Why Your Grocery Bill is about to Go Up

Why Your Grocery Bill is about to Go Up

money.ca.msn.com

According to the World Bank, the cost of certain food staples has climbed by 50 per cent over the past six months and the food index it tracks is up 29 per cent year over year. …

…Experts make the point that the food price crisis of 2008 never went away, it was just eclipsed by the credit crisis and other issues while the fundamental food problem got worse.

(visit the link for the full news article)



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This writer is a stock and investment analyst. She's a bit apologetic about it, but basically says investing in food staples iss a high profit sure bet.

I don't agree with her take on why the food crisis exists:

...the current food price spiral is the result of fundamental imbalances of supply and demand, extreme weather patterns, the emergence of a middle class in emerging economies and other structural points.

The truth is simple: There are ALWAYS droughts, floods and famines - which is why nations used to stock pile food reserves. But, following the legal precedent set by the US-Canada Free Trade Agreement, most nations handed over control of the world's food supply to the global mega-corporations, under new "Free Trade Agreements." Result? No more national food stockpiles.

Now, our food is a high profit commodity, and food supplies are manipulated for higher profits than ever.



Also see:
Early Winter Coming? ...and Food Shortages?

Food-borne Illnesses in U.S. Cost $152 B Annually







money.ca.msn.com
(visit the link for the full news article)

Well you just have to look at the amount of food, places such as supermarkets, chuck out daily, and there is people starving around the world, and the prices increase, it is a complete joke and it is disgusting to say the least.

The truth is simple: There are ALWAYS droughts, floods and famines - which is why nations used to stock pile food reserves. But, following the legal precedent set by the US-Canada Free Trade Agreement, most nations handed over control of the world's food supply to the global mega-corporations, under new "Free Trade Agreements." Result? No more national food stockpiles.

Now, our food is a high profit commodity, and food supplies are manipulated for higher profits than ever.

I have to agree with this. You have many people jumping on the weather/global warming ticket, however, as you said, those conditions are consistently a factor and our food is tied to commodities. Since the US dollar is the worlds reserve currency, all commodities are traded in US dollar (with oil slowly becoming the exception). Ever since QE1 and QE2 have been implemented by the Federal Reserve, not only has the value of the dollar decreased, but people are fearful that the dollar will crash, so they are jumping to invest in these commodities. So, when people started buying these commodities up, the prices increase and cause the increase and shortages of food around the world.

Originally posted by Laurauk
Well you just have to look at the amount of food, places such as supermarkets, chuck out daily, and there is people starving around the world, and the prices increase, it is a complete joke and it is disgusting to say the least.

When I got together with my current partner, her kids are so wasteful.

They never eat any more than half what they "help themselves" to and if we got out to eat somewhere, they still leave loads.

I was never brought up that way, such a waste, unbelievable!

No surprise, our grocery bill has been going up for 2 years now and it's not showing any signs of getting better.

Don't forget about rising fuel prices. The price of fuel goes up, and the prices of everything else goes up with it.

Time to bring back "Drill, baby, drill!"

Add to this what is going on in the middle east,as that could also have a massive impact on all trade,including food and oil for the west.
In a year or less the whole game may be different if some fanatics manage to take over in Yemen Egypt Libya,etc.
Western shipping may no longer have access to the Suez canal,which would send prices and demand soaring.
Lets hope it doesn't get to that stage of affairs..

Nice catch... the 'food' crisis was eclipsed by the credit crisis, eh?

Ummm... I suppose that means they were distracted... since it would be their mandate
(and ostensible responsibility) that such a 'crisis' be recognized and 'in hand'..... right?

The ratcheting up of the crisis alert should be expected.... considering it's marketing value. The crisis' political and sociological 'engineering' value cannot be understated.

But there is one thing I (at least) have not observed ANY authoritative source to state..... namely, "There isn't enough food on the planet to feed the population." I suspect the reason they have not stated this is because it is not so.

Assuming there actually is enough food to feed the world; it appears the 'crisis' is, once again, and as usual, one of profit.... not 'feeding the world' per se, (over which they can have us cringing in fear; because media has made us not feel stimulated otherwise.)

It's about 'prices' NOT cost. Prices are 'set' by those in 'commerce.' Sure, they have to make their venture worth their while.... but the course of human avarice has led the planet to accept that the commercialists have the sole unchallengeable right to 'price' things into 'crisis." (And if they happen to be financially and politically positioned to exploit the situation, well then... that's perfectly acceptable as well, apparently.)

Does anyone know any ecologists, economists, industrialists, or other "-ists" that dare speak authoritatively in declaring that the human race is incapable, at this stage in it's evolution, is incapable of providing for itself? That we are simply not taking from the land, enough food to satisfy the nutritional needs of the population? That we have clustered our population centers so irrationally as to have effectively starved ourselves out?

Or isn't it more likely that the combined concepts of 'ownership' and 'trade' have become so twisted in our minds as to provide justification for the practice of making it impossible to distribute the basic nutritional necessities of life unless those involved in the process can 'profit increasingly' (as opposed to being compensated) in perpetuity?

Perhaps these are obtuse questions.... But nevertheless it can be said that some organization, group, business, cartel, combine, or combination thereof is projecting it's intention to posture it's next 'enterprise' as a 'solution' to this problem..... I mean "crisis."

I began shopping at the discount food stores - they have leading brands at a much better price. The meat and produce is fresh and the prices are much better. I know I save at least 40% on my grocery bill compared to shopping at the other grocery stores. I also stock up on dry foods and can goods in case of emergency and have found some really good bargains at Sav-Alot. Its a sad affair when people can't afford food and people are starving around the world.

I am anxious to plant my garden - I read a thread on ATS they are trying to outlaw gardens - give me a break. What one does on ones property is no one else business. My problem is people sneaking into the garden and those cute little rabbits, glad to feed them a little actually.

The official (establishment) modern economic theory, essentially Keyensian, says that inflation is normal and even required to keep business solvent. They say inflation tends to make people buy today, on credit, because it will cost more tommorrow anyway.

This baseline inflation covers for larger increases in inflation which are coming because

1) The Fed has created and will create alot more money, without an equivalent increase in goods. More money. Same amount of stuff. Stuff is going to cost more.

2) Food is being used to make fuel. Aside from this being an inefficient use of both food and fuel, it causes food prices to go up. Less food is available to eat so it costs more.

3) The cost of fuel increased. Right now fuel costs more that the truck driver's pay. In 2008 the feed lots were in danger of closing due to the added cost of transportation. When the feed lots close, the cost of meat will double, after a while. a year or two or three.

4) Warehousing is almost gone. The current distribution chain has no reserves in it. There are no normal-course-of- business accumulations of stuff, bought at the old lower price, to slow the price increases.

Our economic system has not been naturally functioning for a while. At least since the 70's. Since the system has some control at the top, these effects could be delayed. Only at the cost of a faster correction however.

I had half read a news article, saying in our southwest, crops failed 80%+. I cant imagine what crops is grown in desert conditions...not everyone eats marinated cactus, let alone butter topped corn on the cob
We need to consider too, how things are tied together via the entire system. CORN..it has been long reported in the news years ago, the reason milk and gas go up in price, is because of the ethanol..and if its true, ethanol has been approved to be at 15% instead of the usual 10%..that means corn and milk go up in price too. An official explanation was never given, at least to my knowledge, why milk was tied in, other than wall street.
i think high fructose corn syrup, in many food related items are also tied in to this, including brands of bread*

reply to post by ziggy1706


Desert (or you could say winter) crops are mostly onions, carrots, and feed grain for animals.

The truth is simple: There are ALWAYS droughts, floods and famines - which is why nations used to stock pile food reserves. But, following the legal precedent set by the US-Canada Free Trade Agreement, most nations handed over control of the world's food supply to the global mega-corporations, under new "Free Trade Agreements." Result? No more national food stockpiles.

A significant change in policy, and a very poor move in terms of national security I might add.

When populations of the "fat" nations suddenly find themselves with food shortages, what might happen? Riots? Increase in crime? Less satisfaction with politicians, or whoever the mob imagines might be responsible for their misery? None of this would be good for internal stability.

In the past, this issue was recognized, the last thing a nation needed was internal conflict, especially in the context of greater potential global threats, as was the case with the Cold War. But regardless of the reasons for why food stockpiling was done in the past, it still seems the prudent thing to do! And yet, common sense seems to have gone out the window.

Interestingly, this obviously prudent and legitimate need to store up against capricious Mother Nature, and other things, which has been recognized since biblical times (Joseph in Egypt), couldn't have been discarded "unintentionally", IMO.

I realize that most people seem to just go through life thinking things "just happen", but sometimes, when we look into the details of the mechanisms of change, we find disturbing evidence.

Clearly the OP is sounding an important alarm here. The evidence, once again, seems to indicate that unbridled corporatism continues to grow, getting it's way more and more, able to bribe, pay lawyers to fight court battles, use their extreme money and power to basically ever-increase, their money and power!

I'd like to suggest that we try and "imagine" the End Game, as concentrated wealth steamrolls ahead, but frankly, we don't need our imaginations, we just need to look around. Things are very far advanced.

Aside from the clear evidence that profits continue to trump life itself, I also wonder if there is an Elite who actually desire chaos, and are pushing their agendas, allowing things to get crazy, doing things that put us all on the brink, so that when the time is "right", the hammer falls, and they get to put things back together the way they want. And they will probably have a smirk on their faces as they gingerly step over the bodies.

FOOD: In the US, I have read reports over the past few years that seem to agree that the food supply is extremely limited. At any given time, there is only about two weeks worth of food in the system, since most everything has gone to JIT ("just in time") inventory management, ala Japanese cars and Walmart. Adding to the problem is the fact that much of this food is spoilable, and would literally be lost, if trucks couldn't keep moving, for whatever reason(s).

Perhaps this wouldn't be much of an issue if Americans and Canadians were all Mormon, and all took responsibility to stockpile their own emergency supplies. But the reality is that very few people have much more than a few days of food at a time.

I've spoken to people about this, and get funny responses. One lady I was chatting with found the notion humorous, saying that her fridge was really too small to hold much anyway. I asked about her frozen goods. She said she hated having to defrost stuff! How about canned goods? Sure, she had some of that, but she actually preferred fresh food, much better for you, ya know!

OK, maybe my example isn't "average", but it's not too far off, from what I can tell, and I've personally tried to spread a bit of this message, so I have some idea of a typical response.

Here's the worse news! Of course, there is the other side of the spectrum, while not as common, I occasionally have someone tell me that they are "almost as prepared as back when Y2K hit!" OK, so there are some people who are prepared. But ask them "how much" of this, or that, and you find out pretty quick that their idea of "prepared" isn't too much to brag about. Yes, they have extra canned goods, they have enough toilet paper (seriously, this is one several people mention), but when it comes down to it, even this subset of the "prepared" could only go about three weeks, on average, from what I can tell!

I'm beginning to think that only very, very few people will be OK if something big hit when it came to food. As far as growing it? Fuggetaboutit!!

BUT THEN, this may be exactly what TPTB want, and over the years, things have been arranged accordingly. We will soon reap what we sow...oh wait, we didn't bother to sow anything...

S & F, hope this thread gets a lot of attention!

JR

reply to post by Maxmars


You're absolutely correct, no-one starves to death because there isnt enough food in the world, they die because of business and politics, we only use a fraction of the arable land, and with what we get from that we waste a huge percentage, you have no idea how much milk is wasted every day.

But shipping it anywhere would cost money etc so nobody is going to take the hit and do that, they just throw it away

half the food we make we waste:
www.ens-newswire.com...

I coukld go on and on about all the insanely wasteful practices going on in the name of profit, but here's a case in point: Shark fin soup, they cut the fins off sharks and theiorw the rest back in to die, because the fins are worth so much more money

Remember that food is a commodity traded in the futures markets, which are rife with past examples of manipulation through extremely speculative and leveraged positions, often for political reasons. See for example JP Morgan deliberately suppressing the price of silver, Max Keiser talks about this every day.

When it comes to food, the bloodsucking vultures at Goldman-Sachs and others have been accused of driving up food prices in order to profit. You can read about it here:

In The Great Hunger Lottery, the World Development Movement has compiled extensive evidence establishing the role of food commodity derivatives in destabilising and driving up food prices around the world. This in turn, has led to food prices becoming unaffordable for low-income families around the world, particularly in developing countries highly reliant on food imports.

That is the psychopathic version of capitalism in action for you, the kind that is in the ascendancy around the world: it doesn't matter if people starve to death, as long as I get paid.

reply to post by Nicorette


Great info Nicorette. This capitalism on steroids needs to stop before we all starve to death.

The thing is, commodities "speculation" was originally a very legitimate thing. Back when it began, hundreds of years ago, (in Holland was really where things became advanced first in this area), it was a good thing, that benefited everyone.

Originally, a producer of a commodity might want to sell "forward", under certain circumstances, and it made perfect sense to do so.

A farmer might have gone contrary to his friends, and planted wheat, instead of potatoes, and sure enough, the price of wheat gets relatively "high" (before others jump in to meet the demand), and that wise farmer could be paid at the "high" price, being financially rewarded for his contrarian prudence, while the market was rewarded with product that might not have been available otherwise.

You mention silver, the most abused commodity of all time. Not that it's more important than food, but even in mining, it was all originally very legit. A miner could sell forward, get much needed capital, and end up producing more than would have been possible otherwise. Even if the commodity price went down, they might still benefit over all. And so would the user of that commodity, benefiting from locking up a lower price, insulating them from a potentially sudden rise, that might ruin their usual profitability.

In between, was the speculator, not always the bad guy of today. In the old days the other side of the transaction was usually the "user", or refiner, or industry that consumed the commodity. For example, Kodak uses silver to make film, and might seek to lock-in temporary lower prices that periodically result from over-production. If they can have producers sell to them at that price, then everyone should be happy.

As most people know, things didn't stay that way for long. What began as producers and users entering into logical transactions, ended up as monstrous casino action, as professional speculators "evolved", who were neither producer, nor user, just (usually) wealthy people (and later, corporations) who could use their wealth to literally manipulate the system, taking advantage of everyone in the process.

Reasonable restrictions that reflect the physical reality need to somehow be reintroduced. Diabolical banks, who should perhaps have little to do with such things as corn and silver, instead leverage the massive capital that they command, to literally toy with these markets, often leaving ruined companies, jobs lost, and people starving, as they illegitimately abuse a system that was never intended to function the way it is now.

JR

An example of this, meaning food prices being driven up for profit, is what has happened in Florida with oranges. Florida provides some of the best oranges in the world. The Chinese never had an interest in oranges, and that was a huge market essentialy closed off for business, given the low interest.

Well recently, oranges were re-introduced to the Chinese market, with success. Now the population wants oranges. The problem? No surrounding countries offer great oranges. So, Florida has started selling a ton of concentrate orange juice to China, which will drive up the price of oranges here in America. Has nothing to do with a shortage of oranges.

Originally posted by Laurauk
Well you just have to look at the amount of food, places such as supermarkets, chuck out daily, and there is people starving around the world, and the prices increase, it is a complete joke and it is disgusting to say the least.

When I was 18, working as a produce clerk, DAILY, we would toss out about 100 pounds of fruit and vegetables into our garbage compactor. When I asked why we couldn't box it up and give it to homeless shelters, they said that it was against company policy to allow employees to do that. In other words, you would get fired. Nice world we created for ourselves eh?

Let them eat cake.
Seriously though, it's events like these that give people that little nudge that might just be enough to get some of them off the couch and perhaps think a little bit about that cliff we are quickly approaching down the road. For too long most of the consumer population has been conditioned for the disposal lifestyle. I think we will see starvation amongst the obese at some point if we don't learn self sustainability. Either that or we'll become the cattle they want.
The oceans are certainly under threat of over fishing and the demand only continues to increase. They could use a break and some time to replenish but we're not the kind of species to think beyond our next quick fix. Only when we become uncomfortable or stressed do we begin to think about the problems we create and yet some don't even get that far. "They" will take care of us.