• ThunderWhiskers@lemmy.world
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    3 months ago

    Bird flu and swine flu are two of the biggest pressure points on agricultural supply. Heat and drought are also doing horrible things to cattle stock. Will her support for small businesses address this?

    Are we pretending that the American meat industry is small business now?

    As for housing, the ONLY answer is to remove corporate ownership of single-family dwellings.

    • UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world
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      3 months ago

      Are we pretending that the American meat industry is small business now?

      This isn’t a “small business” problem. Firms like Tyson and Smithfield can suffer hundreds of millions in loses in the event of a livestock flu outbreak. Their mega-farms and super-sized slaughterhouses are rife with disease, which is why their animals have to be pumped full of antibiotics and antivirals practically from birth. And that’s before you get into the risk of their ag workers getting infected by a mutant strain and turning the disease into a global pandemic. The so-called Spanish Flu got started on a pig farm just outside a Kansas City military base, before spreading to the front lines in Europe during America’s late entry into WW1.

      That’s the kind of enormous tail risks the meat industry is juggling right now. And its a major driver behind inflating pork, chicken, and egg prices.

      As for housing, the ONLY answer is to remove corporate ownership of single-family dwellings.

      No way Harris does anything even resembling this. The Real Estate Industry would revolt en mass.