Commodities have skyrocketed over the last year!

I was just checking out some charts on cnn.com in the money section. If you go to the markets section you will be able to see monthly and yearly charts on the most common commodities. Needless to say, it is shocking to see how much cotton, wheat, corn, and coffee, to name a few have increased. And we thought oil was bad....money.cnn.com...


Wheat up 65%
Corn up 78%
Cotton up 130%!
Soybeans up 49%
Coffee up 72%
Light Crude up 20%
Hogs and cattle up 18-30%
Precious Metals up 20-30%

Now for some more interesting numbers:
Natural gas down 17% (not that shocking, we supposedly have a lot of this)
Cocoa down 5% (wasn't there some scare this year that there was a shortage of cocoa?, hmmm)

The big deal here is the food staples. I don't think we have even begun to feel the price increases for these products. And what happened in the last 6 months to skyrocket all these up? Oddly still is the fact that the media covers precious metals and oil increases as a daily event, but no one is talking about these other staples, why?

I really don't know, but with strange weather, GM foods, bee colony collapse, and a recession still in full progress, I think we all need to keep stockpiling or start now.

Any Food for Thought here? Pun intended!

If someone could post the actual charts for a few of these, that would be great. I tried and failed. When you actually see the charts, it really makes an impression.

I think these figures are interesting but some things are just business decisions made by the industry. It's winter so cotton and oil go up to get that surge of income to make investors happy. Food prices spike a little bit because people that run to the grocery store anytime the scare of a blizzard heading their way. Some of these increases are just a prequel for what's to come because of the spending out government has been doing. (Inflation is real and it WILL happen.) To add a comment on something you mentioned in your original post,

And we thought oil was bad....

Calculate how much bottled water costs in gallons and compare it to current gas prices, it's shocking.

reply to post by YoYosarefun


Yes, agree on the bottle water, but you mention that this is just business as usual for winter. I don't think so. The rapid climb on these products started last May and just kept heading straight up.

Over the past 2 years I have been actively watching the prices of corn, cotton, and oil. You are right that they have continuously gone up but the big spikes can be related to the seasons. Inflation is starting to rear its ugly head and I fear the worst of it is yet to come.

Originally posted by SunnyDee
I was just checking out some charts on cnn.com in the money section. If you go to the markets section you will be able to see monthly and yearly charts on the most common commodities. Needless to say, it is shocking to see how much cotton, wheat, corn, and coffee, to name a few have increased. And we thought oil was bad....money.cnn.com...


Wheat up 65%
Corn up 78%
Cotton up 130%!
Soybeans up 49%
Coffee up 72%
Light Crude up 20%
Hogs and cattle up 18-30%
Precious Metals up 20-30%

Now for some more interesting numbers:
Natural gas down 17% (not that shocking, we supposedly have a lot of this)
Cocoa down 5% (wasn't there some scare this year that there was a shortage of cocoa?, hmmm)

The big deal here is the food staples. I don't think we have even begun to feel the price increases for these products. And what happened in the last 6 months to skyrocket all these up? Oddly still is the fact that the media covers precious metals and oil increases as a daily event, but no one is talking about these other staples, why?

I really don't know, but with strange weather, GM foods, bee colony collapse, and a recession still in full progress, I think we all need to keep stockpiling or start now.

Any Food for Thought here? Pun intended!

The margins in commodities are higher than anything else,especially foundation staples. What is the first thing people need to survive? Ag is a fast way to get a return on lost revenues. You forget the losses sustained by corporations in the past three years, along with a growing world population. I hate to say it but if it was not for GMC's this world would be in a tailspin. I don't like them but there is just too many people to feed. I hate to say this too, but what if we had not had all the wars of the last century? There are only three ways to control population..... War,Famine and Celibacy. Peace