Food Prices Poised To Rise

DailyFinance:

If there's any silver lining to a recession -- albeit a thin one -- it's that consumer prices typically go down. Make no mistake, deflation is a sign of a sick economy, but at least the net effect of cheaper prices for the basic necessities -- food, clothing and shelter -- helps folks get by when they are struggling to make ends meet.

Read the whole story: DailyFinance

Comments

[brady61995]

all the additives and crap they put in the food cost more to make, the farmers are disapearing as well as the illegal workers that pick our fruit and vegtables are less availible. so there is nothing suprising about this.

[Stock market]

More work needs to be done to ensure equality in America so we can all life the American dream, instead of wall street

hat tip to: http://tiny.cc/financenews

[anticapitalist1983]

put up a poster in your neighborhood to show your displeasure with the financial crisis: http://www.scribd.com/doc/21140663/wallst

"wall street is at war with america"
it's time to stand up and say enough!

life should not be for sale. hunger in the midst of billionaires makes this system a farce.

[Heraklia]

"Poised" to rise? Food prices have been going up for at least a year. Manufacturers have been shrinking the packages while keeping the prices the same. You get less food in the package for your money -- that amounts to a price increase. Seen a can of tuna or a container of yogurt lately? They're diminutive.

What is the point in telling consumers that the way to cope with rising food prices is to "keep an eye on oil prices"? We can watch oil prices all day long, but we have no power to change them.

[jsgaetano]

"Poised To"? Food prices have been steadily skyrocketting since 2000.

The funny thing is, the increases were as deceptive as a Gooper. Instead of techincally raising the price, they put things in smaller containers, or otherwise masked the price increase.

Gotta make that Bush Boom look good no matter how nonexistant it was!

[ejhickey]

Food prices are not going to rise. This headline is just a scare tactic to make people think inflation is coming. Inflation is not coming . We are still facing deflation, including falling home prices and foreclosures and rising unemployment. If less people are working , how can food prices go up. there is less demand. We need more stimulus and spending.

[MeinNH]

I don't know what planet you are on, but here on earth those prices have been rising all along. I guess if people aren't working, they and their kids don't need to eat? Deflation on one end does not mean inflation is not on the other.

[thnk4selfagain]

Less inclined to believe it's China and India causing food prices to rise significantly in a time of deflation. This is the excuse given for *speculati­on.* The dynamic of commodities speculation (derivatives) that contributed to historic highs in gas prices in 2007 is still at work. And your trusty Reps in the House (including Barney Frank) want to make sure the good times keep rolling and the American consumer keeps getting riped off in deflationary Recession by refusing to reform derivatives.

[ResearchtheFacts]

When will people learn you have to fight for everything these days even the right to keep your own money in your pockets.

You are paying more for everything, utilities, banking priviledges, credit cards, mortgages, health care, insurance, taxes and hey why not food? What is left?

If you are not fighting against it, then they think you must agree with it. So it happens.

[olephart]

While Wall Street banks aren’t loaning money to main street they are loaning it to speculators who play in their casinos. All of this money has to go somewhere and since it’s hard to make money by productive means then the easier path is through speculation. This is even the preferred path because the tax laws allow gains made by speculating through a hedge fund to be taxed at 15% while making money the old fashioned way costs 35%.

But it’s not to worry. No matter how high food and energy prices are driven up by rampant unregulated speculation they aren’t counted by the Government in its “core inflation” report. So there won’t be any need for cost of living adjustments!

“Corn-based ethanol and soy-based biodiesel also has the effect of making these foodstuffs trade like energy.”

Here it is again! The “it’s someone else’s fault” bull stuff they brought out last year to cover their speculating arses. Corn, oil and everything was sky high until the speculative bubble popped. Corn fell by 70%. Did we eat less or use less ethanol, no it was just billions of dollars coming out of the paper bubble of unregulated commodities speculation. Speculators can own more on paper than actually exists and they raise the price by simply selling it back and forth to one another in the Wall Street casinos we bailed out.

[Doug Flight]

Speculators $uck the life out of everything. f.u.ckk.r's"

[Stock market]

I haven't seen anything being done. Where's the infrastructure projects,the green energy, the needed repairs,the projects to bring us into the 21st century?

But the War continues with no bang for the buck and all while Congress natters away endlessly.

hat tip to: http://bit.ly/1NkbAn

A person making 60,000 pays 20,000 of it in various taxes. A person making a million or more has a tax rate of 30% compared to 90% decades ago.

[loki]

what do you mean "poised to rise"? they have been for some time now. It cost about one third more to buy the same things as I did less than a year ago, and the item content is smaller too!

[VPN]

That just BS, someone is hosing consumers again, when the price of fuel was higher, understandably the price of food rose, when the cost of fuel dropped back down, food prices did NOT follow. What justifies this claimed rise in cost?

[apolloguide]

>>"What justifies this claimed rise in cost?"

The requirement that prices be jacked up to maintain stock holder investment profit which is the mantra at each and every annual meeting of investors. Inflation does not have to be going up or down but if there is any prediction that it will go up in the endless future (and there is always such a projection), then the companies raise prices to maintain investor profit margins. It has always been that way and always will be that way.

[ScreenName05]

Prices rise because people will pay those prices. When and if they refuse to buy at that price the vendor will lower the price, this happens especially fast when dealing with perishables like bread, eggs, meat and produce. If you want to help bring prices down - then shop intelligently, buy smaller quantities that you will consume completely in the next week (Americans throw away 50% of what they buy to eat), buy cheaper cuts (a triptip roast runs about $3.90 a lb. while a loin runs $10 and up per lb.), eat at home, stop eating worthless calories and plan what you eat (this is the old lecture about eating meats and produce and avoiding bread and dairy products (ice cream and pizza)), eat as a group it is far easier to plan and prepare a good meal on the cheap for 2 or more then it is for a single person, try preparing soups and stews with a lot of vegetables - this extends meat products and you can use the cheapest cuts. Pretty soon your pocket book will feel better and your waste line will definitely feel better. And oh yes, if everyone did this prices would drop.

[apolloguide]

Budweiser 6 pack right after the 2008 election in Berkeley = $5.59
Budweiser 6 pack now (10-15-2009) = $7.75. (Same store)

Sierra Nevada Pale Ale $6.99 after the election 2008; now $8.95 (same place, new price)

These rises are consistent across all brands.

Things which sell for 3.99 now are priced 4.99 (vegi-burgers)

Don't come west if you want to afford to eat.

[sonoffestus]

Don't complain about beer prices. Here in Canada a local good brew will run you $27.00 for 15 cans, but then again my health insurance runs about $45.00 US per month.

It is a fair trade off, if you ask me.

[apolloguide]

I'll round up all the American beer to trade for your Canadian generic drugs. I can see the beginnings of a beautiful black market relationship.

(apologies to Claude and Humphrey)

[apolloguide]

Our beers here in Berkeley and San Fran run $2.99 for 24 oz Heineken up to $3.89 for a 24 oz local craft brew. All in bottles. Fosters 25 oz cans are$2.39 to $2.99. Labatts and Molson about the same price as Fosters. Miller has the consistent lowest price.

[sandiegoconservative]

How about you don't drink beer if cost is such an issue for you?

Last time I checked, you did not need beer to survive.

[apolloguide]

C'mon SON! you can't be serious.

I sooner have a democratic socialist or downright communist government than to stop drinking beer. Denmark has a great government and great plentiful beer that costs half of ours and they have a stable balance of payments and a steady currency.

You seem to be too lazy to consider fixing the system and instead want to pontificate against vice like a freshling young Republican. Was your mother a prohibitionist or did you learn this at Pepperdine?

[vooter]

Consumer prices in the United States have increased by 25% since 1999, 170% since 1980, and 450% since Nixon closed the gold window in 1971. And now we're supposed to be surprised by food prices rising again? LOL! Folks, inflation isn't some natural phenomenon, like atoms or gravity. Inflation is the intentional, de facto POLICY of the United States government. Print and spend as much fiat currency as they want, whenever they want, wherever they want, FOREVER--and then pass the cost onto the serfs through the backdoor tax of endless, chronic inflation.

[ScreenName05]

Don't really buy the premises of this article. Food prices are still declining, and the trend looks down, not up. Demand is declining, people without jobs do not buy steak and chicken, no matter what the price is. I suspect that what is really gong to happen is that Agri-business is going to lose a lot of money, but that will not cause prices to go up, it will cause more down sizing and more loss of jobs. This is the downward cycle we are currently enjoying, and there is no end in sight. To date there has been no change in the supply of food stocks, if anything they are up. As long as we are still losing jobs, demand will decline and prices are likely to decline with that demand as perishables linger on the shelves longer and longer.

[markm8128]

If you haven't read Thomas Friedman's book "The World is Flat"...yo­u should (or listen to his 32 CD set, the way I did.)

The fact is American's are being out-competed in every area of the economy...­.and its going to get worse...no­t better.

The price of food has nothing to do with American consumers.­..and everything to do with rapidly increasing standards of living all over the world. Check out the booming economies in Brazil and China if you want to know why the price of food is going up.

[ScreenName05]

I not only read his book, I understood it for the crap it is. The world is not flat - commodity prices do not go up and down based on remote demand - demand is almost always local - ask anyone in Rawanda what the prices of cattle are this week - it will not be reflective of the price of beef on the commodity markets. All Freidman was really aware of was the simple fact that speculators control commodity markets, that is what is flat, but when you go to the grocery store you get a choice - buy into the game or just say no. If enough people just say no - guess what the fictitious global market doesn't run in and bang you on the head. Instead prices start to fall. Every Safeway, World Foods, and Albertsons has to sell the meat and produce they have in the store this week - if they don't it goes bad and they take a total loss. They lower prices and they do it quickly - regardless of global prices - just like the folks at the farmers market who run to the Safeway to dump all the produce they couldn't sell for pennies on the dollar. As far as Freidman's analysis - food has a shipping component that proves his analysis wrong. If I can buy meat produced locally, then the price is substantially more elastic because the shipping component is not there.