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Comment by frgtpsswrdlame | Hacker News Reader

I thought the issue was deregulation? Something like Trump rolled back some rules about oversight and then Biden never put them back into place? Does the USDA even have the power to fix this?

Anyways, having a pregnant wife right now, it's worrying that listeria is on the rise. We're already avoiding stuff like deli meat but when there's listeria in the frozen waffles, mushrooms, and vegetables you have to wonder what's really going on.

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The USDA created the problem through regulating industry consolidation. The 'fix' is to reconfigure the economy to price in unpriced negative externalities and create sustainable industries. This of course won't happen.

I’m struggling to understand what you are advocating for in practice.

What was such a reconfiguration of the economy actually mean in real terms?

Ideally it would be possible to calculate the economic 2nd and 3rd order effects of commercial activity in order to price in externalities.

In practice the example I like to use is soil loss. Farming isn't sustainable because the soil literally blows and washes away and cannot be regenerated. The solution is to have forest patches to reduce the wind speed and marshes to hold the rain. All of this takes valuable land which cannot be used 'productively' but is vital to make agriculture sustainable.

It’s lucky when you can get the sign right on the first-order effects. Predicting 2nd order effects accurately enough to price them is economic voodoo.

Most 'economists' are not scientists and simply mash things together to justify whatever has already been decided.

He's pointing out that meat packing consolidated into a cartel (Tyson, JBS, Smithfield and Cargill), which has enough economic power to ignore or alter regulation. The solution is antitrust - break corporate power into small enough pieces that they don't have the resources to escape regulatory oversight.

That's absolutely part of it. Animals that are kept close together in cages and barns instead of roaming get sick and spread sickness far more quickly as well. We've created a million dangerous biolabs for diseases with biosimilarity to us.

Its basically arguing that meat needs to have more expensive production processes for better safety.

Simply reconfigure the economy, while it would be nice, is always harder to implement.

Yes and: IIRC, USDA lost their roster of experienced food inspectors (et al) when their headquarters moved from Metro DC to Kansas City. Below are the top hits via perplexity.

FWIW, While I'm generally in favor of (geographical) decentralization, I'm against abrupt changes to essential services. Obviously, a nice orderly transition would have been better. Plenty of staff, esp youngsters wanting a house and family, would relocate over time.

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https://www.npr.org/2021/02/02/963207129/usda-research-agenc...

https://www.govexec.com/oversight/2023/01/although-usda-agen...

https://www.gao.gov/products/gao-23-104709

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