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Maintaining its estimate of food inflation in the 3-4% range this year, the USDA upgrades its...
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Monday, April 25, 2011, 12:55 PM ETMaintaining its estimate of food inflation in the 3-4% range this year, the USDA upgrades its forecast for meat, poultry, and fish price hikes. It's unclear which price estimates the USDA lowered to keep the overall number unchanged.
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This news story has 11 comments:
.....Milk up 12%...Median New Home Prices down 17%....
This is an odd issue to be flippant about and totally unlike your normal reasonable commentary. Did you read the article?
Real wages are falling at the same time food and energy costs are increasing that is a terrible combination for the long-term health of the economy. Decreasing wealth in the housing sector, which is still the number one asset on the household balance sheet of mainstreet, only makes the problem worse not better.
Food and energy are not discretionary purchases whereas a new home is.
to demonstrate the lunacy in the silver market,,,,
Bbro, keep up the good work, they hate facts...
I don't believe in the hyperinflation story either and I unfortunately never bought into silver or gold but you don't need hyperinflation to destroy the standard of living of the average American.
I just object to the notion that food and energy costs can be dismissed as immaterial when it comes to quality of life and the mood of the country regardless of what core CPI implies. The fact is that prices have risen very sharply in a very short period of time for the necessities of life and that just can't be dismissed unless your only focus is the stock market's performance.
Food and energy expenditures have risen substantially as a percentage of the household budget within the last 6 months while wages have at best treaded water and recently have fallen on an inflation adjusted basis. Just ask seniors what they think when they don't get a cost of living adjustment because there is no inflation.
Inflation is measured as an annual trend and the trend is towards an increasing rate of non-core inflation, which outside of the FED, is what people really pay attention to when they assess how well they are doing. We'll see how long inflation remains subdued once rising rental costs make their way into the mix.
This will tie the hands of the FED and ultimately cause the economy to relapse into much slower, below potential growth again assuming the FED tightens or does not embark on QE3 which would then dampen inflationary expectations. This to me is the worst of all words and is one of the unintended consequences of following an extended ZIRP policy.
I don't make up facts but I do form opinions based upon them. The same set of facts can leading to completely divergent forecasts and you of course are free to disagree with my interpretation of those facts but please don't accuse me of making them up.
Funny after penning this I just read Doug Kass's take on the data and he says it a lot better than I do. Anyway good luck!
The Fed knows what it is doing, as I said in the past if Obama should have step up and cut the deficit, QE-2 would have already ended....QE-2 is providing a cap to the treasuries yields....so the government can borrow.
The rise of commodities is being impulsed by huge demand from a new middle class in Asia... and underutilization of capital to promote higher supply...
With home prices going down, don't expect rents to go higher....
Rental costs can move independently of the direction in housing prices since it is a supply and demand issue. Vacancy rates are falling and landlords are now in a position to raise rents.
www.reuters.com/articl...
seekingalpha.com/artic...
This is why it is so tricky to make forecasts especially about the future.