The price of eggs in America cannot be explained by inflation alone

But past that, the only reason that this behaviour is getting a pass is because people are being very passive in fighting it.

That will only last so long.

The Economist has a slant to be sure, but its usually higher quality than this. Sounds like there's a deeper motive to this article.

This is the gist of what I see in a lot of sectors - there's price seeking happening. I'm finding going to the local restaurant supply store, prices are still what I would expect for the things I buy. Those same items are 3x at the national brand grocery stores. That tells me it's not about supply and demand or you'd see price increases universally, rather than only at those stores that are gouging their customers to see if they can get away with it.

sadly, there are so many HOAs that crack down on this kind of stuff and don't want people to be self sufficient.

I just ran a very generous estimate and I would shocked if your savings at peak egg price are more than $4 per labor hour. To get to that number I assumed $5 per dozen at the grocery store, five chickens at your house, an enormous production and consumption of eggs, very cheap overhead, and only thirty minutes a day of chicken care and harvesting.

Few households can benefit from a $4 an hour second job. Great hobby if you're doing well, of course, but a really bad use of finite time for anybody else. Let alone how few people have the land.

What are you talking about?

While I think it's an interesting economic indicator, does it matter that mich (if you consider eggs you eat as eggs, nor within another product)? Most people I know don't each that much eggs that they couldn't pay with 1-coffee-less-per-week.

Do we not remember the last time avian flu hit the country's egg production hard? The price of eggs jumped massively. Once you identify avian flu in a flock the size that these facilities house, you're talking thousands or tens of thousands of chickens culled. A battery chicken lays an egg a day. That's thousands of eggs not being produced every day until those hens can be replaced. Add in inflation and I'm going to need to see some actual numbers if the author's going to claim that those factors aren't enough to explain the price jump.

They also somehow missed a valid argument against factory farms. All of those birds packed into terrible conditions in massive numbers basically guarantees a massive culling of livestock every time the risk of avian flu is high. More numerous, smaller facilities where the animals aren't stressed out and in incredibly close proximity would mean that a single housing facility becoming infected would lead to fewer animals culled if a facility is exposed. It would be a much, much smaller impact on the market. The price of eggs would be higher than our current supply during healthy years, but wouldn't spike by 100% during high risk years.

Something, something, don't put all your eggs in one basket. Or hens in a single, massive building.