Food prices going to skyrocket in 2011

[srkruzich]

November 5, 2010

NIA Projects Future U.S. Food Price Increases

The National Inflation Association today announced the release of its report about NIA's projections of future U.S. food price increases due to the massive monetary inflation being created by the Federal Reserve's $600 billion quantitative easing. This report was written by NIA's President Gerard Adams, who believes food inflation will take over in 2011 as America's greatest crisis. According to Mr. Adams, making mortgage payments will soon be the last thing on the minds of all Americans. We currently have a currency crisis that could soon turn into hyperinflation and a complete societal collapse.

"For every economic problem the U.S. government tries to solve, it always creates two or three much larger catastrophes in the process," said Adams. "Just like we predicted this past December, the U.S. dollar index bounced in early 2010 and has been in free-fall ever since. Bernanke's QE2 will likely accelerate this free-fall into a complete U.S. dollar rout," warned Adams.

NIA projects that at the average U.S. grocery store it will soon cost $11.43 for one ear of corn, $23.05 for a 24 oz loaf of wheat bread, $62.21 for a 32 oz package of Domino Granulated Sugar, $24.31 for a 32 fl oz container of soy milk, $77.71 for a 11.30 oz container of Folgers Classic Roast Coffee, $45.71 for a 64 fl oz container of Minute Maid Orange Juice, and $15.50 for a Hershey's Milk Chocolate 1.55 oz candy bar. NIA also projects that by the end of this decade, a plain white men's cotton t-shirt at Wal-Mart will cost $55.57.

NIA's special U.S. food price projection report is now available to download for free by clicking here.

The report highlights how despite cotton rising by 54%, corn rising by 29%, soybeans rising by 22%, orange juice rising by 17%, and sugar rising by 51% during the months of September and October alone, these huge commodity price increases have yet to make their way into America's grocery stores because corporations have been reluctant to pass these price increases along to the consumer. In today's dismal economy, no retailer wants to be the first to dramatically raise food prices. However, NIA expects all retailers to soon substantially raise food prices at the same time, which will ensure that this Holiday shopping season will be the worst in recorded American history.

[Teresa]

NIA's special U.S. food price projection report is now available to download for free by clicking here.

There is no link ...

[srkruzich]

http://inflation.us/foodpriceprojections.html

sorry bout that, but you know what happened since i posted it.  They removed the link to it from their main news page.  I had to search for it and found the link through a archive page. 

I wonder why they removed it.

[Warph]

November 5, 2010

NIA projects that at the average U.S. grocery store it will soon cost $11.43 for one ear of corn, $23.05 for a 24 oz loaf of wheat bread, $62.21 for a 32 oz package of Domino Granulated Sugar, $24.31 for a 32 fl oz container of soy milk, $77.71 for a 11.30 oz container of Folgers Classic Roast Coffee, $45.71 for a 64 fl oz container of Minute Maid Orange Juice, and $15.50 for a Hershey's Milk Chocolate 1.55 oz candy bar. NIA also projects that by the end of this decade, a plain white men's cotton t-shirt at Wal-Mart will cost $55.57.

"SOON".....when's that going to be???  2085???  This is begining to sound like Al Gore and his golbal warming scam.  There is no doubt that food prices are climbing but, it will be a hell of a long time before the above will come into being.  The following is a response to this youtube video with over a half million hits, posted by the very, very mysterious strange website, "The National Inflation Association":

First off, it's always good to ask who is funding the organization and the video production.   From their website http://inflation.us/ I can't say for sure.

But here's a good guess:

"One of our missions at the National Inflation Association is to discover and profile companies that we believe will prosper in an inflationary environment. Typically we will bring to you producing, profitable, Gold and Silver companies with strong balance sheets. We believe these stocks have a chance of becoming some of the best performers of the next decade."  Most of their 22 companies on their stocks page are gold or silver companies.

Now I'm not going to bash Gold and Silver as a means to hedge long-term financial risk, because I'm not an economist.  But here's an article that does:  http://www.huffingtonpost.com/alan-schram/is-gold-a-good-inflation_b_443927.html "Gold does not generate cash flow (indeed it has a carrying cost for storage, insurance etc.) and does not have any intrinsic value, and therefore it is of dubious value as a long term investment."  Makes sense to me.

Onward to the youtube video.

Commentary:

I'm not going to fact check all the numbers, but some of the statistics in the video seem to be fairly reasonable.  The video also cites some legitimate facts about the financial crisis and legitimate concerns about the US's ability to pay for impending SS and Medicare.  

But there are a lot of interpretations of these statistics and facts that are misleading, fear-mongering, and just plain wrong.

9:45 on the video:  "The average American might have to eat less and stop air conditioning and heating their home just to afford gas for their car."

I like the word 'might'.  And aren't we obese and energy-hungry anyway?   Doesn't a third to a half of our food go into the garbage and not into our mouths and out our ass?   Maybe we shouldn't have killed the electric car, before the lithium ion battery took off.

10:40  Peter "Dr. Doom" Schiff calls Social Security a Ponzi scheme.

While there are parallels between the concepts, it's not fundamentally true, because technological advancements have exponentially increased economic output over the last century.   According to Michael Mandel of Business Week:   "The U.S. population has more than tripled since the early 1900s, while the U.S. economic output has gone up by more than 20 times... Assuming that technological progress continues over the next 70 years, and output productivity growth continues over the next 70 years, the finances of Social Security are relatively easy to fix. A fairly minor cut in benefits, combined with a relatively small increase in taxes, will bring the system back into balance again. (the latest Social Security report projects a 75-year deficit of $4.3 trillion. That sounds like a lot of money, but over 75 years it's roughly $60 billion a year...not chicken feed, but not overwhelming)."

13:18  "The only way our economy can truly recover [from the crisis caused by trillion dollar deficit] is for the government to dramatically slash spending across the board and eliminate unnecessary departments like the Department of Energy... and the Department of Education."

The video tries to link the rise in private tuition costs to the rise in Dept of Ed. Spending.  I don't get it.  It also fails to mention that the Dept. of Ed only has 5,000 employees and that most of the increase in spending was because of Bush's No Child Left Behind.  And Dept of Energy?  Um, isn't the one that deals with our nuclear waste?

15:42  They try to bash breastfeeding protection laws.  Fail.

16:55  They claim a Republican administration would have supported the health care bill.  Um, no?  From what I remember, the health care bill had to go through extensive Senate reconciliation after the Dems lost their supermajority with Massachusetts.

24:15 "We conservatively believe the real rate of inflation to be 3-4% higher than what is indicated by the CPI."  Thanks for giving us the formula for how you calculated that.

25:34 Suggestion for fed funds rate to increase to 5.31%  Again, no math evidence.

25:05:  FIRST GOLD PITCH HERE

I skimmed through the next 10 minutes. It was Gold Gold Gold Gold Gold.

37:45  Selective statistics about debt.  You can see the full debt story in chart form here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_debt_by_U.S._presidential_terms

Post-WWII our deficit was briefly over 100% relative to GDP.   In the last 30 years, it went up with Reagan and HW Bush and lowered with Clinton.  Obama inherited an 83.4% rate from Bush and it is currently rising.

42:10  The video suggests we "go back to our roots" to fix our economy.  I love 12 hour work days, child labor, sub-minimum wage, and sweatshops.

The rest of the movie was more OMG DEFICIT and Gold Gold Gold Gold Gold.

50:15  I love how the movie links inflation to the "destruction of family values."  Inflation will soon make a $20 bill worth more as an implement to snort coke out of a hookers ass than its value!

50:38  Somehow the government is "transferring money to Wall Street through inflation."  Really? I thought it was the deregulation (by the ironically Democratic senate) in the late 90s and early 2000s causing Wall Street to systematically restructure itself into unsustainable pyramid schemes.

The entire movie seems to forget a basic Econ lesson:  Businesses don't look at national debt and think, "Let's raise prices!"  Growing economies and demand make prices go up.  A recession—like what's happening now—makes selling stuff harder, so prices go down.  That's why inflation is down.

The deficit needs to take a backseat right now to the higher goal of economic growth.  And it's noteworthy that we borrow from China because they have relatively low lending rates.  Really, what's China going to do; invade us if we default?  The US and China are economically co-dependent, which is not a great place to be, but safe for the moment.  Now if you want more dope on th "The National Inflation Assoc., check out:
http://www.casavaria.com/cafesentido/2009/08/15/4052/national-inflation-association-spreads-healthcare-lies-suggests-violence-could-escalate/[/font][/color]