7b FFN: On the Range

Précis: For Field research Schlosser travels to Colorado Springs, where he met a prominent local rancher, Hank. Though a classic symbol of the American West, Hank was very much against these meatpacking companies which are largely attributed to the poor economic standing so many farmers are in today. This is also caused by such problems as rising land prices, stagnant beef prices, oversupplies of cattle, increased shipments of live cattle from Canada and Mexico, development pressures, inheritance taxes and health scares about beef. A hundred years ago Ranchers were in a similar predicament, faced with these Beef Trust monopolies. Then of coarse good Old T.R. was there to swing his big stick and bust those trusts! The "trustbusters" progressive movement was sought to take power away from these monopolies because they felt to much economic power was a threat to our democracy. Thanks to this, Ranchers were able to sell in a competetive marketplace, a very good thing for them. Unfortunalty for the ranchers however, when Regan (known as the devil by Huey Freeman) took office he turned a blind eye to these antitrust laws and these meat packing corporations (amoung others) grew. With these monopolies on the beef and poultry industry companies were able to lower prices of beef and poultry and create certain countracts that put the ranchers grossly in debt. For some it ends there like Hank, who took his own life like many other ranchers because of the enormous pressure they were under and the debt they gathered.
Gems: "[Chicken McNuggets] turned a bulk agricultural commodity into a manufactored, value-added product. And it encourages a system of production that has turned many chicken farmers into little more than serfs." (139)
"The typical grower had been raising chicken for fifteen years, owned pountry houses, remained in debt, and earned perhaps $12,000 a year." (141)
Thoughts and Questions: Nine times out of ten, the worker will have a certain distaste for their boss. Ranchers definitly have cause for their anger, they are oppressed to the point of near serf status as Schlosser pointed out. Why then, have I never heard of these terrible conditions before reading this book (sort of)? I never here of this on the news or in the paper.