Lobster is cheaper than beef

I just got off the phone with my parents who live in coastal Maine. And what’s the news from home? Well, at my father’s monthly Oddfellows meeting they decided to serve Lobster because it was cheaper than beef for the usual hamburgers. In town, lobster is being sold for $2 per pound! Once tourist season is over, most of the lobstermen sell their catch to Canadian processors, but a snag in the international credit market has snapped the lines of credit to processors who relied on Icelandic banks that have collapsed in the financial crisis. So, without a local market for their goods, lobstermen are coming up short. This is especially daunting for Maine’s lobstermen because the cost of everything else- bait, rope, and diesel fuel for the boat, heating and food cost for the house and kids- is up. It is so fascinating how interconnected and wacky everything has become with the food and financial crises.