Word: beefed
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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...lunar lunacy, the cow that jumped over the moon has gone into orbit. During this year's first three months, average prices for beef cuts are up 9%, to $2.23 per lb., and are expected to climb a further 25% by year's end. Because high prices at meat counters are such an immediate indicator of inflation's bite, consumers are clamoring for Washington to do something to bring them down...
...argue persuasively that methods that have been used before -price controls, consumer boycotts and increased import quotas-would only hurt now. Reason: today's higher prices are the best way to encourage cattle producers to replenish the herds that they have depleted over the past four years, when beef prices were...
...current import quota of 1.5 billion Ibs. annually, or 5.5% of the total beef consumed in the U.S., is about as high as it can go. Because of beef shortages elsewhere in an increasingly affluent and meat-eating world, only Australia and New Zealand can increase their import allotments. Those two could be lifted by 50 million Ibs., to a total barely enough to meet one one-thousandth of U.S. beef needs. Local consumer boycotts, like New York City's "Beefless Wednesday" campaign, signal cattlemen that demand for beef is dropping and that further herd cutbacks are in order...
...White House has completely ruled out a beef price freeze. Little wonder. It was President Nixon's desperation move to clamp controls on beef prices in 1973 that caused much of today's shortages and high prices. Though cattle producers' prices were frozen, their overhead costs continued to rise. Many could not afford to feed their animals and had to sell off large numbers just to stay solvent. As more beef came onto the market, prices briefly fell. But the size of the nation's herds also plummeted from 132 million cattle...
...that after just five months, the President's Stage II anti-inflation effort is flagging. In March wholesale prices zoomed 1%, or at a compounded, annual rate of 12.7%, the same as in February. Leading the price index was food, which jumped 1.2%, with particularly severe rises in beef and veal. So far this year, beef prices have increased at an annual rate of more than 100% and are expected to remain oppressively high for the rest of the year. The standard Administration forecast calls for inflation to moderate, but not before several months more of big price rises...