689. Here’s Why Your Hamburger Just Got So Pricey

An economist calls America’s beef industry a “miracle.” An antitrust scholar calls it “broken.” Maybe they’re both right?

• SOURCES:• Austin Frerick (austinfrerick.com), agriculture antitrust expert, fellow at Yale University, author of Barons: Money, Power, and the Corruption of America's Food Industry.
• Robert Hodgen (king-ranch.com/king-ranch-names-robert-hodgen-…), C.E.O. of King Ranch.
• Roger Horowitz (rogerhorowitz.com/about-roger.html), food historian, director of the Center for the History of Business, Technology, and Society at the Hagley Museum and Library.
• Derrell Peel (experts.okstate.edu/derrell.peel), Charles Breedlove Professorship of Agribusiness in the department of agricultural economics at Oklahoma State University.

• RESOURCES:• "The hamburger story (beefmagazine.com/market-news/the-hamburger-story)," by Derrell Peel (Beef, 2026).
• "Trump is letting in 300,000 tons of beef duty-free. Don’t expect cheaper burgers, (cnn.com/2026/08/29/business/beef-imports-tarif…)" by Elisabeth Buchwald (CNN, 2026).
• "DOJ Probes Soaring Beef Prices at Eight Major Stores Including Walmart (newsweek.com/doj-probes-soaring-beef-prices-at…)," by Hugh Cameron (Newsweek, 2026).
• "Takeaways from the Pause on Foreign Corrupt Practices Act Enforcement (corpgov.law.harvard.edu/2025/02/24/takeaways-f…)," by Brendan Quigley, Bridget Moore, Kyle Clark, and Baker Botts (Harvard Law School, 2025).
• "Tyson and Leviathan: USDA Rulemaking and the PSA Harm to Competition Requirement (businesslawreview.uchicago.edu/print-archive/t…)," by Spencer James Parts (University of Chicago Business Review, 2022).
• "Average Price: All Uncooked Ground Beef (Cost per Pound/453.6 Grams) in U.S. City Average (fred.stlouisfed.org/series/APU0000FC1101)," (Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis).

• EXTRAS:• "An Economics Lesson from a Talking Pencil (Update) (freakonomics.com/podcast/an-economics-lesson-f…)," by Freakonomics Radio (2025).
• "The Future of Meat (freakonomics.com/podcast/the-future-of-meat)," by Freakonomics Radio (2019).

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