REMINDER: Egg prices went up because of mass die-offs of laying hens infected with Avian Flu.

[eppur_se_muova]

6. Blame the virus, and concentration of production in the hands of corp-owned farms.

Large commercial “in-line” farms containing 50,000 to 6 million laying hens produce over 85% of table eggs in the United States. The average number of chicken houses in a large, integrated egg production complex is 10 and a complex may consist of 15 or more houses. Each house contains 50,000 to 350,000 laying hens.

https://www.thepoultrysite.com/articles/laying-hen-numbers-and-location

A virus landing in such a facility is like a lit match on tinder-dry scrub. Eggs from infected hens can't be sold safely, so the only practical recourse for egg farms is to kill all their laying hens as soon as the first infection is found. It takes months to raise enough hens to replace them, with a big interruption in production resulting. Perhaps things could be done differently, but until the blessed free market rules otherwise, they won't be.

GOPers want to further deregulate all industries, leading to more catastrophic production failures, not fewer.