Why Are Food Prices Rising So Fast?

article from: The Economic Collapse Blog

If you do much grocery shopping, you have probably noticed that the cost of food has been rising at a very brisk pace over the past year.  So why are food prices rising so fast?  According to Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke, inflation is still very low and the economy is improving.  So what is going on here?  When I go to the grocery store these days, there are very few things that I will buy unless they are on sale.  In fact, I have noticed that many of the new "sale prices" are the old regular prices.  Other items have had their packages reduced in size in order to hide the price increases.  But with millions of American families just barely scraping by as it is, what is going to happen if food prices keep rising this rapidly?
The food prices are especially painful if you are trying to eat healthy.  Most of the low price stuff in the grocery stores is garbage.  Eating the "typical American diet" is a highway to cancer, heart disease and diabetes.

Bernanke to Invent New Term for Printing Money

When the U.S. Bureau of Labor and Statistics (BLS) reported their latest consumer price index (CPI) inflation data last week, everybody in the mainstream media worked tirelessly to spin the data in order to proclaim that U.S. price inflation is not a problem. Most articles in the media reported that inflation slowed in May due to falling gas prices. The truth is, gas prices rose last month and U.S. price inflation is spiraling out of control.

Restaurants Lift Prices as Inflation Hawks See Fed Behind Curve

By Anna-Louise Jackson and Anthony Feld


(Bloomberg) Dining out will cost more this year as U.S. restaurants take advantage of the nearly two-year long expansion to boost prices on food and drinks.

Higher-priced menus reflect growing confidence by eateries that consumers can afford to pay more to eat out. Restaurants are emboldened in part by the success of U.S. airlines, which have raised fares almost 10 percent since a year ago, according to Dean Maki chief U.S. economist at Barclays Capital in New York.

Smithfield CEO: Higher Food Prices Are Here to Stay

from Phoenix Capital Research

Here’s a zinger of a news story that most commentators haven’t bothered to take note of…

The CEO of Smithfield Farms, the largest pork producer in the US. Among other things he said:

“Maybe to someone in the upper incomes it doesn’t matter what the price of a pound of bacon is, or what the price of a ham, or the price of a pound of pork chops is,” he says. “But for many of the customers we sell to, it really does matter.” Workers can share cars when the price of oil rises, he quips, but “you can’t share your food.”

How Goldman Sachs Created the Food Crisis

by: Frederick Kaufman


Don't blame American appetites, rising oil prices, or genetically modified crops for rising food prices. Wall Street's at fault for the spiraling cost of food.


Demand and supply certainly matter. But there's another reason why food across the world has become so expensive: Wall Street greed.


It took the brilliant minds of Goldman Sachs to realize the simple truth that nothing is more valuable than our daily bread. And where there's value, there's money to be made. In 1991, Goldman bankers, led by their prescient president Gary Cohn, came up with a new kind of investment product, a derivative that tracked 24 raw materials, from precious metals and energy to coffee, cocoa, cattle, corn, hogs, soy, and wheat. They weighted the investment value of each element, blended and commingled the parts into sums, then reduced what had been a complicated collection of real things into a mathematical formula that could be expressed as a single manifestation, to be known henceforth as the Goldman Sachs Commodity Index (GSCI).

Food and Energy Inflation is Not Transitory

Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernake on Wensday held his first press conference in history. The press conference took place shortly after the Fed announced its decision to leave the Fed Funds Rate at a record low of 0% to 0.25%, where it has been for an unprecedented 28 months. The U.S. economy is flooded with U.S. dollars and is close to overdosing on excess liquidity. The fact that our financial markets are not falling on the possibility of the Fed not unleashing QE3 immediately at the end of QE2, shows that we could be on the verge of hyperinflation with or without QE3.

Don't Like a Weak Dollar? Might as Well Get Used to It

It only seems like yesterday that you were a tin foil hat wearing nut job if you dared speak of the day when the US dollar would collapse. Well my friends, those days are long gone, for I give you the following article courtesy of CNBC. It's nice to see them finally discussing the death of the dollar, it's just sad that it took them so long to show up to the party.

Even Ben Stein Is Warning That An Economic Collapse Is Coming

He sure has come a long way since "Ferris Bueller's Day Off".  During a recent television segment for CBS, Ben Stein declared that "the tea leaves are ominous" and he warned that an economic collapse may be coming.  In particular, Ben Stein is deeply concerned about inflation.  During his recent appearance on CBS, Stein proclaimed that the Federal Reserve is "just shoving money out the door as fast as it can" and that this could have horrific consequences for the U.S. financial system.  Sadly, Ben Stein is exactly right on this point.  The Federal Reserve has already injected enough money into the financial system to create an inflationary disaster.  Fortunately most of this liquidity is still being held by the banks (this will be further explored below), but once all of that money starts getting released into the financial system it is going to unleash economic chaos.

20 Signs That A Horrific Global Food Crisis Is Coming

In case you haven't noticed, the world is on the verge of a horrific global food crisis.  At some point, this crisis will affect you and your family.  It may not be today, and it may not be tomorrow, but it is going to happen.  Crazy weather and horrifying natural disasters have played havoc with agricultural production in many areas of the globe over the past couple of years.  Meanwhile, the price of oil has begun to skyrocket.  The entire global economy is predicated on the ability to use massive amounts of inexpensive oil to cheaply produce food and other goods and transport them over vast distances.  Without cheap oil the whole game changes.  Topsoil is being depleted at a staggering rate and key aquifers all over the world are being drained at an alarming pace.  Global food prices are already at an all-time high and they continue to move up aggressively.  So what is going to happen to our world when hundreds of millions more people cannot afford to feed themselves?

Amid Global Meltdowns, What Is The Half Life Of The U.S. Government's Fiscal Solvency?

article by: Mike Adams  NaturalNews.com
               
Thanks to the recent (and laughable) "largest annual spending cut in history" announced by Obama and Boehner, it is now abundantly evident that the U.S. government is headed toward a complete economic meltdown that will make Fukushima look chilly by comparison. While cesium-137 may have a half-life of 30 years, and iodine-131 a half-life of 8 days, if the U.S. government continues on its current path of spending trillions of dollars it doesn't have, the half-life of the value of a dollar may soon be measured in hours.

Inflation Actually Near 10% Using Older Measure

 

article by: John Melloy

After former Federal Reserve Chairman Paul Volcker was appointed in 1979, the consumer price index surged into the double digits, causing the now revered Fed Chief to double the benchmark interest rate in order to break the back of inflation. Using the methodology in place at that time puts the CPI back near those levels.

$5 Gas By Summer? Prices Near $4 a Gallon As Frugal Americans Cut Back At The Pump (and some even start stockpiling food)!

Wall Street may be back to awarding $20million pay packages - but rising prices are shaking the confidence of many American consumers.

Average U.S. pump prices have jumped more than 19 cents since mid-March, to $3.765, which is less than 10 per cent below the all-time high.

Average station prices have already passed $4 in Chicago and several Western cities.

Money Problems That Never Seem To End: 25 Reasons To Be Absolutely Disgusted With The U.S. Economy

It seems like wherever you turn there is bad news for the U.S. economy.  Unemployment is rampant, the cost of gasoline is going up, the cost of food is going up and American families are getting poorer.  Millions of jobs continue to leave the country and everyone is wondering why it seems like the "American Dream" is dying.  American consumers are absolutely swamped with staggering levels of credit card debt, student loan debt and mortgage debt and each year the consumer debt crisis only seems to get worse.  For millions of American families the money problems never seem to end.  Meanwhile, our politicians are doing next to nothing to fix our horrific national debt problem.  So yes, there are a whole lot of reasons to be absolutely disgusted with the U.S. economy.  We are living in the greatest debt bubble in the history of the world, and anyone with half a brain can see that we are heading for complete and total disaster.

The Federal Reserve Must Implement QE3

April 6, 2011

Gold prices surged today to a new all time high of $1,463.70 per ounce, while silver prices soared to a new 31-year high of $39.785 per ounce. Silver is now up 129% since NIA declared silver the best investment for the next decade on December 11th, 2009, at $17.40 per ounce. The gold/silver ratio is now down to 37, compared to a gold/silver ratio of 66 when NIA declared silver the best investment for the next decade. This means that not only is silver up 129% in terms of dollars since December 11th, 2009, but silver has also increased in purchasing power by 1.78X in terms of gold.

Feeling Depressed? 27 Depressing Statistics About The U.S. Economy That Will Make You Feel Even Worse

If you know someone that believes that the U.S. economy is in great shape, just show that person the following statistics.  But please don't show these statistics to anyone that is feeling depressed or that has just lost a job - it might push such a person over the edge.

Innovations For Feeding The (Rich) World

article by: Arieh O'Sullivan

Farm technology is driven by lucrative markets, not by hunger

The wave of demonstrations rippling across the Middle East has been partly driven by escalating food prices.

Millions live on the edge of poverty and just seeing what happened in Egypt and Tunisia shows how those on the brink can get motivate in a hurry to demand change. In Cairo they shouted, “Bread, Liberty and Dignity.”

Wal-Mart Says “Serious” Inflation Is Coming

Thank you Ben Bernanke for all the money printing.  Thanks to a massive injection of cash into the financial system by the Federal Reserve and other central banks, the price of almost every major commodity has skyrocketed over the past six months.  Now those price increases are starting to filter down to the retail level.

Wal-Mart CEO Warns Of Serious Inflation In The Coming Monthes

U.S. consumers face "serious" inflation in the months ahead for clothing, food and other products, the head of Wal-Mart's U.S. operations warned Wednesday.

The world's largest retailer is working with suppliers to minimize the effect of cost increases and believes its low-cost business model will position it better than its competitors.

Still, inflation is "going to be serious," Wal-Mart U.S. CEO Bill Simon said during a meeting with USA TODAY's editorial board. "We're seeing cost increases starting to come through at a pretty rapid rate."

9 Ways to Prepare for Food Inflation

article from frugaldad.com

If you’ve been to the grocery store lately, you’ve no doubt discovered that the price of most foods has increased significantly. There’s plenty of blame to go around: increased commodity prices due to increased demand, increased oil prices, devaluation of our dollar, and on and on.

Whatever the reason, increased food prices are putting a major dent in our household budget. Since we can’t do much about the prices, we have to look for other ways to reduce (or at least keep even) our overall food expense.

Wholesale Prices Up 1.6 pct. On Steep Rise In Food

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Wholesale prices jumped last month by the most in nearly two years due to higher energy costs and the steepest rise in food prices in 36 years. Excluding those volatile categories, inflation was tame.

The Labor Department said Wednesday that the Producer Price Index rose a seasonally adjusted 1.6 percent in February -- double the 0.8 percent rise in the previous month. Outside of food and energy costs, the core index ticked up 0.2 percent, less than January's 0.5 percent rise.