Baby Formula Shortage
- Thread starter binsfeldcyhawk2
- Start date
If potential foreign suppliers can’t get their product into the US because of restrictions like labeling requirements, it certainly increases the market share for domestic suppliers like Abbot because it decreases supply and sources.Improper labeling doesn't "contribute to oversize market share".
The reality is that the Trump administration restricted imports. Nothing to do with "FDA regulations"
"But the Trump Administration sought to protect domestic producers by imposing quotas and tariffs on Canadian imports in the USMCA trade deal"
#'MericaFirst
#InfantsExpendable
Opinion | What Caused the Baby Formula Shortage?
Tariffs, government labeling rules and state welfare monopolies all play major roles.www.wsj.com
That’s why they're lifting some of those restrictions now to increase supply.
This isn’t hard…
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My grandparents lived long lifes and they didn't have formula. This is the most over-hyped news issue on tv today
Not really,.. young families have become pretty reliant on this stuff...
What part of "Trump putting import restrictions on them" is hard for you to understand here?
That info is linked, if you bother to read it.
Seems it's more than Trump or labeling.....but a combination of 3 things...to include labeling and FDA requirements.
Thanks for the link...
Last year Abbott accounted for 42% of the U.S. formula market, about 95% of which is produced domestically. There are only four major manufacturers of formula in the U.S. today: Mead Johnson, Abbott, Nestle, and Perrigo. One reason the market is so concentrated is tariffs up to 17.5% on imports, which protect domestic producers from foreign competition. Non-trade barriers such as FDA labeling and ingredient requirements also limit imports even during shortages.
Canada’s strong dairy industry has attracted investment in formula production. But the Trump Administration sought to protect domestic producers by imposing quotas and tariffs on Canadian imports in the USMCA trade deal. The FDA can inspect foreign plants so the U.S. import restrictions aren’t essential for product safety. They merely raise prices for consumers and limit choice.
Further limiting competition is the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children (WIC) for low-income mothers. By the Department of Agriculture’s estimate, WIC accounted for between 57% and 68% of all infant formula sold in the U.S. Under the welfare program, each state awards an exclusive formula contract to a manufacturer.
Companies compete for the contracts by offering states huge rebates on the formula women can buy. The rebates equal about 85% of the wholesale cost, according to a 2011 USDA study. Women can only use WIC vouchers to purchase formula from the winning manufacturer. These rebates reduce state spending, but there’s no such thing as free baby formula.
Why would manufacturers give states an enormous discount? Because the contracts effectively give them a state monopoly. Stores give WIC brands more shelf space. Physicians may also be more likely to recommend WIC brands. After 30 states switched their WIC contracts between 2005 and 2008, the new provider’s market share increased on average by 84 percentage points.
I’ve heard this before, but I don’t understand how a baby is allergic to the very thing that is supposed to keep it alive? That seems to go against nature. Was it a food your wife was eating? My no pic wife had to adjust her diet for a couple of our kids so it was better on their stomachs.
I’m not doubting you, I’m honestly curious.
I’m talking about cow’s milk. She’s 18 months old.
My wife stopped breastfeeding at about 12 months and we moved to a mix of formula and food. My daughter is now almost entirely on food, but still needs to supplement because she’s small. She can’t have milk or any of the formulas derived from milk.
Milk is nasty anyway, no big loss there.
It does strike me as odd though, that we sell and consume another mammal’s milk, but we won’t or can’t do the same with human milk.
Most formulas contain milk protein, so even with formula you’re really limited in non-milk options, Prosobee, Alimentum, etc.
Can't abort 'em.
Can't feed 'em.
Wonder what the next step will be....Soylent Baby Green?
Lol @ Joes Place blaming the shortage on Trump attaching a tariff on Canadian imports that amounts to about $1.50 per pound. A lot of families would gladly pay an extra $1.50/lb to get formula right now. The problem is that when Abbott was shut down three months ago, the FDA was not proactive about finding alternative sources.
also restricting imports.
You do realize that with that trade war, those companies simply pulled out of US markets entirely, right?
And they don't instantly return.
The problem is that Abbott decided on $5B worth of stock buybacks instead of maintaining equipment.
Due, in part, to favorable tax codes that reward that. Had they dealt with higher tax rates on those transactions, then investment in long-term infrastructure would have been a better deal. But that's not how CEOs work - they want "instant/quarterly" returns. Because that nets them the biggest golden parachute. Some other dude will deal with the "down the road" problems.
And this can easily be fixed by tying their equity to long-term returns, where they cannot access 100% of them until years later - and if the years later return is better they get a bigger payout. The financial system is simply designed for short-term gains.
Kerry needs to share his Indian title with you, though you don't get to be chief or an eagle. Your name from the People is Running Crow.
CLEARLY the solution to the baby formula shortage is to require people to have more babies.
That's just common-sense science, yo!!!!
It's fun to watch you twist yourself into a pretzel coming up with new ways to blame absolutely every bad thing that happens on Trump.
'Member when they all took credit for the Covid stimulus they voted against?
Good times...
You simply cannot comprehend that a bad trade policy, overturning something that worked fine, along with massive tax cuts that goaded companies like this into stock buybacks could result in any "unintended consequences".
Feel free to double-check my math and tell me if I'm mistaken, but I count just under $9.868 billion in stock buybacks during the 8 years that Obama was President, $1.476 billion in stock buybacks during the 4 years that Trump was President, and $4.906 billion in stock buybacks in the 16 months that Biden has been President.
https://ycharts.com/companies/ABT/stock_buyback
Does that sound correct to you?
Feel free to educate yourself on the USMCA boondoggle
Under the USMCA rules, Canada is required to apply an export charge of CA$4.25 per kilogram to global exports of infant formula in excess of 13,333 metric tons for the remainder of the dairy year. The quota increased to 40,000 metric tons in year two of the trade agreement and by only 1.2% annually after that.
The charges are designed to offset the amount of subsidies that producers get on the input side, said Miller, a former policy adviser for the Business Council of Canada and the Canadian Embassy in Washington.
The export limits were actually below the production capacity of the Feihe plant, which does business as Canada Royal Milk, according to the Canadian Broadcasting Corp.
The U.S. imported no baby formula from Canada in 2021 because of the confusing USMCA regulations and expensive tariff-quotas, writes Gabriella Beaumont‐Smith, a trade policy analyst at the Cato Institute, a libertarian think tank in Washington.
Goddamned liberals at the Cato Institute blaming Trump!!!!
How US trade policy is making the baby formula shortage worse
Restrictive trade policies are contributing to the U.S. shortage of baby formula because products can’t be easily substituted from abroad.
www.freightwaves.com
You don’t want to talk about stock buybacks anymore?Feel free to educate yourself on the USMCA boondoggle
Under the USMCA rules, Canada is required to apply an export charge of CA$4.25 per kilogram to global exports of infant formula in excess of 13,333 metric tons for the remainder of the dairy year. The quota increased to 40,000 metric tons in year two of the trade agreement and by only 1.2% annually after that.The charges are designed to offset the amount of subsidies that producers get on the input side, said Miller, a former policy adviser for the Business Council of Canada and the Canadian Embassy in Washington. The export limits were actually below the production capacity of the Feihe plant, which does business as Canada Royal Milk, according to the Canadian Broadcasting Corp.The U.S. imported no baby formula from Canada in 2021 because of the confusing USMCA regulations and expensive tariff-quotas, writes Gabriella Beaumont‐Smith, a trade policy analyst at the Cato Institute, a libertarian think tank in Washington.
Goddamned liberals at the Cato Institute blaming Trump!!!!
How US trade policy is making the baby formula shortage worse
Restrictive trade policies are contributing to the U.S. shortage of baby formula because products can’t be easily substituted from abroad.
LoL. He moved the goalpost. Please keep up.You don’t want to talk about stock buybacks anymore?
He was pretty lathered up about stock buybacks and the role they played in causing the bacterial contamination. I’m not sure why he all of a sudden doesn’t want to talk about stock buybacks anymore.
Tom Vilsack is talking on CNN about the baby formula situation….
Damn he’s good. Administration has to figure out a way to get the Agricultural Secretary more screen time to represent the Admin….
Damn he’s good. Administration has to figure out a way to get the Agricultural Secretary more screen time to represent the Admin….
How come it seems like this Biden administration is always a day late and a dollar short on every issue. They show up with a fire truck after the dam house has already burnt to the ground.
In your grandparents day child mortality was much higher. A lot of kids died for lack of nutrition that access to formula addressed. It could have been an issue with the mother, or with a deficiency in the kid. My MIL had two siblings die under the age of 5 in rural Indiana in the 50s and 60s.
WBUR's On Point had an hour on this subject today. I know that most of you will never take the time to listen to it, but it's very informative. Go back to the 1970s when there were issues with formula in the US, and the FDA moved in. Learn some about why a handful of producers have a monopoly, and how the price structure for formula is maintained. Learn why foreign competitors cannot crack the US market. Hint, here are some good reasons, and a lot of protectionism and bureaucratic inertia at work. There is also a lot of good talk about how this was probably preventable if Abbot had kept better care in their manufacturing plant, if there was stronger oversight, and if we were not so dependent on JIT manufacturing and warehousing. With all of these "unprecedented", shortages since the pandemic started this was predictable.
As I said, most of you won't bother to invest the time. But, it is worth a listen.
https://www.wbur.org/onpoint/2022/05/19/the-corporate-monopolies-behind-americas-baby-formula-crisis
As I said, most of you won't bother to invest the time. But, it is worth a listen.
https://www.wbur.org/onpoint/2022/05/19/the-corporate-monopolies-behind-americas-baby-formula-crisis
NPR's On Point is dead to me since they forced out the inimitable Tom Ashbrook on B.S. "hostile environment" grounds.
It used to be a good show. Balanced. Fair.
Now it's just the same ol' NPR leftist pablum.
Congrats for validating me. 3 minutes after I posted the link to it you snarked on the episode.
I didn't click on your link. Just commenting on Tom's unfair firing during the "Me Too" purge at NPR.
Look, I get it. You'd rather shoot your mouth off in this thread versus be informed. Being informed crimps your style.
It's one of about 20 things that are severely wrong. One of these days you're going to wake up and actually realize we are in a depression right now.
The people who laugh at this will also be waking up soon.
I''m not laughing at anything. There are a lot of people that have multiple kids that should not. 15 years of family law, juvenile law, and criminal law tells me that I know a little bit more than you about this. If you can't afford one child, why have 4 with multiple fathers.
You definitely don't sound like a snob.
What does your family law, juvenile law, and criminal law history have to do with any of this?
