Wednesday, September 26, 2012

A Challenge to Joe Weisenthal

Joe Weisenthal says he is bored with stories about bacon going up in price. Further, he says he doesn't believe them. My proposal should perk his interest.

 Joe, I believe the stories. There is a huge drought that is causing farmers to send pigs to slaughter early, which means there  will be fewer pigs in the first part of 2013.  Good old supply and demand will kick in pushing the prices higher. I will bet you the current price of 1,000 slices of bacon that the price will be higher by the end of June 2013.

I propose that the price used to determine the cost of the slices of bacon will be the price of Omaha Steaks Precooked Bacon Slices as listed on Amazon. Currently, the price on Amazon is $29.99 for 100 slices. If the price is higher by the end of June 2013, you will owe me $299.99. If the price isn't higher, I will owe you $299.99.

(To protect against the possibility that Amazon won't continue to list the bacon, we will each submit the grocery store prices for bacon on October 1, 2012, from 3 stores of our own choosing to be compared to prices in end June  2013, if necessary)

6 comments:

  1. Has anyone in a blog post ever gotten someone to agree to a bet like this? I see them all the time. Somehow I suspect most just get forgotten one week later.

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  2. It might be interesting to see what the prices are at grocery stores versus club stores like Costco.

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  3. The only danger to a bet like this is that restaurants and grocery stores across the country haven't technically been raising nominal prices that much, but they have been greatly taking away quantity and quality of the food. Take a look at how much less meat one gets from a visit to subway or mcdonalds these days, or the quality of the steaks at the average supermarket in comparison with just three or four years ago to see what I mean.

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  4. http://www.cmegroup.com/trading/agricultural/livestock/lean-hogs.html

    What does he think these prices represent? Are they fiction of our imagination? If so, what kind of conspiracy nut does this make Mr. Wesienthal?

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  5. I know a few people at the CME that trade hog futures that have already lined up cold storage and are beginning to negotiate car loads of frozen pork. A couple hundred thousand pounds will probably net you at least $100,000 after expenses.

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  6. Yeah, but you can't eat bac......nevermind.

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