David R. Russell is a retired teacher in Ames. He can be reached at russellisu@gmail.com. This essay first appeared on his Substack newsletter, The Front Burner and the Back.

Iowa is the largest egg producer in the country. And one of the biggest alleged egg price fixers. While the egg producers and the press were blaming inflation and bird flu for huge price hikes, the three big producers were allegedly stealing from consumers big time. Jacking up the price of eggs.

Because the egg industry is highly consolidated, it was easy for the executives of the biggest three companies to allegedly collude on prices. And they did, from 2022 to 2025. Big time. The price tripled in a little over a year, from $2 to $6 a dozen.

Versova of Sioux Center was one the three large egg producers who settled a price fixing lawsuit from the U.S. Department of Justice and state attorneys general in an Iowa court in July, without having to admit guilt (thus the repetitive “allegedly” in this essay). The three also had to pay penalties amounting to one dollar for every thousand dollars they allegedly stole. You read that right.

The conservative estimate I found was three billion dollars that consumers paid in excess of what they would have without the alleged price fixing by the egg produces. Let me spell that out: $3,000,000,000 is what they allegedly overcharged us.

So what was their penalty for the $3 billion alleged con? The companies had to pay a fine and give a bunch of eggs to needy people. The fine plus the eggs amounted to (sit down before you read this) three million dollars. Let me spell that out: they had to pay $3,000,000 after cheating us out of $3,000,000,000. The fine was one one-thousandth of what they allegedly stole. Or (for those who prefer numbers) 1/1000.

From their point of view, that must seem like a damned good deal. Give up $3 mil to get $3 bil. They must be laughing at us consumers all the way to the bank. The settlement was so small, in fact, that industry analysts predict it will lead to more price fixing. Crime apparently pays.

This is shameful in so many ways. I’ll mention three (one for each billion they allegedly stole).

1. Besides the laughably small fine, Trump’s Justice Department didn’t even take them to trial, so we could see the CEOs on the stand answering for their alleged crimes. The DOJ found emails from the corporate executives plotting to drive up prices—and joking about how they were getting away with it. The day the DOJ announced its investigation, egg prices plunged, from their peak of over $6 a dozen to under $3.

2. Between 2022 and 2025, egg producers got a billion dollars in bird flu bailouts from us taxpayers. Talk about adding insult to injury!

3. And worst of all, the height of the heist was 2024—the presidential campaign. You recall how Trump attacked Democrats for high prices, especially the price of eggs? Egg prices might well have been a factor in Kamala Harris’s defeat. If so, the alleged egg thieves’ heist helped elect an administration that later went oh so easy on them.

A bonus shame: the lack of media coverage of the alleged theft. Most news outlets went on and on for literally years about high egg prices. Story after story after story. And after the DOJ caught the alleged thieves red-handed? One story. Maybe. In the business section.

Most people probably don’t know they may have been robbed. And of course that makes it that much likelier that companies will steal again—eggs or beef or whatever looks suspiciously expensive—especially if it’s a product where there’s little competition.

The only way to stop this is to enforce the law. The anti-trust law. And hand out real penalties. That started to happen during the Biden administration, when it hadn’t happened for decades, under both Republicans and Democrats. But it can happen again. If we elect politicians who will respect the law, and stop the richest from stealing from the rest of us.

And it wouldn’t hurt to have media that hold the wealthy and the powerful to account. On page one. More than one time.