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Food Prices Are Soaring Faster Than Inflation and Incomes

bloomberg.com

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Re: Food Prices Are Soaring Faster Than Inflation and Incomes

#101

Post by azalemeth »

swarnie_ wrote: post #68
azalemeth wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In the UK at least, it's very much due to new-found export (and import) restrictions. The price of food has slightly increased since brexshit, whereas its availability has plummeted: the number of varieties of vegetables stocked by my local Tesco, for example, has plummeted, and the stock sells out almost immediately after delivery.

> the number of varieties of vegetables stocked by my local Tesco, for example, has plummeted, and the stock sells out almost immediately after delivery. Are you in a really shitty area or something? I only saw what you described in the first week of lockdown one. Nothing has noticeably changed in my local Morrisons for the last few months.

I'm in an urban area that perhaps is a bit poorer than some others nearby, yes. The bigger out-of-town supermarkets have better stock but my usual urban Tesco (and to a lesser extent the two Sainsbury's Locals nearby) just don't have that much stock. It changed a lot in Lockdown 1 and hasn't really recovered.

Re: Food Prices Are Soaring Faster Than Inflation and Incomes

#102

Post by aembleton »

azalemeth wrote: post #7
z92 wrote: post #5

I don't get how food consumption can increase in a pandemic. Should be constant in or outside a pandemic situation. Possibly somewhere crops are getting rotten because of newly imposed export restrictions, or for some other things.

In the UK at least, it's very much due to new-found export (and import) restrictions. The price of food has slightly increased since brexshit, whereas its availability has plummeted: the number of varieties of vegetables stocked by my local Tesco, for example, has plummeted, and the stock sells out almost immediately after delivery.

Tesco here in Greater Manchester doesn't seem to have been impacted by availability. Where about in the country have you experienced this? Have you tried a different supermarket?

Aldi, Lidl, M&S, Morrisons and the local greengrocer all seem the same as usual here.

Re: Food Prices Are Soaring Faster Than Inflation and Incomes

#103

Post by grumple »

DecoPerson wrote: post #4

After reading this article, I want to stock up on more food for myself and my five dependents. Double our reserves of biscuits, cereals, frozen meat, frozen bread, canned food, preserves, long-life milk, honey, multivitamins, MREs, etc etc. Is this panic buying? Is it OK? Does it hurt other people? I’d be interested to hear some different points of view.

> After reading this article, I want to stock up on more food for myself and my five dependents.

You should always have some amount of food reserves. Space allowing, at least a few days of food. Canned and dry goods with long shelf lives - eat the oldest of this first during regular usage and refresh the stock so you don't end up with 5 year old canned goods.

> Is this panic buying?

A little, yes. There's not much risk of long-term food insecurity in the first world (at least not in the US). There are occasionally disasters that affect us short term - think hurricanes, floods, electricity outages, earthquakes, winter storms in Texas. I'd advise being able to get through those.

> Is it OK? Does it hurt other people?

It can hurt others. At the beginning of the pandemic there was a lot of panic buying. Part of that was an overreaction, part profiteerism, part of it was the world being unready to pivot to consumer goods (like with toilet paper). Do it gradually. Don't go out and buy out a canned goods section at your local supermarket.

Re: Food Prices Are Soaring Faster Than Inflation and Incomes

#104

Post by [deleted] »

octodog wrote: post #83
blazespin wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"We are following it step for step". Really? Top voted comment on Hacker News? Yikes. Things have really gone downhill around here. Stick to tech, folks. "During the early 1920s, for example, prices dropped a total of 20%. And during the worst years of the Great Depression, from 1930 to 1933, prices fell a total of 25%" I mean, the title of the article was even : "Food Prices Soar Globally" If you want to be a doomer…

The snark in this comment is completely unnecessary. It is better for everyone if you make your point in a more constructive manner.

[deleted]

Re: Food Prices Are Soaring Faster Than Inflation and Incomes

#105

Post by bondarchuk »

octodog wrote: post #83
blazespin wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"We are following it step for step". Really? Top voted comment on Hacker News? Yikes. Things have really gone downhill around here. Stick to tech, folks. "During the early 1920s, for example, prices dropped a total of 20%. And during the worst years of the Great Depression, from 1930 to 1933, prices fell a total of 25%" I mean, the title of the article was even : "Food Prices Soar Globally" If you want to be a doomer…

The snark in this comment is completely unnecessary. It is better for everyone if you make your point in a more constructive manner.

Rant incoming.

I, for one, appreciate it. This thing on HN where you have to beat around the bush and phrase your sentences objectively and in a general way, when everybody knows that you are just talking about a specific instance, saying things like "if you [x] then someone may respond [y]" when it is clear that someone literally said [x] so you can just say [y] in reply.. All that stuff is incredibly tiring to read IMHO. If you just want to call out someone's bullshit you should be able to do so in a straightforward manner and in a tone that corresponds with "calling out someone's bullshit".

If we could just be a little bit more honest here I think it would be an improvement.

Re: Food Prices Are Soaring Faster Than Inflation and Incomes

#106

Post by makomk »

onion2k wrote: post #42
thaumasiotes wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Most people in the western world aren't likely to buy more food, just because they have more money. If you have more money and you use it to buy more food, that's not inflation. Inflation is when you have more money and you use it to buy the same amount of food. Give people more money, and you will see the price of everything rise without seeing the amount of stuff they buy go up.

Give people more money, and you will see the price of everything rise without seeing the amount of stuff they buy go up. In the specific case of COVID in the UK, people have been given money to replace the money they would have earned. The people don't have extra money. The system hasn't changed except for the fact that the money is coming from the government instead of the their employer.

People have been given money to replace the amount they would've earned, but the work they would've done hasn't happened. All of the goods and services they would've produced no longer exist. The government tried to make up for the fact that large amounts of the real economy were shuttered by printing money, with predictable results.

Re: Food Prices Are Soaring Faster Than Inflation and Incomes

#107

Post by blablabla123 »

octodog wrote: post #83
blazespin wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"We are following it step for step". Really? Top voted comment on Hacker News? Yikes. Things have really gone downhill around here. Stick to tech, folks. "During the early 1920s, for example, prices dropped a total of 20%. And during the worst years of the Great Depression, from 1930 to 1933, prices fell a total of 25%" I mean, the title of the article was even : "Food Prices Soar Globally" If you want to be a doomer…

The snark in this comment is completely unnecessary. It is better for everyone if you make your point in a more constructive manner.

Okay but this was the start of some pretty dark times, so I think it's necessary to be historically accurate here which is not the case. The great depression followed the first more or less industrialized war, also the geo-political situation was a completely different one.

Re: Food Prices Are Soaring Faster Than Inflation and Incomes

#108

Post by babesh »

Uberphallus wrote: post #75
a_bonobo wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Here in Australia, some food prizes are up because the farming industry relies on cheap backpacker labor. Borders are shut so no backpackers come in, so a lot of fruit died on the field. https://www.nytimes.com/2021/03/02/world/australia/agricultu... It should be noted that the entire industry is notorious for doing every dodgy thing they can get away with, wage theft, rent theft, extreme conditions, so local workers…

Most cereal, corn, and even some fruit harvest is highly mechanized, whereas many other types of produce require manual labor, so it's really not surprising. In Europe, there are seasonal harvests that require surges of workers, who are sometimes legal and sometimes not. For example loads of foreign workers flock to the vineyards in France, Italy or Spain to collect the grapes for winemaking. It's around 3 weeks of w…

It’s amazing to me that the EU behaves a lot like the US in this regard. Same with Australia. I had no idea.

Re: Food Prices Are Soaring Faster Than Inflation and Incomes

#109

Post by j4yav »

octodog wrote: post #83
blazespin wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"We are following it step for step". Really? Top voted comment on Hacker News? Yikes. Things have really gone downhill around here. Stick to tech, folks. "During the early 1920s, for example, prices dropped a total of 20%. And during the worst years of the Great Depression, from 1930 to 1933, prices fell a total of 25%" I mean, the title of the article was even : "Food Prices Soar Globally" If you want to be a doomer…

The snark in this comment is completely unnecessary. It is better for everyone if you make your point in a more constructive manner.

I didn’t really read it as snark. It has historically been pretty shocking here to find a top comment so confidently wrong and just seemingly totally made up (farmers going bankrupt just like the Great Depression.. because food prices are going up?), and it’s fair to directly call it out. It wasn’t done in any particularly mean way as best I can tell.
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