The cost of food

[chromedome]

48 minutes ago, Greg Jones said:

I’d be interested to know why Dr. Taber blames Wall Street for the wheat panic. Commodities are traded, and thus pricing is established, on the Chicago Board of Trade, not Wall Street. 

She gets into that in some of the sub-threads, if you follow it through. The gist of it is that the full-time grain traders engage in a fairly standard-issue form of profit-taking and fleecing the rubes, but the big panics happen when mainstream investors (ie, Wall Street) create a self-perpetuating panic that drives investors out of conventional vehicles (in unsettled times) and into commodities. If you follow back through her threads on the subject you'll see a link to a study of this kind of bubble, as it happened in the 2008-2009 meltdown. 

[heidih]

Kind why theyare called "financial markets" plural - highy linked in various ways. As consumers we are "candles in the wind"

[cdh]

Also, for everybody who doesn't work on the literal Wall Street, "Wall Street" is easy shorthand for "the financial services industry". Most of New York's "Wall Street"  (that hasn't jumped across the river to Jersey City or up to Connecticut) is in midtown now anyway... the only relevant  things near literal Wall Street are NYSE (which is on Broad Street, anyway) and the offices of a few of the traders who hold seats there.

 

Perhaps we might want to talk about the tax advantaged status of owning great swaths of midwestern farmland now, and how it has become an asset sink for risk averse fincancial managers.... Wonder why Bill Gates owns as many acres there as he does, no? 

Edited March 26, 2022 by cdh (log)

[kayb]

Largest farm owner in the Arkansas Delta is Prudential.

[heidih]

• And we are facing a grocery clerk strike in So Cal. Autorized but not called yet. Major chain(s) Ralphs,  Albertsons, Vons, Pavillions...

[chromedome]

Once more, for anyone who hasn't seen the figures yet...

 

https://www.thestar.com/business/2022/04/07/profiting-from-inflation-two-new-reports-show-companies-are-making-billions-by-pushing-prices-higher.html

[weinoo]

Or...to put it another way...

 

https://robertreich.substack.com/p/truth-about-inflation?s=r

[palo]

To my mind, if the price of one thing goes up, for whatever reason, then everything else in that train should go up, regardless of whether they are already making billions in profit.

 

So if Pepsi, or whoever is making billions in profit and someone down flow raises their prices to Pepsi 10% then why shouldn't  Pepsi do the same???

 

Thought, you budget $20 for a meal, then invite a date so now it's $40, are you astounded at the price increase? Are you indignant? Do you think it's unfair?

 

Grow up - it's life!

 

p

[weinoo]

1 hour ago, palo said:

Thought, you budget $20 for a meal, then invite a date so now it's $40, are you astounded at the price increase? Are you indignant? Do you think it's unfair?

 

Well, if I buy 2 Pepsis, I do expect it to cost double, and that's fair. 

 

But I don't really think that's the complaint here. If there is a complaint.

[weinoo]

1 hour ago, palo said:

Thought, you budget $20 for a meal, then invite a date so now it's $40,

 

Also, where are you taking your dates?  And do you ever get a second one?

[heidih]

As an older American I have lived through inflationary cycles, economic crises. Gas? We stood in line during the "energy crisis". I don't think you can tease politics, global finance, big biz practices and all that apart. And this is not a forum for that.  Just tryng to deal what is in front of me now. I am not an activist nor do I have any inout into policy making.  I don't think consumer activity on an individual level is of much impact. Carry on. Another cycle will emerge. I know food and cooking and I can make a feast with little if need be.

[JoNorvelleWalker]

1 hour ago, heidih said:

As an older American I have lived through inflationary cycles, economic crises. Gas? We stood in line during the "energy crisis".

 

But stood in line, at least in New Jersey, only on alternate days -- depending on whether your license plate ended in an odd or even number.  In line sometimes for hours and hours.  And hours.  If you were in line on the wrong day, tough luck.

 

However this was about gas shortages, not about the cost of gas.  Albeit at the time gas prices were egregious.  Driving is highly overrated.

 

When it comes to food I can find few local shortages, limes of course excepted.  As an older American of limited means I wish food prices were less expensive.  Nonetheless I don't understand why in America food is as inexpensive as it is.  I thank the Lord that I can drink and eat.  On most days pretty well.

 

 

[heidih]

6 minutes ago, JoNorvelleWalker said:

 

 

When it comes to food I can find few local shortages, limes of course excepted.  As an older American of limited means I wish food prices were less expensive.  Nonetheless I don't understand why in America food is as inexpensive as it is.  I thank the Lord that I can drink and eat.  On most days pretty well.

 

 

We are a tiny bit spoiled with low food prices. Visitors from Europe and my sis from Oz just shake their heads on both food & gas

[rotuts]

As I understand it :

 

Beef prices ' on the hoof '  are at seady,  fairly consistent price 

 

about $ 1 / lbs ,and have been for some time .

 

The Meat Packing Cabal  ( three very large Cabalistas )

 

have been raising the price of processed beef

 

the Hoofers have started their own processing plant(s)

 

to bring a little more of that Mignon back to their table and their community.

 

ref :  WSJ  more or less .

 

and of course , representative Noise Makers 

 

made the appropriate amount of noise

 

and ,as usual , moved right on to something else 

Edited April 10, 2022 by rotuts (log)

[chromedome]

An amusing sidebar to the whole theme...

 

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/may/18/florence-coffee-bar-customer-calls-police-over-price-of-espresso

[liuzhou]

10 hours ago, chromedome said:

An amusing sidebar to the whole theme...

 

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/may/18/florence-coffee-bar-customer-calls-police-over-price-of-espresso

 

The funniest thing for me was that some clown commenting on Facebook thought the FBI is based in London!

[gfweb]

34 minutes ago, liuzhou said:

 

The funniest thing for me was that some clown commenting on Facebook thought the FBI is based in London!

Probably a Scot.

[liuzhou]

9 minutes ago, gfweb said:

Probably a Scot.

 

As a Scot, I very much doubt it!

[MetsFan5]

ShopRite in NJ is charging over $3 for one single zucchini. It isn’t a magical one. It’s a simple, normal sized zucchini. I refuse to buy it on principle. 
 

  I haven’t experienced inflation such as it currently is as an adult and I’m honestly bewildered. 
 

 A Progresso can of soup is over $4. 
 A can of condensed Campbell’s chicken and stars (my go to comfort food) is over $3. 
 

Since I am moving to an apartment I can’t really buy much of anything in bulk; I simply lack the space. I am fortunate that I can afford these highly inflated prices should I choose to but I can’t bring myself to do so. 
 

 But many people do not have the luxury of the choices I can make. My mind is just blown. It’s shameful. 

[rotuts]

saw the above early today

 

went to MarketBaskt 6:30  AM :

 

Progresso soups are 2 /$ 5

 

MB makes each morn9ng 

 

a sausage/egg/cheese/muffin

 

much much better than McD  

 

better ingredients.

 

usually 1.99   sometimes sale , in the past , 1.49

 

this week they went up to $ 2.49.

 

still a bargain.  but that's a 25 % increase.

 

mushroom gravy has not changed

 

Gr turkey has also gone way up.

[Annie_H]

7 hours ago, MetsFan5 said:

ShopRite in NJ is charging over $3 for one single zucchini. It isn’t a magical one. It’s a simple, normal sized zucchini. I refuse to buy it on principle. 

That is nuts. I doubt you are the only consumer that will pass that up and then tossed out. Always disturbing seeing the big garbage cans on wheels where the re-stock employees would have to toss out the less-than-fresh produce.

 

The year leading up to the holidays 2019, cauliflower was 7$ a head no mater the size. I just wanted a small one as DH doesn't care for it. No way would I pay that. I've been getting big ones at Misfits for 3-4$. Tossed in chili crisp and roasted he likes it now. 

 

Once settled you might try Misfits. My fulfillment center is in NJ near Philadelphia. The prices are 2017-18. They have gone up recently by 25-50 cents across the board but still good prices. Yellow and green summer squash are about 1.20 each and if small they always toss in extra. They have a few non-organic items now. This week they have 4 cans of a few varieties of Campbells soups. 4 pack for 4.99. No need to purchase bulk. Just what you want. 

I order twice a month, every other Sunday. Yesterday's order...(once a month I purchase a 'cold pack'.) They offer just two apples, pears, two lemons, two avocados, etc. No bulk bags necessary. 

[JoNorvelleWalker]

14 hours ago, MetsFan5 said:

ShopRite in NJ is charging over $3 for one single zucchini. It isn’t a magical one. It’s a simple, normal sized zucchini. I refuse to buy it on principle. 

 

I visited my local Shoprite this afternoon.  Zucchini and other summer squashes were selling for $1.49 per pound.  I weighed the largest zucchini that I saw.  It was three quarter pound, and thus about $1.12.  Any zucchini of a size that I would buy would have been half that.

 

In other economic news lime prices have returned to pre-pandemic levels.

 

[weinoo]

My guess is that there is some gouging going on.  I don’t see the profit of these large companies doing anything but going up…that includes Wakefern, which owns Shop-Rite. Privately held, so we are unable to see annual reports; however, they do close to $20 billion in sales yearly.

[JoNorvelleWalker]

14 minutes ago, weinoo said:

My guess is that there is some gouging going on.  I don’t see the profit of these large companies doing anything but going up…that includes Wakefern, which owns Shop-Rite. Privately held, so we are unable to see annual reports; however, they do close to $20 billion in sales yearly.

 

But Shoprite is a franchise operation.  Unless things have changed different Shoprite stores have different prices, and they do not necessarily honor each other's sales and coupons.

 

[haresfur]

The floods in the northern East coast of Australia have wiped out a lot of the vegetable crop, particularly lettuce and the ground has been too wet to plant more. So we get widely varying prices of different veg and probably some gouging - a friend posted a picture of of snap peas from China that were going for over $30/kg.

 

It reminds me of when the banana crop was wiped out by a cyclone and bananas were up to $19/kg. I went on a trip to the US and went into Costco to buy 3 lbs of bananas a $0.39/lb, then sat in the parking lot and ate as many as I could.