Meat prices

I am regularly disturbed by the prices at Albertson's, my local high-end grocery store. It's like Loblaws, for those Canadians out there (although Loblaws is higly superior). But usually I'm disturbed by the HIGH prices and overjoyed at the low ones. But $1.91 for a medium-sized NY strip steak? It weighed in at 0.4 of a pound, and at $4.77 a pound, it works out right. But it disturbs me to pay so little for a slab of well-marbled California Beef. It makes me wonder why beef costs so much more in Canada. What, exactly, are they doing in Cali to make the prices so low? I guess I don't want to know.....