Tommy
Well-known member
Another 'study' from meatpacker puppets
A column by Alan Guebert
If you only quote the Amen Corner, the only reply you'll ever hear is "Hallelujah!"
And so it was in late October when yet another hired preacher of the Meatpacker Gang, a Brooklyn outfit named John Dunham & Associates, claimed proposed rules to bring meatpackers into compliance with the Packers & Stockyards Act will cut 104,000 jobs nationwide; drop Gross Domestic Product by $14 billion; and cost local, state and federal tax collectors another $1.36 billion.
Allow yourself the insight of a few facts so this study and its numbers aren't used by Big Meat to beat you like a $2 rug. First, according to Dunham's website, studies manufactured in its Brooklyn, N.Y., shop are made with "Our Manifesto" as the guiding light. That manifesto, relates the website, is: "Julius Caesar said. 'What we wish, we readily believe, and what we ourselves think, we imagine others think also.'"
Here's a translation: "Facts? Who needs facts when we got imagination! This is economics! Hallelujah!"
Second, Dunham brags that for 25 years the firm's "Guerrilla Economics" has delivered "actionable insights" to "advance policy objectives" through "our unique economic impact studies" that "provide cover and materials to sway legislative votes."
Translation: "Tell us your goal and our guerrillas will put down their bananas, grab some crayons and draw a map that even Congress can follow. Hallelujah!"
Third, the very first sentence in Dunham's analysis makes the massive assumption — stated as fact — on which its entire astro-turf analysis, and the packers' political goals, are built: "A regulation by the Grain Inspection, Packers and Stockyards Administration (GIPSA) would, among other things, adversely affect packers' and their suppliers' willingness to use marketing agreements."
Translation: "Hey, we just took a half million bananas from the America Meat Institute for this 12-page, 15-minute 'study' so, yeah, we put some perfume and lipstick on this pig and turned it into sirloin. Hallelujah!"
The National Cattlemen's Beef Association kindly posted Dunham's pro-packer hymn on its website (www.beefusa.org/uDocs/gipsa-study.pdf). That's right, brother; NCBA won't meet or debate one of the tens of thousands of U.S. ranchers who support GIPSA pulling the halter tighter on packers but it posts on its website a political "study" that praises packers.
Equally puzzling, NCBA recently accused Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack of turning "the clock back 50 years" when he refused to bend to the call for a "full-blown cost-benefit analysis" of the GIPSA rule.
Vilsack politely said the accusation was "unfair and inaccurate" since USDA, the Small Business Administration and the Office of Management and Budget had all conducted analyses of the rule and that USDA had published its results on "pages 35,345 to 35,349 of the Federal Register."
In the meantime, expect packers to hold more news conferences to cite more studies they claim will force packers to better compete. Wait a minute. A new rule might force packers to better compete everywhere west of Brooklyn?
Hallelujah, brother!
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A column by Alan Guebert
If you only quote the Amen Corner, the only reply you'll ever hear is "Hallelujah!"
And so it was in late October when yet another hired preacher of the Meatpacker Gang, a Brooklyn outfit named John Dunham & Associates, claimed proposed rules to bring meatpackers into compliance with the Packers & Stockyards Act will cut 104,000 jobs nationwide; drop Gross Domestic Product by $14 billion; and cost local, state and federal tax collectors another $1.36 billion.
Allow yourself the insight of a few facts so this study and its numbers aren't used by Big Meat to beat you like a $2 rug. First, according to Dunham's website, studies manufactured in its Brooklyn, N.Y., shop are made with "Our Manifesto" as the guiding light. That manifesto, relates the website, is: "Julius Caesar said. 'What we wish, we readily believe, and what we ourselves think, we imagine others think also.'"
Here's a translation: "Facts? Who needs facts when we got imagination! This is economics! Hallelujah!"
Second, Dunham brags that for 25 years the firm's "Guerrilla Economics" has delivered "actionable insights" to "advance policy objectives" through "our unique economic impact studies" that "provide cover and materials to sway legislative votes."
Translation: "Tell us your goal and our guerrillas will put down their bananas, grab some crayons and draw a map that even Congress can follow. Hallelujah!"
Third, the very first sentence in Dunham's analysis makes the massive assumption — stated as fact — on which its entire astro-turf analysis, and the packers' political goals, are built: "A regulation by the Grain Inspection, Packers and Stockyards Administration (GIPSA) would, among other things, adversely affect packers' and their suppliers' willingness to use marketing agreements."
Translation: "Hey, we just took a half million bananas from the America Meat Institute for this 12-page, 15-minute 'study' so, yeah, we put some perfume and lipstick on this pig and turned it into sirloin. Hallelujah!"
The National Cattlemen's Beef Association kindly posted Dunham's pro-packer hymn on its website (www.beefusa.org/uDocs/gipsa-study.pdf). That's right, brother; NCBA won't meet or debate one of the tens of thousands of U.S. ranchers who support GIPSA pulling the halter tighter on packers but it posts on its website a political "study" that praises packers.
Equally puzzling, NCBA recently accused Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack of turning "the clock back 50 years" when he refused to bend to the call for a "full-blown cost-benefit analysis" of the GIPSA rule.
Vilsack politely said the accusation was "unfair and inaccurate" since USDA, the Small Business Administration and the Office of Management and Budget had all conducted analyses of the rule and that USDA had published its results on "pages 35,345 to 35,349 of the Federal Register."
In the meantime, expect packers to hold more news conferences to cite more studies they claim will force packers to better compete. Wait a minute. A new rule might force packers to better compete everywhere west of Brooklyn?
Hallelujah, brother!
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