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Comment by jeffwask | Hacker News Reader

After watching the oil companies rake everyone over the coals why wouldn't every greed board abuse consumers. We have no consumer protections and half of our legislative branch is filled with obstructionist who have no interest in helping consumers and the other half is filled with people who only pay lip service to helping consumers.

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This feels to me like a case where the market should sort it out - I would think there would be enough competition in the egg industry that it should be difficult to gouge.

The avian flu definitely got rid of some of that pricing pressure, but for what it's worth, the issue seems to be resolving itself. Wholesale egg prices are down 50% from their peak. Anecdotally, I've been able to get a dozen eggs at Sprouts for $3.25-3.50 for about a month (this is in San Diego, so something like $2.49-2.99 was normal pre-pandemic and $5.99 with largely empty shelves was normal two months ago).

> This feels to me like a case where the market should sort it out - I would think there would be enough competition in the egg industry that it should be difficult to gouge.

If all of the large producers are in on it, then the market would not be able to sort itself out. It would be a trust situation.

As the article states, competition is decreasing due to acquisitions by egg producers.

Everything in the US is a monopoly now, everything.

Market correction requires a free and open market which doesn't exist.

> This feels to me like a case where the market should sort it out - I would think there would be enough competition in the egg industry that it should be difficult to gouge.

Nope. Always Late Inventory(tm) means that no upstream supplier has any excess capacity.

So, even if you wanted to drop prices a bit and gain some customers, you can't. Your upstream supplier can't give you 10% more eggs because they are capacity constrained as well. Lather, rinse, repeat at every level.

> After watching the oil companies rake everyone over the coals

What i don't understand is that why don't oil company stocks don't reflect these record profits. exxxon stock seems to be at 2014 levels.

If we know oil companies are price gouging then why won't we just buy those stocks and get in on the action.

Because when people research a business’s prospects for the purposes of investing their own money, they come to incorporate other information such as profit margins and volatility into their analysis.

You answered your own question.

"Because EXXON stock seems to be at 2014 levels."

Stock price is only very loosely related to short term profits. Stock price reflects people's expectation of what people would be willing to pay for those stocks at some future point in time. If a company has done something to fundamentally make itself more profitable, like getting rid of some inefficiency or adding some capability, that could be a good sign it will be more valuable in the future. However a brief surge in profits from a rare event that can not be readily replicated gives no indication that the stock is a good investment.

This is not a rare event though. These 'price gouging' events happen very often. you can certainly count on them happening every few years.

And they always have been. The volatility of goods have been factored into the price already. If there is some reason to believe the volatility is going to change in the long term that could affect price, but again a spike like this is not indicative of a long term trend.

> CFO Max Bowman attributed the monopolist's good fortune to "significantly higher selling prices" and "our ability to adapt to inflationary market pressures." Cal-Maine's stock is up 47% from a year ago – a record high.

From eggspensive thread. I think this is the first egg 'price gouging' event in my lifetime. Its the opposite of 'long term trend' that you say is necessary for stock price bump.

You can't simultaneously argue that price gouging events are rare and not rare. Pick one.

I was referring to the volatility of oil being factored into the price which is why Exxon Mobile's stock doesn't go up significantly when the price of oil goes up.

> You can't simultaneously argue that price gouging events are rare and not rare.

Why not though. It can be rare in some industries( eggs) and not rare in others(oil & gas). Why would there a be universal price gouging rule that applies to every industry.

> I was referring to the volatility of oil being factored into the price which is why Exxon Mobile's

Thats what i am asking you why is not factored into Cal-Maine's stock but factored into Exxon's stock.

The first part you wrote is the answer to the second part.

They are super happy to pay that lip service while saying "look, we're the reasonable ones here, can't do anything cause of the other guys!" and reap the profits.

This sounds like Murc's Law [0]

[0] https://www.lawyersgunsmoneyblog.com/2017/12/great-moments-m...

Of course, this is not really a useful (or provable) criticism as long as the actual obstructionists are obstructing! Much more useful to oust the obstructionists, then you can work on holding the alleged lip-servicers accountable.

Also, supporting candidates who refuse corporate and PAC money

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