The good ol' corporate mentality... another shing example:

As many of you know, BSE hit Canada about 8 months ago. Immediately that it did the U.S. put a full ban on imports (for which I can't blame them one iota).
Now exports constituted almost 30% of the beef producers' market, so it hurt bad. Prices to the producer plummetted, apparently simply because of huge over-supply. It should be noted that Canadians' beef consumption stayed about even through the whole thing and even shot up a tad when hamburgers (and only hamburgers) were offered cheap (and bigger than usual) at special functions like country fairs, the SARS concert, football games, etc.

Oddly, except again for Saturday morning specials of 5KG of hamburger in tubes for $10 (2 per customer) at big grocery chains over 2 weekends, beef prices NEVER WENT DOWN.

Finally the governments (Federal and provincial) came up with a 'relief' package for producers, paying them much of the difference between the pre-BSE price-per-pound and the going rate. All the while, remember, no price decrease for beef at the market counter.

A look at the factors revealed the following:

1) Canada has let, over the years (and probably a direct result of free trade) 3 U.S.-based meat packers corner the market. There are no more Canadian meat packers (Federally inspected and shipping cross-border (even provincial borders)).

2) These packers, who used to have competition from other U.S.-based packers for the Canadian beef, now had the field to themselves. And of course, "in the best interests of their shareholders" they "bid" the producers' price way way down as soon as BSE became known.

3) Once the government assistance came into effect the packers, again "in the best interests of their shareholders", factored in the government allowance in their bidding and cut prices to the producers even more!

4) Farmers are afraid to complain to anyone about this because they've witnessed what happens when their bretheren to the south take action - that producers (or the feed lot operator) gets blackballed and cannot sell his beef.

All this time, to even right now, THE PRICE OF BEEF IN CANADA HAS NOT GONE DOWN EVEN A DIME A POUND!!!!!

As an added insult, the U.S. packers here, as they have done for some time in the U.S., are now starting their own ranch operations and feedlot operations, obviously squeezing producers right out of the business soon. With a full monopoly there will no longer be a "family farm" (as they have done with hogs in North Carolina(?)).

Is this the way we want to have our meat produced for us... no pride of ownership, no caring for/about your animals, no caring about the land, water-table or nearby neighbours, cheating on all manner of regulations because the pain is a $50. fine and a promise of re-inspection soon?????
Does anyone doubt that some corporate executive/manager, somewhere, is going to feel that saving 30cents a ton on feed laced with ruminant carcass is good business EVEN IF he has to first come up with "plausible deniability" in case he gets caught? Does anyone doubt that some corporate manager somewhere, when he has a "downer", is going to think he saves the corp. a bunch of money by breaking such cows' legs to make that look like the cause of the downerism???

I have no idea why it is that corporate management always put the corporation's extra profit ahead of following the rules or worrying about their customers' well-being or alienating the customer base, but far too many of them do and it is those that do, (known to their bosses or not) that get the promotions that encourage them to do even more crap!!! A corporation makes extra millions, people get put in jeopardy, yet the guy doing the deed only realizes a few thousand more dollars per year with his promotion. Is it really THAT important to claw up the corporate ladder that possibly killing people is perfectly acceptable????

I hope through all this that you noticed that ONLY the shareholders get richer, and the process of doing so ensures that everyone else gets SCREWED.
Why the hell would I ever want to be a shareholder of any corporation under such circumstances?... so that I can collect profit on the misery of others?... so I can be sure to have some income when MY JOB gets outsourced for the good of the corporation...scratch that... most companies don't pay dividends (yet we reamin sucked in to the 'invest in stocks' mantra).

It ain't gettin better folks, only worse!