Cost of Bipartisanship: The continuing resolution signed into law by President Obama ensures there will be no government shutdown next week and is being hailed as a return to "bipartisanship." It is House and Senate Republicans showing that the two parties can work together and get the nation's work done. It is also a return to the old ways of getting work done, which means the taxpayers had to pay extra for the "cooperation." As Capitol Hill news organization Politico's David Rogers noted but did not elaborate, there was "a 63-36 vote in which 10 Republicans -- nine of them from the Senate Appropriations Committee --again provided pivotal support." It was not coincidence that 90 percent of the supporting Republicans came from the committ...
What You Need to Know Today: Cattle futures extended their sharp selloff Friday as weakening cash cattle prices, deteriorating feedlot profitability, and reduced packer demand continued to weigh on the market. The inability of futures to sustain a rally following last week's bullish Cattle on...
As predicted, the Federal Reserve held rates steady at the last meeting before the midterm elections, likely in part because of the election (see WPI 19 October and 22 September). The decision comes at the tail end of a midterm election cycle that has been marked by the two parties campaigning...
Key Takeaways: WPI’s new EU rapeseed crushing margin models point to weaker processing returns over the next four months due to higher rapeseed procurement costs and weaker product values. Statistical forecasts call for German crushing margins to decline from €181/MT to €...
From WPI Consulting
Communicating importance of value-added products
Facing increasing pressure to quantify the value of export promotion efforts to investors, a U.S. industry organization retained WPI to develop a quantitative model that better communicated the importance of exports. The resulting model concluded that value-added meat exports contributed $0.45 cents per bushel to the price of corn, increasing support for that sector’s financial support of WPI’s client. In addition to serving the red meat industry with this type of analysis, WPI has generated similar deliverables for the U.S. soybean and poultry/egg industries.