Wednesday, April 29, 2020
Cattle Prices Plunge To GFC Lows Amid Soaring Food Prices
US live cattle futures plunged last week to levels not seen since the 2008-09 financial crisis as impacts from the coronavirus pandemic are being realized.
Livestock traders continue to exhibit concern that uncertainty for meat demand is a full year story as restaurants remain closed, and meatpacking facilities have shuttered operations leaving farmers with overcapacity among herds.
Over the next 6-8 months, some form of social distancing will remain in place that will likely result in operation limitations for restaurants, plus consumers will live in fear of going out to their favorite eatery as there is still no adequate virus testing for the entire population and no proven vaccine. Also, concerns of a second virus wave materializing in the fall will keep people confined to their homes.
The closure of meatpacking plants has weighed on spot cattle prices as the rash of COVID-19 outbreaks at dozens of meatpacking plants across the country has quickly transformed into a crisis.
Around 150 of these facilities operate within counties where virus cases and deaths are exceptionally high.
A virus outbreak has been reported at many of these plants, resulting in the closure of at least 10-12 in April.
Every virus-related closure limits the ability for farmers to sell their animals and leads to overcapacity of herds at farms that now have to be culled.
And while spot cattle prices are dropping, food prices are soaring. This dynamic has been explained in a prior piece titled "Hog-Culling Next As Meatpacking Plants Shutter Operations Stoking Food Shortage Fears In Weeks."
The Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) US Meat Food Price Index shows...
Every virus-related closure limits the ability for farmers to sell their animals and leads to overcapacity of herds at farms that now have to be culled.
And while spot cattle prices are dropping, food prices are soaring. This dynamic has been explained in a prior piece titled "Hog-Culling Next As Meatpacking Plants Shutter Operations Stoking Food Shortage Fears In Weeks."
The Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) US Meat Food Price Index shows...
Unfortunately.... This Is CNN
18 Questions CNN Needs To Answer After Getting Busted For Fake News
CNN Vs. A Dogs Nose...
CNN Is The Most Consistent News Network In The Nation...
CNN 1/1024% Truth!
EWWW!!! I Stepped In Shit!
16 Fake News Stories Reporters Have Run Since Trump Won
CNN edits 'Crooked' out of Trump tweet
Stephen Miller Exposes Faux-Feminism of CNN Panel with Facts About Muslim Migration and Open Borders
It Is Not Just CNN That Has Mastered Fake News..
Misinformation Isn’t the Only Danger
Who gets to determine what’s “misinformation” and what’s not?
As social media companies, under pressure, move in a direction of imposing stricter rules about permissible content on their platforms, this is the question users should be asking.
Earlier this month, YouTube CEO Susan Wojcicki said the video giant would be removing videos that go against World Health Organization recommendations on COVID-19.
Referring to “removing information that is problematic” and “anything that is medically unsubstantiated,” Wojcicki specifically called out certain suggestions of vitamins or other nutritional supplements as a treatment.
“So people saying, like, take vitamin C; you know, take turmeric, like, those are—will cure you. Those are the examples of things that would be a violation of our policy,” Wojcicki told CNN’s “Reliable Sources” April 19.
“Anything that would go against World Health Organization recommendations would be a violation of our policy,” she said.
Nor is YouTube the only social media organization deferring to the WHO. Facebook’s vice president of integrity, Guy Rosen, announced the social media site would direct people “who have liked, reacted or commented on harmful misinformation about COVID-19 that we have since removed” to a page with “myth-busters” by the U.N. agency.
But the World Health Organization has hardly been a stalwart fount of truth during the coronavirus crisis. Notably, it seemed all too willing to echo China’s talking points during the critical early days of the virus outbreak.
The WHO also has come under fire for its treatment of Taiwan. Taipei is not a member of the organization, due to pressure from China, which does not acknowledge Taiwan as an independent country.
Taiwan says a Dec. 31 email it sent to the WHO should have made clear there was a real threat of human-to-human transmission.
“To be prudent, in the email, we took pains to refer to atypical pneumonia, and specifically noted that patients [in China] had been isolated for treatment. Public health professionals could discern from this wording that there was a real possibility of human-to-human transmission of the disease,” said an April 11 release from the Taiwan Centers for Disease Control, which notes that Taiwan had not at that time had any cases of COVID-19.
Yet, on Jan. 14, the WHO tweeted, “Preliminary investigations conducted by the Chinese authorities have found no clear evidence of human-to-human transmission of the novel #coronavirus (2019-nCoV) identified in #Wuhan, #China.”
Preliminary investigations conducted by the Chinese authorities have found no clear evidence of human-to-human transmission of the novel #coronavirus (2019-nCoV) identified in #Wuhan, #China.
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Oyster flatulence worries climate scientists
Please Note: This Is NOT Satire...
Plans to expand aquatic farming could have a serious knock-on effect on climate change, climate experts have warned after new research revealed that underwater shellfish farts produce 10% of the global-warming gases released by the Baltic Sea.
A study published in the Scientific Reports journal shows that clams, mussels and oysters produce one-tenth of methane and nitrous oxide gases in the Baltic Sea as a result of digestion. Therefore, researchers have warned that shellfish “may play an important but overlooked role in regulating greenhouse gas production”.
Methane and nitrous oxide gases have a far greater warming potential than carbon dioxide so bodies of water without or with fewer shellfish record lower methane release rates.
Increased synthetic fertiliser use and agricultural activities are known to have caused extensive nutrient enrichment in coastal waters and the study highlighted how this has been recognised as “the principal driver for the enhanced GHG flux from aquatic environments”.
Native European oysters that are certified as sustainable have gone on sale for the first time in the UK.
Recent figures estimate that around 10% of nitrous oxide emissions could come from shallow aquatic systems, while anything up to 40% of methane could come from shallow sediment, although there is no clear consensus on this aspect, due to huge variability.
The study authors insisted that although these creatures have been releasing greenhouse gases for millions of years without a noticeable impact on the climate, things could change now because of the growing human population, its impact on the environment and the plans to increase...
The 90 Miles Mystery Box: Episode #972
You have come across a mystery box. But what is inside?
It could be literally anything from the serene to the horrific,
from the beautiful to the repugnant,
from the mysterious to the familiar.
If you decide to open it, you could be disappointed,
you could be inspired, you could be appalled.
This is not for the faint of heart or the easily offended.
You have been warned.
Tuesday, April 28, 2020
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