by John Mattingly After my last month’s column that took a somewhat sanguine look at the cow-calf end of the beef business, suggesting that cow-calf ranchers are basically keeping large pets, I trust readers will have sold the 100 virtual cows I gifted them for exactly what they paid for them. Not because they didn’t love the adorable beasts and their cute calves, but because they realized that to be financially rational, they couldn’t start from scratch. No, they needed to inherit the ranch, the cows, the machinery to make hay, and cheap government grazing permits. This need for outside ...
