Without trying to add to the salaciousness of the topic, it is worth considering recent revelations of sexual harassment in the context of the possible impact on Congress. The dean of the House of Representatives, John Conyers (D-Michigan), resigned today. He was the ranking minority member of the powerful House Judiciary Committee and the longest-serving current member of the House. Another member of the powerful House Energy and Commerce Committee, Joe Barton (R-Texas), has announced he won’t run for re-election. Meanwhile, Senator Al Franken (D-Minnesota) is facing pressure from colleagues and even Democratic operatives to resign. In terms of political effect, this issue is akin to the early 1990s House of Representatives bank che...
What You Need to Know Today: Russia rejected calls for a ceasefire in the Black Sea, including a proposal to halt attacks on civilian shipping that could help restore grain flows from Ukrainian ports. Tyson Foods announced plans to permanently close its Joslin, Illinois, beef processing facili...
The big news in the cattle markets yesterday was Tyson Foods’ move to close two more beef plants. One of them, the Joslin, Illinois, plant was shuttered immediately after the announcement. The other, in Eagle Mountain, Utah, is a case-ready plant that does not slaughter cattle. Tyson also...
The Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) released the Consumer Price Index (CPI) on Wednesday. In July, the CPI rose 0.1 percent, seasonally adjusted, and rose 3.4 percent over the last 12 months, not seasonally adjusted. The index for all items less food and energy, or the “core” infla...
From WPI Consulting
Communicating importance of value-added products
Facing increasing pressure to quantify the value of export promotion efforts to investors, a U.S. industry organization retained WPI to develop a quantitative model that better communicated the importance of exports. The resulting model concluded that value-added meat exports contributed $0.45 cents per bushel to the price of corn, increasing support for that sector’s financial support of WPI’s client. In addition to serving the red meat industry with this type of analysis, WPI has generated similar deliverables for the U.S. soybean and poultry/egg industries.