If anything, globalization increased the cost of meat in America

Returning to this quote from Kevin Williamson's well-known article from National Review:

The manufacturing numbers -- and the entire gloriously complex tale of globalization -- go in fits and starts: a little improvement here, a little improvement there, and a radically better world in raw material terms (and let's not sniff at those) every couple of decades. Go back and read the novels of the 1980s or watch The Brady Bunch...

...the cost of butter was not a major financial concern for well-to-do families in the 1980s, or now. But another of Williamson's points needs to be addressed: the effect of globalization on meat prices.

Globalization started to kick in during the mid-1990s, and by the late 1990s it was well underway...

...All types and grades of beef have seen prices explode since the mid- to late-1990s. The following chart shows the price of ground chuck since 1980, and it is representative of what has happened to beef in general:

Between 1980 and 1999, the price of ground chuck was approximately constant in nominal terms, while the general inflation rate was 100% (i.e., average prices doubled). Thus, the real cost of ground chuck in the pre-globalization era declined by 50% during the 80s and 90s. Since the end of the 1990s, the nominal price of ground chuck more than doubled, while the average inflation rate was just 42%.

Same thing happened with other food groups: flour, eggs, cheese, most fruits and vegetables, various cuts of chicken and pork, and so on.

...

...The two most fundamental needs are food and shelter, and globalization has certainly not reduced the real costs of these....

...Dismiss the silent majority and you lose elections...

This is not an econ piece, it's a political rant. When it comes to serious money handling we can see how food prices compare to prices in general by adjusting the food price indexes for inflation--

--they're about where they were a half century ago. That means that as a share of real percapita income food costs are less than half what they were in the '70's.

Sure, everyone hates working in the open market and prefers to wallow self-pity, but later when we get hungry and we find the free lunch place closed, we can get a job --and go fill our bellies in half the time it took our parents.

We'll still have plenty of time to blame everything on globalization --what's not to like?

It was good for ranchers till the ethanol mandates raised their feed prices. Most of that early increase was due to globalization, the later increases were due to ethanol and EPA mandates.

American ranchers were making out good till they started to be beat out due to cost, for a lot of meat now it is cheaper to import.

Look at the imports of live cattle from Australia.

This author needs a better understanding of economics. It is entirely a political rant. To equate the consumer price of certain commodities with the effects of global trade is hogwash.

The major reason for the increase in US food prices is the unintended consequence of the ill conceived renewable fuel ethanol mandate. It has increased the price of feed for every farmer, and as a result, herd sizes of all types of livestock have been decreased, resulting in higher food prices. This is a gross oversimplification of a complex system, but it is a good basic overview.

In almost every market, it is government interference that distorts and subverts true market forces. It is an unseen tax on every activity, product, and facet of daily life. In their wildest dreams, no monarch that ever reigned would have been able to crush their producers the way we do now.

This is another reason for true conservatives to support Cruz. He gets the regulatory state, and he wants to bring it down for real. Trump has played the system his whole life, why should we think that he wants to change it.

< Their goal is to get everyone to eat the grass in their own yards.

Beef has gone sky high. Chicken is now where beef used to be. In fact the price of all groceries went sky high under the Muslim tyrant's reign. It was a very noticeable climb at times where items would jump by 10% or more at a time..not just once but several times. Paper items too like toilet paper jumped way up and I bet it had to do with environmental regulations. The man's actions Have caused everything to rise in price.

You can adjust the price of food for inflation but what
about income? That’s where the gap is. The cost of food
can rise right along with inflation but income always lags.
I think that that is the reason they are pushing for a higher
minimum wage as they try to inflate ourselves out of debt.
By raising the minimum wage you adjust the income at the
bottom for inflation which puts the burden and outright
theft on business and peoples retirement and any other
monetary assets.

As far as I can tell the price of beef is up because of
drought, lower than average steer weight.

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