During times of economic crisis, one of the first things that people give up is eating out. Restaurants are expensive and eating at home is less expensive. Well, at least it used to be.
Check these year over year inflation numbers for every day food stuffs:
Some of the startling food price increases on a year-over-year basis include
- fresh and dry vegetables up 56.1%
- fresh fruits and melons up 28.8%
- eggs for fresh use up 33.6%
- pork up 19.1%
- beef and veal up 10.7%
- dairy products up 9.7%
On October 30th, 2009, NIA predicted that inflation would appear next in food and agriculture, but we never anticipated that it would spiral so far out of control this quickly.
This is just the beginning folks. Inflation has real consequences, dire consequences. More and more people in this great country will go hungry, even starve, as a direct result of inflation.
This is the inevitable consequence of out of control spending and faulty monetary policy. The Fed is monetizing the debt and is also keeping interest rates low for fear of a massive double dip recession in advance of the election. As a result, many economists expect inflation to get much worse.
Just this past weekend famed investor and friend o’ Democrats Warren Buffet said this about inflation.
“The prospects for significant inflation have increased, not only here but around the world,” Buffett told roughly 40,000 shareholders at the meeting. “Weaning ourselves from the medicine” may be more difficult than enacting the stimuli in the first place, he said.
Buffett said the days of very low interest rates in the United States cannot continue indefinitely.
“It won’t work forever to run huge budget deficits and easy money,” Buffett warned. He said if this causes problems, Congress rather than the Federal Reserve should get the blame.
Look at those numbers above again and imagine what will happen to those already struggling to feed their families.
Elections have consequences. This is one.
May 5, 2010 at 2:55 pm
Drives me CRAZY that corn and soy are heavily subsidized, but not "truck" crops like these.
May 5, 2010 at 3:01 pm
Sorry, Patrick, but I can't agree with your final two sentences. This is an area where there is virtually no difference between either side of the aisle. Both R's and D's have been supporting the status quo with our financial industry and the FED for a long time.
May 5, 2010 at 3:15 pm
Anonymous 1, Patrick made no mention of either party that I could see. But I do agree that both are to blame.
May 5, 2010 at 3:25 pm
Check out what commodity inflation was from 2001-2007. Elections do have consequences, but the shifting of bubbles is now the American way and Greenspan's legacy.
May 5, 2010 at 4:14 pm
Our family has been feeling the crunch for awhile. 5 years ago, we were socking away $300 a month into our savings. Not much but something. Last year my husband lost his job and took another at a $400 a month cut in pay. No more money for savings and less for bills, but it was a job. Now that gas and groceries are higher we are hurting badly. I buy half as much fresh produce. We buy eggs from a local farmer. I've learned how to stretch a chicken over 3 meals–lots of casseroles. What cost $125 last year now costs $250. We just can't afford it. We are looking a eliminating luxuries–probably ending our satellite service and selling our television. Nothing on there worth watching anyway….
May 5, 2010 at 4:31 pm
plant a backyard garden…
May 5, 2010 at 6:07 pm
If you think inflation is bad now? The Secretary of Energy Steven Chu had stated, before he was confirmed, “Somehow we have to figure out how to boost the price of gasoline to the levels in Europe,” from an interview with The Wall Street Journal in September 2008.
Imagine the cost of gas tripling. That will effect the cost of the production of food, the transportation of food, goods and all services. Pray that this guy doesn’t succeed what he more “change” because that’s all we’ll have left in our pockets.
How about hyper inflation? We are doing the same thing as the German Weimar Republic and other irresponsible governments and we’ll have to pay the pieper.
May 5, 2010 at 6:23 pm
No doubt the financial stuff is bad as you said and this is causing difficulties.
But MOST American families have a long way to go before they are eating economically.
I fed a large family in the late eighties on less than half…and at one point, a third, of the federal poverty level, plus some food stamps. We ate either European peasant food, soup and bread…homemade soup and homemade bread, or Oriental peasant food, Rice and vegetables with a very small amount of meat.
We also sometimes ate Sphaggetti with a little meat in the sauce, Macaroni and cheese (when there was free government cheese) and Pizza-homemade dough, sometimes home made and canned sauce. Cereal was oatmeal or Wheatena..no boxed instant cereals.
Other things I have done in my life when I lived in a city; during a period of time when my husband was unemployed and we had no income, I visited the dumpster of a local supermarket; the produce people put still usable produce they were throwing out on the dock near the dumpster rather than throwing it in, for people to take. I met a lot of people there. I made a lot of soup from that discarded produce. I also got free fish heads from a Baltimore fish vendor and made fish stock from them. There is a good bit of meat under a fish's eye. I made a nice chowder with this and canned corn which my kids liked.
Now this type of eating was easier when I kept chickens and grew a garden and canned. But the essentials of how we ate can be done without that. I was also at home. If you worked you would have to devote a considerable portion of your weekend to cooking, especially making pots of soup and baking bread.
But it can be done. And it is a very healthy way to eat.
Susan Peterson
May 5, 2010 at 8:37 pm
I went to the grocery store on Monday (hadn't been in 2 weeks) to shop for my family of 5 (all kids are 9 and under). Bought a lot of fresh produce,a few convenience foods, health stuff, and used coupons. Darned near keeled over when the bill came to $350 after my coupons. I really had to re-stock, but still….And I don't see it getting better. I'd better learn to can what we grow this summer.
May 6, 2010 at 2:23 am
Here in the high desert, it cost a lot to water a kitchen garden, so that's not the perfect solution. First of all, Americans need to eat smaller portions, cook more from scratch, and remember a serving of meat is as big as a deck of cards. Americans have poor habits of eating too much meat and too many snack and convenience foods. With coupons and shopping the specials and becoming savvy comparison shoppers, the pinch is a lot less tight.