Consumer Demand – Thoughts From The Middle of Nowhere

How will the latest <acronym title="Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy">BSE</acronym> finding affect consumer demand? <a href="http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/N26470216.htm">Here</a> is an opinion I won't argue with. n n<blockquote>Meat-loving Americans will stick with beef despite a second U.S. case of mad cow disease, analysts and trade groups said on Sunday, even if cattle markets have the jitters.</blockquote> n nI have to have some hope and I guess this is it. I know the markets down a little and what will happen there is anybodies guess. I probable should have taken the offer the buyer gave me earlier this year but I can't worry about that now. n n<a href="http://www.billingsgazette.com//index.php?id=1&display=rednews/2005/06/27/build/world/45-banned-meat.inc">Here's</a> one interesting story on this whole thing. Taiwan closed there market to US beef again but consumers aren't as scared and are buying up the meat. n n<blockquote>One woman, who did not identify herself, said she was not put off by the government ban on importing beef from the U.S. "I see lots of other people buying it so I think there's no reason I shouldn't buy it myself," she said. n nAnother man said it would be difficult to break the habit of buying American beef. n n"We really like to eat it, and buy quite a bit," he said.</blockquote> n nWhat is interesting in this whole thing is how giddy the Canadian cattlemen and press is over the discovery of more <acronym title="Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy">BSE</acronym>. They don't appear to care how it affects consumer sentiment on beef or on markets in general, their just happy to inflict more pain on the cattle industry as a whole and rub it in. Hope their having fun, it only hurts them too in the long run. n nHope is definitely not the same thing as optimism. It is not the conviction that something will turn out well, but the certainty that something makes sense, regardless of how it turns out. V