MEAT PRICES DRIVE INCREASE …
Food prices spiked by a seasonally adjusted 2.7 percent last month according to data released this week by the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. That’s the biggest monthly jump in three years – far outpacing increases in March (1.1 percent), February (0.6 percent) and January (0.7 percent).
What’s prompting the hikes?
Lots of stuff, apparently … including a virus in the nation’s hog population and a shrinking cattle population, factors which helped send meat prices soaring by 8.4 percent from the previous month.
America’s cattle population stood at 87.7 million in February of 2014 – down two percent from the previous year (which was the worst year for cattle since the 1950s). Since peaking at 132 million in 1975, America’s cattle population has declined by 33 percent over the past four decades – hit hard by deadly disease outbreaks in the 1990s and more recent recalls.
Oh, and let’s not dismiss the impact of ethanol fuel subsidies – which continue to divert corn that could otherwise be used to feed herds.
Experts predict higher beef prices will persist through 2016 … despite a declining appetite for meat amongst U.S. consumers. According to a recent NPR-Truven Health Analytics Health Poll, 39 percent of Americans say they eat less beef now than three years ago – while only six percent said they eat more beef.
37 comments
Inflation, and not just gasoline, has been ASTRONOMICAL, for Obama’s terms…It is one of his most-visible failures…
Not only have jobs been eliminated, along w/ opportunity for economic growth…we are being taxed – in another way -because everything costs more…and I’m not even factoring in the TREMENDOUS increases in healthcare…
The more of Obama we are saddled with…the worse it all gets…
Let’s PRAY, we can begin to Reverse the Sickness and Suffering Obama has caused, in Nov. We must have a MAJOR turnaround to heal this nation. We need God’s help MORE THAN EVER…
Gas was $1.80 a gallon when Obama was elected pResident.
Just like the stock market is artificially inflated (a major correction or collapse is coming), the feds are printing money which helps keep interest rates low HOWEVER has caused rampant inflation in all sectors,
Obama and his regime are getting exactly what they want-DESTROY the economy and make ALL dependent on government for essential needs and services.
Only another ‘Great Awakening’ will heal and save this nation.
You see the problem (but this is only a part of it), and ‘awakening’ is an appropriate term to use. Stay focused and on the beam.
$1.80? Yup, GrandTango 2.0 for sure. Complete disregard of the factors that created that $1.80/gallon price tag.
Dummy Smjerks.Have you seen self-proclaimed FITS Pollster ‘dicupstate’ lately? You know, the socialist dummy that predicted ECB and Tinabu victories on here.
Well he also predicted Kasich would lose in Ohio. New poll today has Kasich up 50-35.
Dems won’t recover from 2014 mid terms for 30 years.
Thanks for the update. But liberals are deaf to realities that don’t fit their little fantasy world…
I think Obama is an epic failure, but gas rose to $4.21 a gallon during Bush and was over $3.00 a gallon for most of his second term. Just making sure everyone is informed on this matter.
I know that facts don’t matter to you GT but inflation has been low for the last few years. The Federal Reserve has set a target inflation rate at 2% and it hasn’t been that high in quite awhile. One of the reasons for the Fed keeping the interest rates so low is to keep us from going into a deflationary cycle similar to what Japan went through in in 90’s. That deflationary cycle tanked their economy for a decade and they are just now coming out of it.
Seriously? I think it’s averaged around 1.8% per year for the past 5 years. Honestly dude, do facts mean nothing to you? I think you’re a paid plant from the Repubican National Committee and the Club for Growth. (But growth of eyebrow and ear hair is unsightly).
You are a MAJOR F*#king IDIOT, and a liar, if you believe 1.8%..
I think you Brain DEAD Obama NAZIS exclude energy and food, the MAJOR Necessities, when you S#!t that ignorance from your mouths…
You rely on everybody being as Big a Stupid F*#k as you obviously are…I guess…
Hey stupid, you don’t have to believe it. Just go out to the websites that report annual rates and do the freakin’ math. You know that think where you add them together and divide by the number. Jeesh – you must have been educated in Florence!!! A smart man works from facts – an idiot listens to Fox. WHich are you?
Factor in food and energy, Dumb@$$…then come back…
Aug 2013Sept 2013Oct 2013Nov 2013Dec 2013Jan 2014Feb 201412 MonthAll items0.10.1.00.10.20.10.11.1 Food0.1.00.10.1.00.10.41.4
OK now?
OK now?
Pro Tip:
Next time you go to the grocery store, ignore your lying eyes.
The unemployment rate is lower, on paper anyway…under Obama…
Tell that to the bank, when they come to foreclose…
I’m sorry Rocky. I am so confused. Would you like to meet somewhere so I can give you a blow job and make up for being such a *$#%? I think I could make it up to you if you give me a chance.
*Faux GrandTango Gaydar begins pinging wildly*
GT…you’re right on this one….but c’mon man, tone down the profanity and insults.
You don’t see TBG calling folks he disagrees with “white devil, metrosexual, GOYIM, Sakerlina fan DUMB@$$es, now do you?
I’m sorry TBG. I have been a real @$$ to all of you. Tell you what. Free blow jobs and butt secks for anyone who wants to vent their frustrations on Tango……. today at 3 Pm behind the Obama store on North Main street in Columbia. Come one, come all.
*Faux GrandTango Gaydar continues pinging wildly*
*snif*… you used to call *me* those things…. and then Shifty Henry… and then Mike… *sob*
Another reason for the rising prices is the the conversion of farmland and corn to ethanol production.
Yeah but you can still use EBT cards at convenience stores and fast food restaurants.
Ending the bullshit with ethanol alone would do a lot of good, with food prices and other things.
I agree 100% but congress is too busy during witch-hunting season to get anything done to really help the populace.
Actually, Egg prices were up more than anything. Meat was up a good bit, but Egg’s drove it more. They are up 44.3% from April last year.
Whisky Zulu!
The Fed has been debasing the currency for one hundred years.
Most people think that “inflation” means increased prices for everything.
Not true.
It manifests itself through “bubbles” in various markets and eventually in food (staples…like milk and bread) and energy cost increases.
Reason being, While we can sell our homes and move in with relatives, each other or Tango’s mom…thus driving down housing prices: we still must eat and buy gasoline to get to and from work.
The government no longer counts food and energy costs in the Consumer Price Index.
Funny, that.
My fav is when someone says, “But a gallon of milk isn’t up that much!”….and they don’t even know milk is subsidized….lol
Well, it’s a damned good thing they don’t subsidize oil!…lol
The fact is – money does not have intrinsic value… especially when it’s not tied to a necessary resource that can be measured accurately.
I’ve heard – not being an economist, I can’t lie and say it’s true like they can, that the *value* of the dollar is based on the GNP… going around the back door using “national debt” and “deficit” kind of reasoning…
… but it seems to me that as long as dickhead over there will take x dollars for y goods, and the relationship between x and y don’t change in direct, linear proportion with either debt or deficit… which seems due to sufficient resources at the base of the pyramid remain plentiful… it’s all based on demand.
Until the supply of oil, corn, water, iron, coal… etc. can no longer meet the market demand, money is a lot like the polynesian sea shell.
Knowledge like this is how the big boys make money on the stock market… and how you can “get” 700 billion dollars to “bail out” the banks, without having everything cost 10 times more because of it.
“and how you can “get” 700 billion dollars to “bail out” the banks, without having everything cost 10 times more because of it.”
It’s actually a lot more than $700 billion, it’s just been shuffled around in different ways to support the balance sheets of the TBTF’s with their toxic (and non performing) assets.
The reason we haven’t seen Zimbabwe style inflation is not only because as TBG points out, money is not homogeneous, but more importantly much of it has ended up in a proverbial lock box, called “reserves”.(but not all of it)
So the 08′ crisis was papered over, but the actual reckoning has yet to really come about. Bernanke has suggested that an untested tool can reverse the balance sheet…by selling the same assets that are being backstopped now…which is absurd. (Yellen hasn’t spoken on the issue yet)
The question is simply one of how/when the cash flow of the TBTF’s is expended to a point where they have to use more and more reserves. No one knows when that is going to happen let alone how, but it’s really hard to have confidence in the face of the methods used to deal with the TBTF’s bankruptcy.
Most everyone, including Joe Sixpacks, understand that the morality of using a combination of taxpayer & printed up digital currency to sustain the TBTF’s is morally wrong…but they have no power to stop it and it’s been justified with claims of a fiscal Armageddon if it hadn’t been done. So it’s basically “screw the average American, because it’s better for you than the alternative”. Don’t pay attention to Japan either, which is decades into it’s QE style misery.
Not a great outlook, regardless of anyone’s view on what money is or should be.
Morality? Ha! That’s a good one! I admire a guy who can use the words “morally wrong” to indicate objective fact.
Look at how Japan hoodwinked the world – it worked for them.. how do you explain that?
“Look at how Japan hoodwinked the world – it worked for them.. how do you explain that?”
lol, are you trumpeting 224% debt to GDP and sustain economic misery as “success”?
If so, Japan’s suicide rate and slowly eroding standard of living the last two decades might disagree with your argument.
http://www.tradingeconomics.com/charts/japan-government-debt-to-gdp.png?s=jpndebt2gdp
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while I don’t call it “success,” they aren’t as poor as Mississippi.
“they aren’t as poor as Mississippi”
lol…really? That’s the argument? Mississippi? lmao!
Ok, fine, you convinced me, let’s bailout all the rich people and their TBTF banks for the betterment of the poor people. It’s just a little inflation. If we don’t do it, the “end of the world” will surely come.
What was I thinking?
Mississippi? lmao!
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hey! I was born in Hog Waller, Mississippi! Mah Pappy traded Zeke for a pig in a poke back in 1897, and now we are one.
The Tea Party’s gonna save us from them folks that got their bible outta a hat, and that fat-ass Hillbilly Clinton.
Weather has also had a major impact on food prices in every category.