meat so it makes sense we subsidize it. This is progressive. Otherwise only the wealthy could eat meat. The wealthy actually pay more to eat meat as they pay the majority of the taxes that go into these subsidies so nearly everyone can afford meat in the market. Once again, this is progressive.

Just like roads. Most people in society want to be able to freely travel where they want and when they want to. So we subsidize roads as a society where the wealthy pay more in terms of taxes but everyone gets to use the roads.

This is all well and good until the negative externalities overcome the benefits. We are past that point.

If true then hopefully people agree to mandate that we value these negative externalities more than subsidized farming. Anything is possible if people can persuade others it's worth doing and that the trade offs are worthwhile.

> Most people in society like meat so it makes sense we subsidize it. This is progressive.

So, we should subsidize things that people like? Should we subsidize sugar?

Most Americans are eating far more meat than doctors recommend.

It's a representative democracy. People vote for representatives that then propose bills and spending policy and vote on them. Elect officials or run for office yourself if you think your ideas are better and more attractive.

Who should be the authority for what society finds value in, which policies are invoked, how taxes are distributed and spent if not the representatives of the people? Clerics? Doctors? Lawyers? Scientists? Sociologists? Bartenders?

People could afford to eat beef (albeit less of it) at 1800s levels of wealth per capita.

Currently high quality beef imitations like B-On are not quite cost competitive with real ground beef. Basically it's taken us an additional ~100yr of supply chain growth to get to a technological point where plant beef is priced like beef was 100yr ago.

I feel very comfortable saying that any change that hits the low level commodities that underpin these things, fuel, grain, etc. would just exacerbate that difference and set plant based "transition foods" back.

If your government has the power to force what the majority doesn't want then your countries' democratic institutions must be very broken.

In a healthy democracy, government's enforcement is mostly a force for good.

I'm not sure there's a Western democracy that fits the bill of a "healthy democracy", then.

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