I can picture it now: A bunch of aides are in Sen. Elizabeth Warren’s office, scurrying to come up with a way to jump into the headline-making inflation fray before the holiday break. “Wait, it’s Thanksgiving! Wait, aren’t turkeys really expensive?! Wait, why are they so expensive? Wait, aren’t they expensive because big poultry companies are really greedy and jacking up prices? That’s IT!!! Senator, I think we’ve got it! …”

OK, so I have no idea what really went into Warren’s call for a DOJ investigation into alleged anticompetitive practices among the nation’s largest poultry processors. But I have to liven it up a bit, knowing it’s boring and suffers for originality. The Massachusetts Democrat joins a long and varied line of litigants to come forth since 2016 to make essentially the same price-fixing claims one after another. And hey, it’s paying off for them, or at least their lawyers, as many of the defendants have collectively shelled out millions of dollars to make it go away.

Forgetting the lack of originality, the oversimplicity of Warren’s wade into these waters — at a time when there are so many elementary, A+B+C+D+E explanations for why consumers are paying more for their turkeys and all other meats (and all necessities of daily life) — just comes off as weak and lazy.

If COVID placed a skeptical public eye on the practices of the meat industry, then the inflation that also has stemmed from the pandemic’s various supply chain shocks should be informing them on the domino effect of global economics. But Warren is missing, if not ignoring, those lessons, aiming instead for the target du jour and hitching her wagon to a DOJ already years into an industry crackdown. Let alone the effects of policies that she and fellow Congress members have put in place (for better or worse) in response to the pandemic, she is neglecting another critical force: the near insatiable demand for animal protein from the consumers she purports to protect.

If they continue to want it, they’re going to continue to get it. But they’re going to have to pay the price — the cost of fuel, freight, feed, labor and all — for it. And no, contrary to what campaigns like Warren’s might suggest, consumers aren’t fighting alleged gouging. Their willingness to pay has actually increased, as Purdue ag economist and professor Jayson Lusk has told me.

Rabobank and others project the current dynamics and headwinds to continue through 2022, due to ongoing supply constraints and, yep, consumer demand. The reality is that the big meat and poultry companies — along with retailers and restaurants — will continue to pass costs onto the consumer in order to try and make a profit, and consumers are likely to keep paying in order to feed their families.

Efforts like Warren’s, apparently to put a political feather in her cap, are just turkey talk.

For the turkeys

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