Argentina Macroeconomic and Policy Situation Things are generally becoming more complicated in Argentina. After nearly 90 days of COVID-19 quarantines/lockdowns, the worst seems still to come relative to the disease. Many companies are going bankrupt, unemployment and poverty are surging, shops are closing permanently, etc. The government cannot keep printing money and tax revenues (from VAT taxes, gross earnings taxes, income taxes, etc.) have dropped significantly. Argentine policymakers are now discussing reducing monies given to companies to help pay salaries. At the same time, debt negotiations seem to be stuck, despite the fact the country is edging closer to default every day. This impacts the exchange rate, country risk, Argentine-...
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.