JD Vance was roundly mocked online over a trip to the supermarket where he bemoaned the steep price of eggs — and botched the photo opp.
The Republican vice presidential nominee stopped by a supermarket in Reading, Pennsylvania, with his sons over the weekend to illustrate how grocery prices have been impacted by “Kamala Harris’s policies” when he claimed a dozen eggs cost $4.
The problem? When footage of the visit emerged, Vance was quickly called out by viewers who spotted the price tag of a dozen eggs behind him was actually $2.99.
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Is JD Vance wearing eyeliner? He looks like a poor Tim Minchin impersonator.
I remember reading somewhere that it was likely something he picked up from his wife, as it is apparently not uncommon in India?
That could have been a lie, but honestly who cares how the guy chooses to dress or present? His views and words are toxic enough that we don’t need to resort to personal attacks on his appearance; calling him and his ilk ‘weird’ is more cutting to them than anything else.
My problem with it, and this might be wrong so sorry if i am, is that he doesnt have a clue how the people he represents live. Politics have separated from the people and he doesnt recognize this. Instead of understanding his job or his land, he seem to care more for his looks. Its another little step in diverting from the people. I personally have no problem at all if someone just does what he/she likes as long as no boundaries are hurt. Im happy that this gets more common these days.
The best way to look at it is to ask “if he cared less about his appearance, and dressed more slovenly - would it excuse his abhorrent views and stances?”.
If the answer is no, then it should be a non-factor.
A cynical part of me thinks that some of the more outlandish politicians dress that way (Trump’s hair dye and fake tan, JD Vance’s guyliner, Boris Johnson’s unkempt hair, etc.) are done in part as an attempt to de-rail reporting by having us fall into the easy trap of ridiculing their appearance rather than criticising their views and actions.
To me, it’s more about the fact that if any of his followers saw someone in makeup and decided they were a man in any other instance, they would treat that person like shit.
While I do think this is an intended strategy for Boris Johnson (he’s admitted as much), I think the clown show which is Vance / Trump, and don’t forget Giuliani’s dripping hair dye, is not premeditated. That would be giving them too much credit.
I think they are just simply bumbling from one grift to the next, completely unaware of how ridiculous they look.
It’s to make them stand out, so you don’t confound them with other people.
Trump just looks like any old man without his ridiculous makeup.
I mean, he probably shouldn’t be talking about drag queens.
I went to Chicago in 2016 and eggs were 99 cents a dozen. I practically lived on them while I was there.
And they’ll still believe and defend him. 🙄
He’s been out of touch since he left the valley
“Kamala Harris’s policies”? Well, I guess we don’t need an election is she’s already in office making these policies exist in reality.
This isn’t anything new, I’ve seen GOP defenders in comments say the same thing. For some reason she’s already doing things outside the VP job just because she’s running for President. They sure forgot Biden fast, as well as things put into place by their favored Trump when he was slashing and burning in office. It’s the old “look at the gas prices” ignorance.
I had a person talking at me the other day because of my retail job. They said, “I can’t understand why someone would vote for someone, if you’ve already seen them in power and you don’t like what you see.”
I said, “Exactly! Makes perfect sense.”
Then they went on to add, “I mean, she’s been in the White House 3 and a half years!”
I forgot the current Vice President was the person to enact policy that directly raises egg prices. It has nothing to do with consumer price gouging and corporate greed. Nosiree.
He shows a lot of intelligence in his prayer /s
I mean, I think that he’s got a valid broader point that egg prices haven’t been great for a couple of years.
However, the point is that…that’s not really due to anything that Biden has done, much less Harris.
A lot of it was due to major avian flu outbreaks:
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/bird-flu-outbreak-egg-prices-2024/
April 24, 2024
A multi-state outbreak of avian influenza, also known as bird flu, is leading to a jump in the price of eggs around the U.S. — an unhappy reminder for consumers that a range of unforeseen developments can trigger inflation.
As of April 24, a dozen large grade A eggs cost an average of $2.99, up nearly 16% from $2.52 in January, according to federal labor data. The price increase comes as nearly 9 million chickens across Michigan, Minnesota, New Mexico and Texas have been discovered to be infected with bird flu in recent weeks, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture. That is crimping egg supplies, leading to higher prices.
https://www.cbsnews.com/minnesota/news/egg-prices-rise-bird-flu-farm/
September 9, 2024
LONG LAKE, Minn. — Minnesota shoppers may be experiencing some sticker shock as eggs again emerges as a hot commodity.
According to the USDA, the average wholesale price for a dozen large Grade A eggs reached $4.26 in the Midwest region. That’s up $0.09 since last week, but up roughly 20% compared to what was recorded in last summer’s consumer price index.
“I’m not surprised by the volatility,” Loree Kinney, store director at the Orono Market explained. “There’s volatility in milk, there’s volatility in dairy products, and in meat. There’s not much you can do about the supply and demand.”
Indeed, economists have for months pointed to a bird flu outbreak as a key reason for dwindling supplies of eggs across the U.S. coming from major producers.
You can’t really lay that much at Harris’s feet, though.
I do kind of wonder how practical it would be to have some company just store powered eggs if the prices are going to be jerking around that much. Can’t do a sunny-side-up egg or anything like that, but for baking, it should be fine.
Not to mention the price spike on eggs specifically is also way less than he would like to make it appear. Yes, in 2020 dollars, a dozen eggs was $1.50. But adjusted for inflation to today’s dollars, that 1.50 is actually about 2 dollars today (inflation a much broader issue and highly affected by covid). So the price didn’t jump from 1.50 to 4 dollars, an increase of 167%, from 1.5 to 3 dollars, an increase of 100%. It only went up from 2 dollars to just under 3 dollars (given the signs), an increase of just under 50 percent. Considering all the avian flu outbreaks that is an entirely reasonable price hike on a high demand good.
I see the point you are trying to make, but inflation doesn’t quite when that way.
Comparing the prices of the same commodities at two different points in time is literally how inflation is calculated, the increase from $1.50 to $4 is real.
Now, what the inflation-adjusted dollars are telling you is that if eggs had only increased in price commensurate with general inflation, they would have gone from $1.50 to $2. The extra $2 increase is above what a consumer would expect given the general increase in the prices of everything else. If someone (magically) had a salary that increases with inflation, they would find eggs today to be a larger fraction of their spending if they kept the same level of consumption.
Eggs are more expensive both in absolute and relative to other products. The reasons for this are complex, but due in no small part to people continuing to buy large quantities of eggs even when they were heinously expensive in the early days of the pandemic. The market absorbed that information and came to the conclusion that eggs were previously undervalued.
First, you missed the part where the actual price now is not 4 dollars? He lied. It was 3 dollars, per the sign right behind him.
Second, national inflation is calculated off a broad spectrum of goods and services providing insight into the relative buying power of tthe dollar itself, so it is not missing the point to compare based on the adjusted buying power of the dollar. It is a more accurate reflection of the true rise in cost of this individual good comparing how its rise in price has outpaced the average rise in costs across the board. It reflects the extra pressures put on the egg market from the avian flu outbreaks and possible other factors rather than the general inflation of the entire economy.
Third, if Vance’s goal was to demonstrate that inflation in general had gone up tremendously and blame Harris specifically for that (despite how ridiculous that is), using eggs as a specific measure of the effect of their policies when the price hike on eggs have significantly outpaced other goods and is clearly due to non-policy related circumstances outside anyone’s control is obviously disingenuous. And that was before he lied and tried to add another 30+ percent on top of the already inflated price.
Intentionally did not talk about Vance, I was merely responding to the idea that using past prices adjusted for inflation compared to current prices isn’t that straightforward.
Thanks for the lecture, appreciate the tone.
Vance’s comments was the context in which my comment was made. Context matters
I know CA voted for more humane living conditions for egg farms years ago. That seemed to have a direct price impact that slowly came down a bit.
I think they know this but it won’t help their campaign. That’s the state of US politics. Just like the gas prices. Biden was blamed for increasing gas prices while all the gas companies showed record profits because they just increased their prices.
Thing is, Biden has been paying farmers for their losses and ramping up inspections to detect and stop spread.
Egg prices would be even worse if Biden was sitting on his ass. We’d have even more of a supply and demand discrepancy.
But, maybe Trump wants to propose injecting chickens with bleach.
Exactly. Egg prices have gone up in large part because factory farming is unsustainable and we’re starting to see that with flu outbreaks. Who’da thunk.
Yup. The issue with factory farming, processing, and prep / serving isn’t tha chemikuls, it’s e. coli, salmonella, hep A, and in this case, avian flu.
Yes, eggs should be from small farms with 12 chickens max each, that should solve everything, quality control, diseases and the high prices on eggs.
Same with everything else, factories make shitty products, you should rather order from a craftsman.
/sPS:
Oh yes BTW, AFAIK the flu outbreaks started in nature, not on farms.- Unlike the similarly awful 2014 outbreak, you correctly point out that these outbreaks are originating in the wild. And keeping chickens in awful, inhumane conditions where they live in their own filth jam-packed among thousands of other chickens is basically the perfect vector for a pathogen.
- Getting chickens out of factory farms is a good unto itself, but I doubt you’ve ever watched any footage or done any research to familiarize yourself with the sorts of horrors you pay for when you buy eggs from a factory farm. Let alone based on your callous attitude that you would actually care about those horrors.
- Weird strawman that the two kinds of farms that exist are late stage capitalist hellholes where billions of chickens go every year to live a life of unfathomable torture… and your Aunt Betty’s backyard chicken coop where every chicken gets a wacky name and their own posts on Facebook documenting their antics.
My mother raises hens and a dozen birds can actually make so many eggs that our entire family has trouble using them all. A bird lays on average one egg a day, and pasture-raised eggs are so rich as to be almost unpalatable to eat directly.
I don’t think every farm needs to have some strict limit like that, but more numerous, smaller, more localized farms would be better for everyone in almost every way. Better environmentally, more humane to the birds, people get fresher and higher quality eggs, and more people are employed. Also more limited damage from diseases, droughts, and so on.
Our current system isnt just bad because “factories bad.” It’s bad because it’s heavily centralized and top-down controlled. This is much cheaper to operate and funnels money towards the owner much better, but is so much worse in every way that local farms are better.
We’re making millions of birds suffer and getting shittier, more expensive product because of it so less than a dozen people (the real bad eggs) can stay filthy rich.
more numerous, smaller, more localized farms would be better for everyone
Either those farmers would make a lot less money, like barely being able to make a living, or the price of their products would have to be way higher than what we pay today. Like not just a few percent, but a factors higher.
My mother raises hens and a dozen birds can actually make so many eggs that our entire family has trouble using them all.
And?
Do you really believe I don’t know that?pasture-raised eggs are so rich as to be almost unpalatable to eat directly.
WTF? That’s bullshit.
Maybe you are confusing them with eggs from free reigning ducks, which IMO taste awful. But from chicken they are really really good.
Zoonotic diseases require frequent contact with large amounts of animals with large amounts of workers to have enough opportunity to make the difficult cross-species jump, so yes, factory farming is 100% the problem and giving both the animals and the people caring for them more space and making sure the workers have the time to do things right would make a huge difference. You’re making a reducto ad absurdum argument by intentionally using absurd quantities and time periods that are not required to accomplish this goal.
You’re making a reducto ad absurdum argument by intentionally using absurd quantities and time periods that are not required to accomplish this goal.
OK, how many chickens are required before it becomes an industrial production, and not just hobby level?
Is it less safe to have a few hundred than a dozen? The answer is obviously yes. So the problem claimed in the post I responded to, exist with everything above hobby level production.
So I stand by the argument as valid. And the post I responded to as naive.
On the other hand, I can get free range eggs cheaper than your factory made ones in the most expensive parts of the EU, and our population is greater than that of the US, we are feeding more people, yet I can safely eat them raw without the risk of salmonella.
Free range are only marginally better than cages at best.
In Canada there’s free range and free run. Free run are the indoor bullshit ones, I bought them a couple of times and the yolks are the same piss-yellow as the cheapest factory eggs. Proper free range are worth the $8 or so a dozen imo, the colour and taste is so much better which must at least mean there are some standards
Yes there’s a huge difference, free range are definitely better in every way, but also more expensive.
They are also more healthy to eat, because they contain essential fatty acids that occur naturally in eggs, but is lost in cheap production with lower quality feed. Stress and lack of exercise are probably factors too.
The more healthy eggs to eat also taste better.
US free range and EU free range are not the same by far.
In the US, free range poultry must:
- have access to the outdoors for more than 51% of the animal’s life
In the EU:
- hens have continuous daytime access to open-air runs throughout their lives
- the open-air runs to which hens have access are mainly covered with vegetation and not used for other purposes
- the open-air runs must at least have 4 sqm per hen, with adequate shelter, drinking and feeding facilities
And that’s in addition to different food safety standards that make most US poultry non-importable to the EU.
They haven’t done anything to better it, either. I can’t find numbers for this year, so we’ll probably have to wait until next. https://www.yahoo.com/news/profits-largest-u-egg-producer-180807947.html
some say that this video is doctored or whatever, is there some merit to that?
Ah yes.
come on man…
I’ve read yesterday on another post here on lemmy, I don’t make this shit up that some republican was questioning this news article. I just can’t remember which user it was.
I’ve read yesterday on another post here on lemmy
Then say that. Don’t go with “some say.”
I’ve changed the comment.
Are the some that say that on Twitter? Or Truth perhaps?
not doctored.
plus, he’s holding a 24…
yeah okay, that could be a new low, no? Unable to comprehend what one is holding up and where one is.
Maybe there’s a donut shop next door and he can creep out the staff there.
No, the actual price of eggs in the location he was is about right. The national average is $3.20 per dozen, and Reading, PA is usually a bit below average (lol)
I guess Reading is not his strong suit
I’ve been rewatching Veep in honor of Kamala and only having moderate anxiety going into November and… this is the kind of shit even Selina wouldn’t have screwed up on. Part of that is very much that Selina might be a horrible person but she is a fundamentally good leader who cares about The American People.
But it is also just that this level of unforced error from candidates with entire political parties behind them should be unfathomable. Even Veep usually had to make convoluted situations for why Selina would always be blindsided by something The Main Party did or what horrible tragedy she was accidentally mocking that week.
And yet… that is the GOP.
Thanks to Kamala Harris’s inflationary policies
She’s VP. She doesn’t have to power to increase egg prices even if she wanted to. They really don’t know how to run against anyone but Biden, huh?
Find and Replace Biden with Kamala. That’s all they did lol.
Facts don’t matter for the maga crowd. Only feelings. And they feel that eggs are 4 USD. Therefore eggs are 4 USD, despite evidence to the contrary.
They also don’t want solutions, they only want to complain. Which is why trump and vance are still good for them.
“Vance mocked for [insert here]” being a common headline is a media trend I find funny. So shines a chuckle in a weary world
Wow, not even in the Oval Office yet and Kamala is already fiddling with the “egg prices” dial on the Resolute desk.
