CONMAN,

What has happened to packer margins in the beef industry? Have they increased or decreased or don't you know that either? 

Don't you think your diversion of this question is quite obvious?

Fedup,

If you go to the old Ranchers.net site you will find a publication on price spreads on the home page of the original site where USDA explains the falacy of calculating price spreads.

Herman Schumacher, R-CALF director, stated in Washington D.C., "there is no greater proof of market manipulation than the retail to fat cattle price spread".

Nothing could be further from the truth.

USDA "all choice" retail price reportings do not calculate all the "select" product or "standard" or "no roll" or "featured prices" or discarded product that is not sold by expiration date.  The old retail to fat cattle price spread was misleading because it calculated "choice" product which does not reflect all retail beef sales.  That is precisely why USDA changed their reporting in recent years. 

This price spread data is based on USDA's retail beef price data so consider USDA's interpretation of that data.

~SH~