Where's the beef? Feds don't care

As you bite into your hamburger at lunch today, consider this story from Forbes. It says the USDA has been pretending to investigate anti-competitive behavior in stockyards and meat companies. Some lowlights:

The Agriculture Department has pretended to investigate anticompetitive behavior among stockyards and meat companies since 1999, but in hundreds of cases hasn't actually filed complaints, says an audit released Wednesday. Senior officials blocked investigations from being referred to department lawyers...

And my favorite part:

In the meantime, employees were told to create the appearance of a high rate of enforcement by logging routine letters and reviews of public data as investigations, the inspector general said.

Yeah, that's what you like to hear. The agency charged with making sure our food is safe is pretending to do work. Every day in the U.S. about 200,000 get sick from food. 900 of them are so sick they need to go the hospital and 14 of them will die. This is not an agency we want pretending to do anything.

The meat industry has been consolidating down to a handful of companies over the last few years. This translates into higher prices for consumers as the competition falls in an industry worth about $120 billion. It also means a much more dangerous food supply for the whole country. If there are only a handful of stockyards and processors left, that means they are producing huge volumes of meat. If E. coli. or some other pathogen gets worked into the system at these huge plants, it can sicken people all across the country pretty fast.

So enjoy your lunch but maybe call your Congressperson when you get back and tell them to make sure the USDA is doing their job.