Republican Senator Josh Hawley slammed the stranglehold four mega-corporations—two of them foreign-owned—have over America’s beef processing industry, calling it a “modern-day monopoly.”
Hawley, speaking Monday at the Senate Judiciary Committee’s Subcommittee on Competition Policy, Antitrust, and Consumer Rights, warned about the cartel-like grip that mega-corps such as JBS, Tyson Foods, Cargill, and National Beef have on the nation’s beef supply chain.
“Four companies currently control over 80% of beef processing in this country and very similarly high shares of poultry and pork. In Missouri, just in the last year, we have had two poultry plants closed by the dominant. Poultry processor Tyson Food canceling contracts with farmers putting hundreds of people out of work across my state really acting with total impunity why … because they can because they they are essentially a monopolist,” Hawley said.
Hawley asked Federal Trade Commissioner Mark Meador: “Is this kind of thing [beef monopoly] that the FTC can take action on?”
Meador responded, “Yes, with the small caveat that the Department of Justice typically handles the packers but the FTC sees this at the retail level as well. When there are a smaller number of packers, retailers pay higher prices, and then consumers pay higher prices, and then retailers want to merge and consolidate their own part of the supply chain to counteract that, and then it’s sort of an arms race to see who can get the biggest, the fastest.”
Hawley noted, “I’ll end with this right now beef processing is just one example but it’s a perfect example for a state like mine the only people who win are the monopolists – you know if you’re a cattle rancher you’re not getting paid for your product – if you are a consumer at the grocery store you’re paying an arm and a leg for some hamburger – yet so the consumers are paying more the farmers are getting paid less who is making out like a bandit here? It’s the monopolists, it’s the four companies that control 80% of beef processing, that is not competition. We need more competition in this country, economy-wide.”
On X, Hawley called for “more industry competition in America.”
And tidal health has a monopoly on health care on the Eastern Shore. They have been buying all the small health care facilities for a few years forcing people to deal with tidal health.
Tidal Health needs breaking up
Nobody is stopping any doctors from opening their own offices anywhere they want here on the Eastern Shore, so stop the babbling about Tidal Health being a monopoly. They may in fact be very successful, perhaps because they provide better services, and they may in fact be expanding, but they most certainly are not a monopoly.
826, The software that’s required for proper billing to insurance companies and medicare is too expensive for any independent doctor to afford. That’s why my doctor sold out and opened a practice in Florida. So how would you describe a monopoly 826
The software is too expensive, but it’s affordable in Florida? What?