[sdenton4]

Here's a list written by a guy who wrote a book on the economics of meat production in the US. (Yeah, it's on the PETA web site, but somehow the 'i just really like big Macs' crowd doesn't get around to doing research on food in the same way...)

http://www.peta.org/living/food/10-things-wish-everyone-knew...

His top-line number is that a $5 burger would cost $13 without various subsidies, funded by $38B or year in subsidies to the meat industry.

I also found claims that removing subsidies would eventually lower prices by allowing competition from countries without subsidies. But my guess is there's a limit to bottom price globally given current tech, regulations, tariffs, and land availability. And it's difficult to know where that is relative to subsidizes process in the US...

[areyousure]

The figure of $13 per $5 burger includes other "externalizing" costs and is almost entirely healthcare: https://meatonomics.com/2013/06/24/introducing-a-new-book-ab...

The purported subsidies of $38 billion per year divided by the 50 billion burgers per year that everyone seems to think Americans eat (including this author) is less than $1 per burger.

(But the $38 billion/year is wrong too ...)