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Rising world food prices may soon hit Africa hard, but could be a future boon
Damaged rice is seen in a paddy field destroyed by flood- waters near a village in Manmunai West in Batticaloa district, about 199 miles east of Colombo, Sri Lanka, on Jan. 26. The floods inundated rice paddies, and according to the UN Food and Agriculture Organization, at least 15.5 percent of the main annual rice harvest could be lost.
Andrew Caballero-Reynolds/Reuters
Johannesburg, South Africa
Global food prices reached a historic high last month, a fact that may cause even the most comfortable of Americans to cinch in their belts and cut back on spending.
But what about the world’s poor?
“Global food prices are rising to dangerous levels and threaten tens of millions of poor people around the world,” World Bank Group President Robert Zoellick said Tuesday as he announced the bank’s findings that about 44 million people in developing countries have been pushed into poverty since Read more…
3 Ways to Prepare for Inflation
In case you haven’t heard,inflation is on its way. Unprecedented levels of government debt and deficits will likely weaken the value of the dollar at some point, thus raising the prices of everything it buys.
But, the Federal Reserve says there’s no significant inflation yet. In fact, it recently said there might be too little inflation and will likely keep interest rates low for the foreseeable future, further increasing the money supply. Meanwhile, commodity prices are going through the roof.
The price of copper has more than tripled since the end of 2008, oil is near $90 a barrel (also near the high since the financial crisis) and prices of several food commodities like corn and wheat are near all time highs. These materials are in turn used to make many consumer goods. It’s only a matter of time before higher input prices come out the other end in the form of higher prices for consumer goods.
In fact, inflation has started to Read more…
Silver Reaches New 30-Year High!
Silver reached a new 30-year high today of $32.87 per ounce up 89% since NIA declared silver the best investment for the next decade on December 11th of 2009 at $17.40 per ounce!
The gold/silver ratio is now down to below 43. NIA predicted a sharp decline in the gold/silver ratio both in its top 10 predictions for 2010 at 64 and in its top 10 predictions for 2011 at 46. We believe the gold/silver ratio will decline to at least 16 within the next few years, but it could decline to as low as 10. It wouldn’t surprise us to see gold reach $5,000 per ounce in 2015 and silver reach $500 per ounce at the same time!
NIA’s President Gerard Adams publicly exposed JP Morgan’s silver naked short selling price suppression scheme in Read more…
Global systemic crisis / World geopolitical breakup – End of 2011: Fall of the “Petro-dollar wall”
– Public announcement GEAB N°52 (February 16, 2011) –
US price increases hit consumers
Confirming what most US shoppers already suspected, the Labor Department on Thursday reported prices for everything from vegetables to unleaded fuel rose again in January.
The Labor Department’s consumer price index rose 0.4 percent for the month, a rate that was slightly higher than economists expected and which confirmed large price increases for commonly bought goods in the last year.
The figures showed gasoline prices have leaped over 13 percent in the last 12 months, while grocery prices rose slowly but Read more…
The Fed is Wrong About Commodity Prices
Author: David Weinstein
I imagine he has to say it, but Bernanke is wrong when he says US monetary policy has nothing to do with international commodity prices. At the height of the Egyptian crisis, which was partly driven by rising food prices, Bernanke couldn’t say, “Oh yea, US policy economic policy is part of the problem in Egypt.” This attitude, however, is both prevalent and respected, and it’s largely wrong.
First of all, commodities as a group are not commoditized – they are not all the same. For instance, the amount of gold in the world is largely fixed relative to annual gold production. Along with its historical position as a store a value, Gold’s consistent volume about ground is a primary reason for its currency-like quality; i.e. almost entirely driven by overall liquidity. Corn production, on the other hand can vary greatly from year to year given the amount of land devoted to it and the weather. Oil is somewhere in the middle because production can vary, but the worlds known reserves are relatively fixed. The resulting differences in price volatility have been studied ad nauseam and are most simply articulated by the so-called ‘cob-web model’ (see chart below).
Very simply put: Read more…
World Bank: Food prices at “dangerous levels”
Global food prices have hit “dangerous levels” that could contribute to political instability, push millions of people into poverty and raise the cost of groceries, according to a new report from the World Bank.
The bank released a report Tuesday that said global food prices have jumped 29 percent in the past year, and are just 3 percent below the all-time peak hit in 2008. Bank President Robert Zoellick said the rising prices have hit people hardest in the developing world because they spend as much as half their income on food.
“Food prices are the key and major challenge facing many developing countries today,” Zoellick said. The World Bank estimates higher prices for corn, wheat and oil have pushed 44 million people into extreme poverty since Read more…
Gold-Silver Ratio: Silver value highest in five years
NEW YORK (Commodity Online): As precious metals continue to lead the commodities boom globally, the most frequently asked question these days is where does the gold-silver ratio stand.
Over the years, gold has been the high value beneficiary commodity in comparison to silver. But last week, the gold to silver ratio fell to just above 45:1. According to Wayne Atwell, Managing Director of Casimir Capital, the silver value in comparison to gold is the highest in the last five years.
“This is because people—investors—are regarding silver as a safe haven investment just like gold,” he says.
Atwell said: “Suddenly with the anxiety level that’s surfaced about sovereign debt and municipal deficits, people are turning to alternative ways to hedge themselves and I think people felt silver was cheap based on where it has been historically, so they jumped on the bandwagon.”
Gold-Silver ratio is the most important barometer for commodities traders and futures market dealers. Even though Read more…
The supply of corn keeps getting smaller
675 million bushels of corn may seem like a lot, but that is only an 18 day supply for the US grain market, and that is the reason corn prices pushed above $7 Wednesday on the CME. March corn did not close above that level, but settled at $6.98 per bushel following USDA’s February Supply and Demand report that indicated the ethanol industry was refining corn faster than previously thought.
Corn, beans and wheat prices have all been rising, but so has the price for ethanol. A year ago, ethanol was in the $1.70 per gallon range, but Wednesday closed at $2.457 per gallon, the highest it has been since the early summer price spike in 2008 when it exceeded $2.80 per gallon.
The result of the ethanol industry’s demand for corn tightens down the supply, says University of Missouri marketing specialist Melvin Brees. In his Crop Report Commentary Brees says USDA economists raised corn use by 70 million bushels and 50 million of that was added to Read more…
The Coming Silver Accident
Theodore Butler
Perhaps “accident” may not be the precise word to describe what I see coming in silver. After all, Webster’s defines accident as “an unforeseen and unplanned event or circumstance.” While that definition certainly encompasses what I see ahead in the silver market, I need to add a qualifying adjective to complete my vision. That word is unavoidable. The silver market is headed towards an unavoidable accident.
This will not be like any accident you have ever witnessed or experienced. This is an accident you can fully prepare for, and greatly profit from. This coming silver accident could favorable and permanently alter your family’s standard of living and financial security. The great news is that preparations for this accident are simple and merely depend upon you applying common sense.
At the core of what makes the coming silver accident unavoidable is the immutable law of supply and demand. Supply and demand ultimately governs how all markets function. While some markets, including silver, can be artificially controlled or manipulated in price for long periods of time, eventually such manipulations must end if they are at odds with supply and demand.
Nothing has been more at odds with the basic law of supply and demand than the silver market. For many decades, the world has consumed more silver than it has produced. That has necessitated a draw down of previously produced silver – the existing inventories. There has never been a situation in any Read more…
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