Ben, the master plan

[Sandhusker]

1) Clean out the USDA. Nothing will ever work as long as they're working for the AMI

2) Install COOL - basic marketing that should be a given. Dang near every other flipping country in the world already has it. This isn't rocket science.

3) A checkoff that only promotes US beef. This is our country, we make the rules that help us, dammit.

4) Ban on packer ownership. This wouldn't be necessary if the Trust Dept. did their jobs anymore, but mega companies cause unique problems that need unique regs.

5) Allow private BSE testing. They hypocracy between allowing hormone free and banning testing is enough, let alone the fact the USDA is exceeding authority.

6) Give our customers what they want when they want it, realizing that we can't compete on price and have to make our living on quality and service. This follows BSE testing.

7) Our standards should be among the highest in the world, not the lowest. How can you have the image of quality when you take what others won't?

8) Actually inspect foreign product when it enters the country. Putting the USDA stamp on product that isn't inspected by the USDA is a lie. We should be doing this for border security in the first place. They're checking Iowa grandmothers for weapons in airports, but not the food we eat from who knows where the heck it came from?

9) No USDA stamp for foreign product. People see "USDA" and think US product. Stamp it with something like "Product of Spain inspected by USDA" and it had better actually be inspected.

10) Ground beef should be tested for ecoli before it leaves the packer. There's no reason bad product should get out the door, much less product with the good ol' "Inspected by USDA" stamp. Recalls hurt all of us, they're completely avoidable.

11) Enforce PSA

12) Get some attorneys in the GIPSA office and tell them to get to work

13) Ring up Joan Waterfield and get her talking.

14) Get out of the WTO. I'm not against global trade agreements in general, just the ones that are against the Constitution.

15) 100% reporting of sales & positions. You can't run a trusting market when certain participants can hide transactions. If the NYSE ran like the cattle markets, there would be outright rebellion.

I'm sure I'll think of more, but I'm on my first cup of coffee.

 

[QUESTION]

How about this sand.
1-YES, but relacew with what?
2- Not until there is a way of proving the stamp will have some meaning
3 - only from US cert beef.
4- sure why not and while you are at it ban cattle producers from owning other possible feed sorces such as grain land, chicken barns.
5- how about test every animal and make all the results public within a couple of weeks.
6 - this means grinding prime cuts for burger afterall tenderloins make better burger. LMAO
7- If you want the highest standards adopt Canada's
8 -& 9 - follow canada again.
10 - cook food properly
11 - ?
12- ?
13 - ?
14- So the US doen't have to follow rules not a big deal the US plays by it's own rules now anyways.
15- open everyone's books so everyone knows how to cripple your business.
I am sure this will happen
LMAO

 

[Sandhusker]

How about this sand.
1-YES, but relacew with what?
A group that is honest, non-biased, does the job assigned to it and actually regulates business instead of business regulating it. Basically, what we are paying for and what should be a given.

2- Not until there is a way of proving the stamp will have some meaning
Born, raised, processed.

3 - only from US cert beef.
?

4- sure why not and while you are at it ban cattle producers from owning other possible feed sorces such as grain land, chicken barns.
The problem doesn't arise from packers simply owning cattle, it comes from BIG packers owning cattle and how they can manipulate the markets with them. Every stock exchange in the country, the CBOT, CME, etc... understand what "big" can do and have measures in place so "big" can't use their power against the other players. For the cattle market not to realize the same flies in the face of business sense and invites abuse.

5- how about test every animal and make all the results public within a couple of weeks.
If that is what you want, you should have that right.

6 - this means grinding prime cuts for burger afterall tenderloins make better burger. LMAO
You're missing the point completely. Think Creekstone - Japan.

7- If you want the highest standards adopt Canada's
If the package includes your faulty feed ban, no thanks.
8 -& 9 - follow canada again.

10 - cook food properly
Why not deliver a safe product from the beginning, as the inspected stamp implies?

11 - ?
I thought you were up on the issues?

12- ?
They need somebody to explain to them what is legal and what is not so they can do their job.
13 - ?
She was in charge of GIPSA when it was found that not only were they not doing their jobs, they were going to great lenghts to not to them and then cover it up. It was passed off as negligence, but it's obvious she was following orders. Stinky, stinky, stinky.

14- So the US doen't have to follow rules not a big deal the US plays by it's own rules now anyways.
Your opinion.

15- open everyone's books so everyone knows how to cripple your business. I am sure this will happen LMAO
That's rediculous. Every trade that happens at the NYSE is reported and large holders report what they have. The very large holders and insiders even have to report what they're going to do before they do it. Is that crippling thsoe businesses?

 

[Econ101]

I thought you had a pretty good list there, Sandhusker. Someday I would like to have another cup of coffee with you.

 

[Sandhusker]

I thought you had a pretty good list there, Sandhusker. Someday I would like to have another cup of coffee with you.

The pots always on for you or anybody else, Buddy.

 

[Ben Roberts]

Sandhusker, in your master plan, you didn't list who/how/what was going to implement this plan?

Best Regards
Ben Roberts

 

[Sandhusker]

Sandhusker, in your master plan, you didn't list who/how/what was going to implement this plan?

Best Regards
Ben Roberts

I'm delegating that to you. Think you can have that done by, say, a week from Friday?

 

[Ben Roberts]

Sandhusker, in your master plan, you didn't list who/how/what was going to implement this plan?

Best Regards
Ben Roberts

I'm delegating that to you. Think you can have that done by, say, a week from Friday?

No! This is your plan, not mine. Surely you had thought of a way, to implement this master plan, besides giving me a list of things to do by a week from Friday!

Best Regards
Ben Roberts

 

[EJ]

1) Clean out the USDA. Nothing will ever work as long as they're working for the AMI

2) Install COOL - basic marketing that should be a given. Dang near every other flipping country in the world already has it. This isn't rocket science.

3) A checkoff that only promotes US beef. This is our country, we make the rules that help us, dammit.

4) Ban on packer ownership. This wouldn't be necessary if the Trust Dept. did their jobs anymore, but mega companies cause unique problems that need unique regs.

5) Allow private BSE testing. They hypocracy between allowing hormone free and banning testing is enough, let alone the fact the USDA is exceeding authority.

6) Give our customers what they want when they want it, realizing that we can't compete on price and have to make our living on quality and service. This follows BSE testing.

7) Our standards should be among the highest in the world, not the lowest. How can you have the image of quality when you take what others won't?

8) Actually inspect foreign product when it enters the country. Putting the USDA stamp on product that isn't inspected by the USDA is a lie. We should be doing this for border security in the first place. They're checking Iowa grandmothers for weapons in airports, but not the food we eat from who knows where the heck it came from?

9) No USDA stamp for foreign product. People see "USDA" and think US product. Stamp it with something like "Product of Spain inspected by USDA" and it had better actually be inspected.

10) Ground beef should be tested for ecoli before it leaves the packer. There's no reason bad product should get out the door, much less product with the good ol' "Inspected by USDA" stamp. Recalls hurt all of us, they're completely avoidable.

11) Enforce PSA

12) Get some attorneys in the GIPSA office and tell them to get to work

13) Ring up Joan Waterfield and get her talking.

14) Get out of the WTO. I'm not against global trade agreements in general, just the ones that are against the Constitution.

15) 100% reporting of sales & positions. You can't run a trusting market when certain participants can hide transactions. If the NYSE ran like the cattle markets, there would be outright rebellion.

I'm sure I'll think of more, but I'm on my first cup of coffee.

16} Do not tie "Mandatory ID" to the COOL legilation.

 

[Sandhusker]

Sandhusker, in your master plan, you didn't list who/how/what was going to implement this plan?

Best Regards
Ben Roberts

I'm delegating that to you. Think you can have that done by, say, a week from Friday?

No! This is your plan, not mine. Surely you had thought of a way, to implement this master plan, besides giving me a list of things to do by a week from Friday!

Best Regards
Ben Roberts

It's going to take all of us bending the ears of Washington so hard they they have no choice but to do what we want.

 

[Anonymous]

I'm delegating that to you. Think you can have that done by, say, a week from Friday?

No! This is your plan, not mine. Surely you had thought of a way, to implement this master plan, besides giving me a list of things to do by a week from Friday!

Best Regards
Ben Roberts

It's going to take all of us bending the ears of Washington so hard they they have no choice but to do what we want.

On this one I agree with Pat Goggins- that it may take some major financial movements (a depression) to shake up both the financial structure of the country and D.C. enough to get it done...

And again like Goggins and many worldwide economists I think we are very close (starting into) that worldwide depression now-- which chould slam the US the hardest because of our huge national debt and investment in foreign countries (China)...
In some of these highly unstable countries it might sort out many of the multinationals and globalist traders....

 

[PORKER]

Do not tie "Mandatory ID" to the COOL legilation.

COOL will need your own ID system , The problem is the packers and fabracators want one ID System and they don't have a clue how to keep imported meat seperate .

 

[QUESTION]

Sand you can be very entertaining. There are some problems with you wish list. But hey it is just a wish list maybe you want a unicorn too.
To prove beef is born raised and fed in the US a natioanl ID and tracking system needs to be implemented. The reason is because I said so doesn't quite do it in the rest of the world. Your leaders kinda blew the trust thing a few years ago.
Test every beef slaughtered for BSE get the real numbers and have a impartial 3rd party do the testing. So cattlemen and packers can't influence the result :wink: :wink: .
I thought most cattlemen want to sell US customers only US beef and eliminate foreign beef from your market so yes you have to start grinding tenderloin for burger and say good by to exporting to japan. Afterall you don't want to be greedy do you.
The canadian feed ban was based on the US model then the loopholes on B & BM were closed and now it has been modified again . So saying the Canadian feed ban sucks is saying the US feed ban is worse than the Canadian feed ban. Good to see you admit it. At least canadians aren't feeding cows to cows . I don't know if you have heard that kinda caused a problem in europe. It is known as BSE maybe you have heard of it some countries have cattle that are sick with it, so maybe stopping the feeding of cows to cows might stop the diseasae from speading, just something to consider. LOL
Deliver a safe product ! bacteria are everywhere the best way to eliminate them is to get them to a suffieiently high temperature. Aka cook it enough. Or is it easier to sue someone.
Just a point there are anti- trust and insider trader laws to control information being abused. And what rules do you want to implement on opening books. In reality the US groups perfer keeping secrets i mean hey just try to get a look at the membership list of r-calf, KKK,PETA not availble to the public.
So anyways keep wishing but i think i will be seeing you riding a unicorn before i see some of your other wishes coming true.

 

[Anonymous]

Question-- Are you naturally an idiot or do you work at it :???: --- Don't you understand that if EVERYTHING coming into the US- be it beef or cattle is already marked/labeled- that EVERYTHING left has to be of US origin?

Or do you believe in Kathy's Martians bringing them in :???: :wink: :lol:

 

[Sandhusker]

QUESTION, "To prove beef is born raised and fed in the US a natioanl ID and tracking system needs to be implemented."

No you don't, you're making this harder than it needs to be. Imported beef is already marked when it enters our country. Hot brand imported live cattle, as most of them already are, and how hard is that? As long as the folks at the border are doing their job, anything else is US be default.

QUESTION, "Test every beef slaughtered for BSE get the real numbers and have a impartial 3rd party do the testing. So cattlemen and packers can't influence the result"

I have no real problems with that.

QUESTION, "I thought most cattlemen want to sell US customers only US beef and eliminate foreign beef from your market so yes you have to start grinding tenderloin for burger and say good by to exporting to japan."

I didn't say we could eliminate foreign beef right now. I said that we have the capacity to supply all the beef needs in this country.

QUESTION, "The canadian feed ban was based on the US model..."

It doesn't matter what you plan on doing and what you say you're going to do if you don't do it. I could claim to base my life on Mother Theresa's, but if I don't follow thru I'm just flapping my lips. Your feed ban was designed to stop further cases of BSE. It didn't.

QUESTION, "Deliver a safe product ! bacteria are everywhere the best way to eliminate them is to get them to a suffieiently high temperature. Aka cook it enough. Or is it easier to sue someone."

I agree that beef should be cooked. However, the reality is that people are going to undercook ground beef - it's going to happen. Each time it does and people get sick and/or die, beef gets a black eye. You mentioned in an earlier post that we can either be right or we can fix a problem. The only thing stopping us from fixing this problem is the greed that you've mentioned several times - greed of the packers who don't want to take the time to ensure a safe product and take responsibility for it.

QUESTION, "Just a point there are anti- trust and insider trader laws to control information being abused. And what rules do you want to implement on opening books. In reality the US groups perfer keeping secrets i mean hey just try to get a look at the membership list of r-calf, KKK,PETA not availble to the public."

Pretty sly there trying to put R-CALF with KKK & PETA. The truth is that most groups keep their membership rolls to themselves as an exercise of basic confidentialty and common sense.

Do a little research on how the NYSE treats transparancy. They voluntarily do all they can to run a transparent market because they know it fosters fairness and enhances their market. If they didn't have the rules they have - rules that place extra requirements based on size - they know they would lose trust and would lose business. If you can provide information on anybody who was hurt by those disclosure requirements, by all means bring it. Otherwise, to suggest individuals/companies would be hurt by like regulations in the cattle markets is to ignore the benefits of being able to compare existing examples. You're ignoring prime evidence.

 

[Econ101]

Question-- Are you naturally an idiot or do you work at it Say what? --- Don't you understand that if EVERYTHING coming into the US- be it beef or cattle is already marked/labeled- that EVERYTHING left has to be of US origin?

Yes, Question, that is the argument many of us are making. The packers do not want to carry that labeling to the shelf. They are working hard to keep it from happening and want to put the costs on the cattlemen in the U.S.

As noted before, beef coming into the U.S. is a small percent. Why make the majority pay for that small amount the packers are bringing in?

You are also right about bse testing. That is why many of us have advocated allowing companies like Creekstone to test. We all know you can't trust the government completely. That is the underlying assumption to all of documents the founding fathers drafted and most importantly the Constitution. We have some Senators and Congressmen who are willing to allow the Executive branch ie. the USDA undermine those basic principles and a few judges who are going along with them.

 

[QUESTION]

Sand M-ID provides a proof of where beef comes. simple if it is good for the goose it is good for the gander. If you want acceptance do it M-ID in the US has more benefits than you are seeing. I realizes that it opens up the liability for food borne illness but i thought you wanted to hold the packers accountible for high quality food. As for your borders how many mexican workers come in let alone cattle undocumented every year?
Canada took the US feed ban improved it and it strill wasn't good enough so it had to be strenghtened again to get it right and are you saying the original is better. In reality cattle are still eating cattle in the US and this isn't a feed ban. Give it up and start eliminating the loopholes before you start saying the canadian ban doesn't work as well as the US one.
At least i can debate with you sand, while others who don't agree with what i say start name calling. Like OT and econ callling me a idiot , i guess in the US independant thought is frowned upon, as well as higher education like a degree in animal science. But they can keep on callling me names it is a sign of a limited intelect to start calling names. They can't bully me so they call names like grade school kids. How will i ever recover from this emotianal damage. :lol: . LOL

 

[Kato]

Ok, so everything coming in has a label. No problem for processed meat. It happens now.

What about a 20 day old piglet that spends the rest of it's life in an Iowa barn, making money for an Iowa farmer? You can bet your life that these hog feeders are fighting this.

Or a five month old calf that spends the rest of it's life in a Nebraska feedlot after making money for a Nebraska feeder? How about cows that came to your country before BSE? I bet there are lots around. How are they differentiated? They are not all American by default. :!:

This is the problem. This is going to put a much larger wrench in the works than just making Canadian feeder cattle less desireable. If the price for us makes it not worthwhile to ship live cattle, we'll ship you processed beef instead. What's the gain there? You've lost the income at the feedlots, and you've lost the processing jobs. Lose enough processing jobs, and you will lose processing capacity for your own cattle.

In the long run, does that make for better prices?

 

[Sandhusker]

Sand M-ID provides a proof of where beef comes. simple if it is good for the goose it is good for the gander. If you want acceptance do it M-ID in the US has more benefits than you are seeing. I realizes that it opens up the liability for food borne illness but i thought you wanted to hold the packers accountible for high quality food. As for your borders how many mexican workers come in let alone cattle undocumented every year?
Canada took the US feed ban improved it and it strill wasn't good enough so it had to be strenghtened again to get it right and are you saying the original is better. In reality cattle are still eating cattle in the US and this isn't a feed ban. Give it up and start eliminating the loopholes before you start saying the canadian ban doesn't work as well as the US one.
At least i can debate with you sand, while others who don't agree with what i say start name calling. Like OT and econ callling me a idiot , i guess in the US independant thought is frowned upon, as well as higher education like a degree in animal science. But they can keep on callling me names it is a sign of a limited intelect to start calling names. They can't bully me so they call names like grade school kids. How will i ever recover from this emotianal damage. :lol: . LOL

Our borders are porous because large "contributors" to Washington profit from it - simple as that. Anyway, with COOL, as long as the boys on the border are doing their job and the packers aren't lying, where is the question on the origin of that steak? Mike may be able to correct me on this, but the last I heard, M-ID stopped at the killing floor. In that case, producers would be paying for a program they didn't benefit from and consumer's only choice would still be mystery meat. Why would anybody, other than multi-national packer, be in favor of it?

R-CALF shares your concern about those loopholes and has been lobbying to close them. The other guys seem to believe those loopholes are in producer's best interests. I'm not going to brag on our system, but it's obvious you can't brag on your's, either. It will be years before the tale is told on your new ban, but the deal is done on your old ban - it didn't do what it was supposed to do.

 

[Sandhusker]

Ok, so everything coming in has a label. No problem for processed meat. It happens now.

What about a 20 day old piglet that spends the rest of it's life in an Iowa barn, making money for an Iowa farmer? You can bet your life that these hog feeders are fighting this.

There's always "what abouts" on anything. You have to draw the line somewhere.

Or a five month old calf that spends the rest of it's life in a Nebraska feedlot after making money for a Nebraska feeder? How about cows that came to your country before BSE? I bet there are lots around. How are they differentiated? They are not all American by default. :!:

The calf would have to be branded before it crossed the border. I'll bet there aren't many Canadian birthed cows in the US. It's been 4 years since any have been admitted and the vast majority of imported live animals prior to May, 2003 weren't breeding stock to begin with.

This is the problem. This is going to put a much larger wrench in the works than just making Canadian feeder cattle less desireable. If the price for us makes it not worthwhile to ship live cattle, we'll ship you processed beef instead. What's the gain there? You've lost the income at the feedlots, and you've lost the processing jobs. Lose enough processing jobs, and you will lose processing capacity for your own cattle.

I'm hearing two conflicting lines from up there; One is that your cattle are superior to ours and one that if your cattle are identified, they will be worth less. Which is it? There's a pretty good arguement that says the processing jobs at the packers we have now actually hurt the economy more than help because they are largely staffed by illegals who use our social services and wire their wages back to Mexico.