[tsimionescu]

No, because that's the quoted increase in price assuming the same profit as today. That is, that's the actual production cost of the meat give or take a few percent. Today much of that production cost is payed by the US government or local state governments through subsidies, water rights etc.

Note: i have no idea if the $45 is realistic, but the principle is there - much of the production cost of meat is payed by the state. The price of meat would increase if this practice stopped because without any increase in profits.

[jerf]

That's someone's opinion of the actual price, based on their opinion that the "water rights" ought to be more expensive because they think it would produce change they happen to agree with. In their opinion it ought to be a lot more expensive in other ways too.

But despite their opinion, no, it isn't that expensive. That sort of analysis heavily relies on telling you what you want to hear, and expecting that you won't dig into the analysis and realize that if you applied the same standard to everything else in the world you'd get absurd results all over the place.

[tsimionescu]

Sure. But the point is still that this kind of cost increase would not result in cows becoming more profitable, by definition.