http://www.cnn.com/2008/WORLD/americas/04/14/world.food.crisis/index.html It's a good to know that things are under control. Fed has been doing a bang up job... look for more rate cuts.
Russian oil productions peaks: http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/282adfd4-0a4c-11dd-b5b1-0000779fd2ac.html What are food prices going to be when oil hits $150..$200.. and beyond?
Well since we don't count food or energy in our core inflation calculations I guess things really are fine. $200 oil and $20 for a gallon of milk still equals no inflation. We really need to panic if the price of stamps goes up since this is the only input in calculating inflation by the gov. Silly me.
It works like this: After US citizens pay for food and energy they have no money left for anything else. Consequently demand and therefore price for anything other than food or energy falls. Inflation (as computed by the Government) therefore falls as the price of energy and food goes up. It's pure genius!
I heard some guy on Bloomberg mention today that we are using 25% of our Corn crop on Ethanol. Ethanol is a joke and we need to abandon it. It never made sense energy wise because they never figured in the total costs of production. I am sure they never considered the effects on food prices so screw Ethanol. Ethanol was another bad idea by the Tree Hugger crowd. John
We can bitch and complain about ethnol, india, china, but the US did this to itself with its shitty currency policies.
You give the 'Tree Huggers' way too much credit. Ethanol from corn (which is a horrible idea) was loved and promoted by our Senators from Iowa and by our Brilliant President. Real Tree Huggers, like myself, know it makes no sense whatsoever. Now ethanol from sugar cane, that does make some sense from an energy balance standpoint, but from corn? Never. Best idea of all: Rum from sugar cane. Now THAT makes sense.
Oh they quite considered it... It's not the "tree hugger" crowd that advocated that stupid POS. It's the mid-west republican US senators. Red-Republican-grain-growing-states are the beneficiaryâs of whole the Ethanol debacle.