Viral Opinion A YouGov/Economist survey found that Democrats are much more likely than Republicans to be extremely concerned about the coronavirus. This started a twitter food fight over which party is dumber – the answer is they both are wrong. Affective polarization or negative feelings toward opposite political parties has been increasing in the U.S. more than in countries like the UK, Germany and Sweden. This enabled economists to study cross-country differences that might answer why. Levi Boxell, Matthew Gentzkow and Jesse Shapiro examined 40 years of data for nine wealthy, democratic countries (NBER Working Paper 26669) to answer why. They found that often speculated reasons for polarization such as the internet, income...
Key Takeaways: Dry bulk markets remain mixed with Capesize vessels seeing continued pressure from weaker demand while fixtures and rate strength gradually increases towards the smaller vessel classes. Tanker markets are pulling back from their recent highs as tonnage moves out of the Mid...
The Trump import plan for 300,000 MT of beef supplies used for ground beef, i.e., lean trim, from September through November has, according to Secretary Brooke Rollins, brought some relief to beef prices. The Executive Order states that the Secretary of Agriculture will analyze and review the m...
Key Takeaways: Texas illustrates the assumptions underlying the 2025 FMMO reform; Idaho exposes their limitations. The Southwest order blend (roughly 27 percent Class I, 32 percent Class III and 31 percent Class IV) exposes Texas producers to every lever USDA adjusted, with a near-neutral proj...
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.