by Marie Hawthorne

The average price of eggs is currently $4.25 per dozen, up from $1.79 a year ago. Now, this is a nationwide average. In my area, I have not found anything for less than $5.50 per dozen in over a month. Also, my store only carries medium eggs these days. I'm not sure when the last time was that I saw large or extra-large. 

(Fun fact: I have a good friend who has been in the egg industry for years, and before Covid, Americans either exported medium eggs to Asia or just threw them out. There was zero domestic demand. Now medium eggs seem to be all we can get.)

Unfortunately, there are a variety of problems facing egg producers at the moment.

The big talk has been bird flu. Nearly 60 million birds have either died from the flu or have been put down due to the most recent outbreaks. That puts a dent in production. 

Less widely discussed have been the damages to egg production facilities, but they've occurred, too. Just this past Saturday, January 28, a fire occurred at an egg facility in Connecticut, killing over 100,000 birds. No causes for the fire have been given yet. 

The OP reported on the food facility fires back in April, but mainstream media keeps insisting that there's nothing to see here. 

I don’t know enough about average industrial facility fire rates to make a bulletproof argument regarding whether or not these fires have been intentional. However, even if they are just a series of accidents, this series of accidents could be seen as evidence of the increasing Thirdworldization of the U.S.

Fabian described Thirdworldization as a slow-burning SHTF event, where things just gradually get worse and worse. Quality and availability go down; prices and crime go up; quality of life gradually erodes. Decreasing workplace safety would go along with this. For decades, the American workplace has been getting cleaner and safer. The string of fires, if nothing else, gives evidence that that’s no longer the case. Some of the fires in 2022 occurred in plants known to have sloppy safety protocols.