According to the American Farm Bureau Federation, Retail Food Prices Up 4 Percent In Second Quarter.
On a year over year basis, the overall cost for their market basket of items showed an increase of ~8%.
Source:
Retail Food Prices Up 4 Percent In Second Quarter
American Farm Bureau Federation, July 12, 2007
http://www.fb.org/index.php?fuseaction=newsroom.newsfocus&year=2007&file=nr0712.html
And the best part will be hearing the Professor explain how inflation is contained, housing is in an ‘adjustment’, how the Fed champions price stability, and why the Fed bears no responsibility for the subprime mortgage debacle.
What we won’t hear (of course) is the tale of competitive devaluation/currency debasement and how the Fed picks our pockets…but slowly.
Got a few interesting charts and graphs up today…
I find it interesting that Mexico is now demanding that oil export payments be made in Cheese Whiz rather than dollars.
It would seem everyone knows but Big Ben and his “core” and expectations. Ben, I EXPECT food prices to go up. The president of Nestle’s, a food company, is telling me so. And gas will never be $.18 a gallon in my lifetime again.
“LONDON: Food prices around the world are set for a “significant and long-lasting” period of inflation because of a variety of factors, including demand from China and India, Nestle’s chairman said in an interview published on Friday.
The use of crops for biofuels and general population growth would also continue pushing food prices higher, Peter Brabeck told the Financial Times while on a trip to China. “They will have a long-lasting impact on food prices,” Brabeck told the business daily, referring to long-term and structural factors affecting prices.”
Rutters
July 14, 2007
New York, New York
In an effort to help stem the rising costs of food, Campbell’s Soup today introduced its latest product innovation: “Cup ‘O Nuthin'”, a savory blend of nothin’ and hot water.
Campbell’s spokesman, C.A. Chexia, explained, “It’s really designed for the family on the go. Just pour a pouch of “nuthin” into a cup, add water, pop it into the microwave for a minute, and that’s all there is to it.
On the business side, our unit production cost is minimal, allowing the product to be sold at a fraction of the cost of our other food lines, which will help offset the rise in food costs to the consumers while maintaining the integrity of our profit margins for our shareholders. It is a win-win situation.”
In a rare comment, the FDA added a press release with their approval: “The expectation of nutritional value is the driving force behind CNV (Core Nutirional Value), and the geometric weighting of the brand name more than offsets any liabilities inherent in the product.”
I can verify this…
The cost of a full slab of ribs at my favorite place has gone from $16.99 to $21.25 in a little over a year.
“The use of crops for biofuels…”
Every independent (that is the keyword) expert will tell you that corn is NOT energy-efficient as a source for ethanol. Cane sugar is much more suited for that purpose. But what is efficient and well suited for a specific purpose can be less than ideal for certain interest groups in wants of lining their pockets above all else.
That is why Congress and the farmers’ lobbies have made sure that non-US cane (Brazil being the largest producer in the world) get a import tariff that makes it unafordable as a source for biofuel. Add this to the very generous subsidies and tax breaks granted by senators who can’t fathom anymore the concept of the common good, and there we have it; food inflation, misallocation of resources, shafting of the low and lower-middle classes. The use of corn for biofuel ought to be classified as one of the biggest politically-engineered swindles of this decade.
In the meantime, the politicos, swindlers and shills aligned with this Administration of vicariously involved in their ideological cloud look at the increasing discontent of the people, contrast that with how well and swell they’ve had it for the last half-decade and just can’t grasp what the hell is going on.
Hence, comments like:”But, this is a remarkable economic recovery from 9/11. How come the President doesn’t get any credit for it?” (Can you spell DUH!) or “The rise in incomes (pray tell for whom?) combined with a low inflation (the author doesn’t read the BP blog that’s for sure) and the remarkable performance of the stock market (who profit from that rise? everyone?)is proof positive that the policies of this Administration are sound and ensure the continuing prosperity of the American people.”
Enough said!
Francois
4% in one quarter = 16% annualized.
wow.
in his speech, ben seemed more concerned with inflation expectations than the core rate.
if that’s true, eventually he’ll wake up out of his dreamworld once the public goes nuts about food and gas prices…
but that will take years; and by then it’ll be too late…
As I pointed out before, 1 gallon of milk was 2.89 at the start of the year, 3.69 now, in a particular store.
But then, walking over to that store for a milk will still cost me less in money and time than driving out to the closest store where the milk is still 2.99, or it was 1-2 weeks ago I should say.
I think they forgot to hedonically adjust that gallon of milk. Clearly a gallon of milk today tastes better than a gallon of milk from last year.
I can’t believe you people haven’t taken that into account. I’m sure Ben has.
Ag inflation leads me to think that what happened with manufacturing- offshoring to maintain lower retail prices- will be attempted with food.
The problem with this is that many people have a strong preference for buying food grown locally, produced under modern and clean conditions.
Our system of food production is one of our strengths and I do not want that to fall because of some stealth policy to hide inflation by offshoring those areas where inflation pressure appears.
“Ag inflation leads me to think that what happened with manufacturing- offshoring to maintain lower retail prices- will be attempted with food.”
it’s already happening.china is flooding our country with sub standard fish and chicken.it is shipped here in bulk/frozen and re-packaged to “look” american.some of this shows up in fast food.either way it does’nt come close to fda standards.i believe it’s still required to let the consumer know it’s origin ( label)but you have to look close.it’s a crying shame we can’t even raise our own food anymore
“…a new joint report by the U.N. and OECD forecasts that, over the next ten years, food prices will rise between 20-50% more than they usually do….”
food is overrated anyway….
It’s that infinite substitution factor that the BLS uses to justify using a geometric mean vs arithmetic mean for calculating inflation that keeps those inflation numbers nice and tame. The reasoning is, when milk gets expensive, we’ll substitute…we’ll substitute it with diluted milk. When diluted milk gets expensive, we’ll substitute it with dilute paint primer. And so on.
Nothing positive will come from this corn to fuel process. What could we possibly gain from an inefficient process for turning food into a corrosive fuel for the goal of powering an inefficient transportation system? We’re starting to see the effect of this brilliant strategy on our economy.
Telecommuting would save oodles of energy. But, “I-don’t-know-how-to-measure-productivity, so-I’ll-measure-facetime” managers don’t go for it.
They won’t until they’re forced to. Maybe this needs to be legislated: wasteful corporate managers need nanny government to prod them along.
Addendum to my post above, the milk I reported at 2.99 1-2 weeks ago was 3.49 today. That was in Trader Joe’s BTW. I was already wondering why they were maintaining such a large discount versus all the other local dealers.
Experts to “We Feel Fine” to Cats
Feuilletons ~~~~~~~~~~ ‘I’m an Expert. You Can Be One, Too. By ALAN CONTRERAS I am an expert. Everyone tells me so. They tell me that I am an expert on diploma mills and degree fraud because I have been working