[lbo-talk] Reality check, please

[Doug Henwood]

There are some real food price pressures out there - growing demand  
from "Chindia," not only in quantity but quality, combined with some  
serious yield problems that are at least in some part the result of  
climate change. Wall Street's habit of looking at core inflation -  
i.e., with food and energy stripped out - overlooks where the real  
price pressures are. Since there are no wage pressures, it's not  
surprising to see pretty tame core inflation.

On Dec 21, 2007, at 12:25 PM, 123hop at comcast.net wrote:


>
> And the price has tripled because
>
> --the dollar is sinking
> --fertilizer is oil based which has doubled
> --???
>
> Joanna
> -------------- Original message --------------
> From: "Alan E. DeBakey" <a.debakey at yahoo.com>
>
>> Nothing special folks, just this little crumb from the hinterlands  
>> out here:
>> We went to the feed store yesterday - wheat a year ago was $7 for
>> a 50 lb bag, then up to $9.50 recently, then $12.50 a month ago, now
>> $19.50. My friend in the pig industry regularily sends me stuff about
>> how the pork, chicken, beaf industries are worried as they don't  
>> think
>> they will be able to pass on all their increases in costs to  
>> consumers
>> who will stop buying meat if it gets too high. Alan