This Is Stupid: Justice Department Investigating Big Egg Over Price Increases

What happens when over 150 million chickens are killed to prevent the spread of Bird Flu?

The supply of chicken and chicken products gets constrained and prices go up. 

In just the past two months, over 40 million chickens were euthanized to prevent the spread of this nasty disease. 

The Trump administration, though, is following the Biden playbook and pointing fingers at egg producers and darkly suggesting that evil egg producers might be price gouging and driving up the price of eggs out of malign intent. 

That is just dumb, both as a theory for why egg prices are going up, and as a way to treat the intelligence of the American people. This is AOC-level economics, and I have to say it ticks me off more than a little bit. 

But there it is. After relentlessly avoiding the normal dodging and weaving of politicians looking for somebody to point fingers at to deflect (in this case unearned) blame, the Trump administration has given in to one of the worst political instincts: finger pointing to blame people instead of circumstances for largely unavoidable problems. 

The Justice Department is in the early stages of investigating major egg producers in the United States over possible antitrust violations as the price of eggs skyrockets, two people familiar with the matter said.

The department’s lawyers are preparing to send civil investigative demands — effectively subpoenas for civil investigations — to several producers, including Cal-Maine Foods and Rose Acre Farms, one of the people said. Investigators are looking at whether the companies are sharing sensitive information about pricing and supply, contributing to a spike in prices.

The inquiry is being run out of the antitrust division’s Chicago office, the people said.

A spokeswoman for the Justice Department declined to comment on the investigation. Cal-Maine and Rose Acre did not immediately respond to emails seeking comment. The Capitol Forum earlier reported the inquiry.

Egg prices began soaring last year, and they quickly became an issue in the presidential campaign. Producers have blamed the spread of avian flu, which has forced them to cull millions of hens, for tighter egg supplies and prices that have surpassed $8 a dozen in some areas.

High egg problems were a political problem for the Biden administration, and are proving to be a stick political problem for the Trump administration. Rather than looking for solutions to this vexing problem, politicians always go for the lazy solution to their own problem: blame somebody. 

Since Bird Flu is not going away in the foreseeable future, and mass culls of flocks is a…suboptimal…solution, we need to find a long-term solution or live with fewer eggs and less chicken going forward. Finding that solution means working with poultry producers who are not excited about killing the chicken that laid the Golden Egg. Even people with home coops are being forced to euthanize their chickens, and as far as I know they aren’t price gouging anyone.  

Yes, I know I am supposed to be a cheerleader for my team, and I do quite a bit of that when warranted, but I don’t want my team to become the same as what I despise. 

This was dumb.