The Economic Realities of Bull Semen

A Snickers bar wrapper taught me a new word the other day:

Nougatocity (noun): A heightened yet fleeting state of accomplishment that makes you realize how unbelievably unmotivated you normally are.

And since I had just eaten a Snickers bar, I was in possession of enough peanut-packed power to find out why my candy bars were making up new words for "sugar rush." Unfortunately, by the time I discovered the rest of the marketing campaign, five minutes later, I had "sugar crashed." As such, I no longer had the resolve to find out what Snickers' other new made-up words, including satisfectellent and substantialicious, meant, although my guesses are "sugar rush" and "sugar rush," respectively.

By the time I reached nutritional equilibrium again, I had a new question. "Why is it," I asked myself, "that we can put a man on the moon, but we can't process and refine a candy bar that gives me all-day energy with no side effects?" Then I read one interview on the subject and called it a day, Snickers-hangover-style.

That interview was with Michael Pollan, author of The Omnivore's Dilemma. In it, he talks about some basic nutrition advice, like how you shouldn't eat anything bigger than your head. No! You shouldn't eat anything that doesn't rot. Yeah. And remember that the more that a foodstuff is processed or refined, the less nutrients and vitamins there are in it. Right. And what can be done with farm bills to even the playing field:

You need a farm bill that basically evens the playing field and is not driving down the price of high-fructose corn syrup, so that, you know, real fruit juice can compete with it. You need a farm bill that makes carrots competitive with Wonder Bread.

Pollan says a lot of things that are not crazy, which is good. But I do diverge from him on one point, which comes across as slightly crazy (even if it turns out to be true). Pollan says he will not personally eat cloned livestock because he doesn't know what it could do to you health-wise, which is fair. However, he also says that cloning champion bulls will devalue their semen. Again, even if that turns out to be true, it's a crazy thing to say, and I'm not sure what the problem would be if champion bull semen was cheaper and more plentiful?

On the other hand, if you own a lot of stock in champion bull semen, you might want to sell before prices plummet. Just remember the old saying, "The more bulls in market, the less bull the market," and your financial prospects will be fine. On Wall Street, this dynamic is known by some as the relative nougatocity of the market.