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Many people see this as a problem, but I see it as a normal function of market economies. Disruptions, changes in government policy, changes in consumer behavior, and more will over the long term just work themselves out. Of course some policies or seemingly "voluntary" policies may cause undue price increases, but even those work themselves out.

At the end of the day as more and more people want to consume the same products the prices for those are going to just go up.

When I see folks really hammering on price increases for products like beef or gas I can't help but think of how absolutely screwed we are in terms of addressing climate change if it involves consumer behavior.

4 comments

Things might not work itself out in desirable ways. I imagine what will happen is that portions will shrink, and become adulterated. For example, a restaurant ostensibly using ground beef might partially substitute something cheaper... Food fraud is rampant in developing countries. One example:

https://www.foodnavigator.com/Article/2025/07/28/food-fraud-...

https://scijournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/jsfa...

Well if you care about portion size or the introduction of substitutes then you can change your buying habits. We only eat out for dinner at great restaurants because I can cook better food at home in a lot of cases.

You're going to have to change those habits anyway because even without inflation that has been ongoing since the pandemic began you still have a lot of pressure to push prices higher on beef and other "luxury" goods as global demand continues to increase, the environment becomes worse off and requires further regulation, &c. It's perhaps a head start, but the long term trend isn't toward lower prices regardless of the impact of inflation (for example).

> We only eat out for dinner at great restaurants because I can cook better food at home in a lot of cases.

I also rarely eat in a restaurant, but when I do I make it a great one (to me -- I'm not talking only or even mostly about highfalutin places). Aside from being a better inherent experience, it also makes it more of a special event, which increases the pleasure I get from it. Any fantastic thing experienced frequently ceases to feel fantastic.

The truth is that most people can cook better (and healthier) food than most restaurants. The value proposition restaurants provide is mostly experience (a lovely night out in a pleasant environment where you're being waited on is fun) and convenience (just because you could cook it better doesn't mean you want to, particularly for lengthy and involved dishes).

> I imagine what will happen is that portions will shrink

I wouldn't mind this up to a point. One of the things that I find really irritating about most US restaurants (I'm an American, if it matters) is that the portion sizes tend to be far too large.

You don't have to eat everything in one sitting. There's a burrito place near my house I go to occasionally, and every order there is two meals for me.

Prepared hot meals from restaurants are very difficult to preserve as leftovers. Salads and sandwiches, too!

It is really the goal of food service: to make something that is ready-to-eat, and this is incompatible with tossing it in the fridge or freezer for later.

A burrito may be mostly forgiving, but your cheese and the lard will congeal, and the juices will soak through the tortilla, and guacamole will oxidize, and reheating the burrito cannot reverse these processes.

Heh. Oddly, just like cold pizza, it tastes better to me after a day in the fridge.

A lot of these markets aren't really functioning when there are many middlemen that have an 2-4 company oligopoly that choke out any actual competition.

Many markets don't really have 'competition'

As the topic article points out, the 2-4 companies in the beef industry are losing money at current prices. If they didn't actually compete with each other you definitely wouldn't see that.

No, markets still function anyway over the long term (monopolies go bankrupt and are disrupted all the time) and if you are worried about oligopoly you want to ensure that communism and state ownership of the means of production is stamped out to prevent monopolies.

Ah, yes, clearly communism is the reason for high inflation in the US...

That wasn't what I wrote or communicated.

The comment you were replying to said that the reason for high prices is oligopoly and you've replied that the way to prevent oligopoly is to be against communism, so logically it follows that fighting communism would help lower the prices, no?

Well, I guess if the OP was under the mistaken belief that the only reason for high prices was because of an oligopoly, then sure. But that premise is incorrect and it would be a bit bizarre to suggest that given at a minimum we could look to American tariffs or something never mind the pandemic helicopter money that was dispersed.

But if you want to follow that train of thought with that faulty premise, then sure yes we must stop communism to lower prices because the OP says that oligopoly is solely responsible for price increases, so it follows that further restriction on market participants further increases prices. I don't agree with that premise, but if that's your view and the OPs view then it would be logically consistent for you to also advocate stamping out communism to lower prices.

So it was just a non-sequitur? Nobody was suggesting communism.

(Also communism doesn't follow the same rules as monopolies.)

No it wasn't a non-sequitur. Instead of repeating myself I'll just link to this good explanation: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49197575

That explanation doesn't work.

They advocated for competition instead of ogliopoly. You decided to talk about a completely different and irrelevant way there could be a lack of competition. Even if your conclusion is right, that they would be against communism if it was a realistic threat here, there was no reason to bring it up.

I could say that a bunch of badly placed volcanos would reduce competition and they must be against those volcanos. Such a statement is technically true but it's a non-sequitur.

> Many people see this as a problem, but I see it as a normal function of market economies.

Both things can be true.

Beef and gas prices are up due to policy (tariffs, war) If anything, it shows how effective government policy can be. Ironically higher beef and gas prices are quite good for reducing carbon emissions.

Well they are up at least in part due to policy such as tariffs and war which unfortunately is imposed upon us in the US (Russia invading Ukraine, Iran destabilizing the Middle East), but I also think an important factor is the increase in global demand for beef and other meat products.

Gas prices are a little less clear as it seems primarily the increases have been due to Iranian destabilization in the Middle East and less so tariffs, but gas prices do effect each country differently so increases here in the US are a lot less painful than, say, Singapore.

I agree with you that increases in the prices of both are good for reducing carbon emissions. I think it's interesting to see how folks are reacting to, what in my mind seem to be still incredibly low prices relative to the negative externalities. If we factored in the destruction and harm we're doing to the planet gas in the US should probably be more in the neighborhood of $20/gallon or something (that's a made up number and I'm just guessing) and beef probably should be quite a bit more expensive too. Though I think it's also worth pointing out gas prices are still lower than when Russia unjustly invaded Ukraine and if we can stomach those we can stomach these too.