Why food bills are heading higher

wordfrominside,

Good job. You just described...weather. Now, what shall we do about it? Starve ourselves, live in abject poverty, and travel by foot in order to save some mice? Because we're certainly not going to change our climate. It's quite arrogant to think that we could.

But let me ask you this:

If we've been having some of the worst weather in a century, doesn't that mean that this kind of weather happened a century ago? Ponder the implications of that for a while and get back to me.

Rational Liberty

I am going to let you in on something that people who live big urban centers don't really notice: changes in the seasons.

I have lived in my current location for 20 years. What I have noticed is that spring comes TWO MONTHS earlier than it use to (in one year, it arrived in FEBRUARY). I also noticed that it's almost Thanksgiving and winter has NOT arrived yet; it's about a month late. During the past few summers, we had some really odd weather: one year, we had these terrible storms unlike anything I have seen in 20 years  (think Category 1 hurricane winds in the middle of a thunderstorm - the rain was sideways). The following year, we had this deep freeze in the middle of spring.

Climate change is real if you bother to notice. I have been keeping track of extreme events around the world going back to 1995 and they have become more common. The fact that we had this really long period without a single big hurricane hitting N America alone is outside the norm. The changes come from all over the place and they show up in different ways: how about central Texas and Atlanta having one of the longest droughts they have had in over a century. How about record floods in the MidWest during the 1990s (remember those?). Or the record heat weave that killed thousands in Europe several years ago? Russia (!) just had one of the biggest heat waves it ever had this past year (90 something in MOSCOW).

I think most people are barely aware of what's going around them (let alone what's happening worldwide).

So, the lesson to be learned is this:

1. We can prevent a massive increase in corn prices if we stop using food as fuel. That shouldn't be hard to do considering there are vast oil,natural gas, and coal reserves that can provide plenty of fuel - in addition to nuclear, hydroelectric, and even the not-so-viable energies like wind and solar. How stupid have we become that we would rather raise our food prices instead of lower our energy prices?

2. Devaluing our dollar in order to "prevent deflation" or artificially prop up the economy (which never works) only makes commodity prices rise - because our money is worth less. Yeah - it's pretty stupid that I have to point out something so remedial, but that just goes to show you how blatantly incompetent our government and economic "scholars" are today.

3. Anthropogenic global warming hypotheses are a joke. (And I'm still waiting for all of those massive hurricanes we were supposed to be seeing since Katrina over five years ago. They never happened...go figure.)

So, what can we do to help relieve the inflationary pressures on our currency and food prices? Anyone who can tell me will win a prize. And if they can convince the government to implement that plan, they may just win back their own prosperous future.

Haruka8500

Here's the irony: the taxes collected by all levels of government is lower and the deficits are higher because there is lower domestic demand and no hiring reducing economic activity (most corporate profit reports show that their profit growth is mostly international). So pick your poison: cut your margins and hire someone so that there is more payroll and consumer spending recovers or you have to pay the taxes to support those who cannot find a job and support themselves.

Just remember where all of the money went: into real estate (trillions of dollars of homes, condos, office complexes and strip malls that now sit empty and rotting away) and into the pay and bonuses of the financiers (now sitting in overseas tax havens and megamansions) instead of into the things the nation really needed: fixing the schools, providing an affordable college education, repairing our inadequate and aging roads, bridges, airports, sewers, water systems and power grids. Since we have been in this pit, the very people who were in the center of this mess still have not paid back their share of the costs associated with that bubble because it sits out of reach of American authorities.

I am not rationing anything until we get our money back from these people. I don't think we should have to suffer for bad decisions that I personally was not involved in making or abetting.

 Time for us to face the realites...

I run a small farm on the side and will tell you that the small farmer has had it rough. It has been tough for so long that many growers just gave up. This has led to under production and higher prices. The world has a smaller food supply and a larger population each day. The farmer will get his due soon.  

Those of us who buy mass quantities of food commodities for processing have a saying.

"Nothing lowers high prices like high prices"

In the short term farmers always over plant when prices are high thereby reducing prices after the next harvest.

This is usual nonsense. Prices are *DOWN* from 2008 for all commodities. Wheat, Corn, etc are no where near their 2008 peaks.

Yet prices are going higher than they were in 2008? Typical. Costs drop for inputs massively, they maintain the same prices, costs rise later, they increase prices.