I was researching a little more in depth the "Beef Demand Determinants" that was posted before as a question to me. What I found was a little concerning.
The paper was written by Ted C. Schroeder, Ph.D., Thomas L. Marsh, Ph.D. and James Mintert, Ph.D.
It was funded with checkoff dollars.
The paper can be found at:
http://tinyurl.com/q645d
On page 16 of the paper, there is graph totally vindicates, without "expert" modeling, Robert Mac's theory that poultry has replaced beef.
The paper goes to great lengths to say something other than that apparent fact. In fact, the paper tries to say that women in the workforce is a greater demand factor than poultry being substituted for beef. After looking at the data used and a few other data bases, I have come to the conclusion that the growth of tree rings is a better correlation than the factor of women in the workforce, as the paper suggests.
If this is the kind of study that the beef checkoff is funding with cattleman's collected dollars, the people controlling these studies are better suited to studying the lumber industry than making up modes of beef demand determinates.
To say that women in the workforce are a greater determinate than poultry as a factor in understanding demand is just a fraud. The beef checkoff dollars are being used by the NCBA and their cronies to just make up nonsense and sell it back to cattlemen. These Ph.D.'s should all be fired. They are idiots. They are just using cattleman's money to make up propaganda to feed back to the cattlemen to control them and their thinking.
If anyone (sorry SH, this is for the more advanced) would like to look at the study and hash out the points (pointrider and pknoeber, you are welcome as well as others) and understand this fraud, please feel free to do so.
I can't believe some of these "economists". They need their teaching license pulled.