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Food Prices Are Soaring Faster Than Inflation and Incomes

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Re: Food Prices Are Soaring Faster Than Inflation and Incomes

#151

Post by roenxi »

bondarchuk wrote: post #105
octodog wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

It isn't normally clear that someone just said [x]. HN is united only in interests; the usual crowd has a pretty broad range of cultural backgrounds and there enormous room to misinterpret people without body language. Twitter has sentences, HN has paragraphs. It is an improvement, but it isn't really a suitable format for discussion.

And in that vein, the most reasonable interpretation of the thread ancestor is "look, we've been through this sort of thing a couple of times in the last 7,000 odd years of recorded history - why does this all seem to be surprising to the people in charge and catching them unprepared?".

We know we've been here before, and it isn't that crazy to say the current state of the world looks like the prelude to WWI or WWII. Reading books like "The great depression: A diary" is a pretty decent idea. It would have been much more helpful if old mate had argued why there were similarities. Maybe with coaxing they would have. "Yikes. Things have really gone downhill around here. Stick to tech, folks." does not encourage anything half as productive as looking to the past for answers. There are bigger problems afoot in 2021 than tech.

Re: Food Prices Are Soaring Faster Than Inflation and Incomes

#152

Post by Robotbeat »

babesh wrote: post #122

I have been buying GSG for the last few weeks as a hedge. Beyond transient effects of COVID-19, more chaotic weather due to climate change seems to be wreaking havoc. Beyond that, our economy seems to be increasingly reliant of raw materials that are increasingly harder to extract or that we demand more and more of. For examples of climate havoc, look at the drought in Taiwan and the deep cold in Texas. For examples…

lithium Iron Phosphate batteries have improved to the point they’re good enough for entry level long-range electric cars (Tesla uses them sometimes), and iron is super duper common. Lithium and phosphate nearly so, as well. So I don’t really agree there.

Re: Food Prices Are Soaring Faster Than Inflation and Incomes

#153

Post by chii »

ceejayoz wrote: post #132
chii wrote: post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So why did't the poorer man buy the more expensive boots using a loan, and then pay it off over the life time of the boots? That would've prevented him from spending hundred dollars on bad boots over and over again. So i argue that it's poor planning.

To be clear, your question is "why don't poor people just get loans"?

The poor person paid out $100 over 10 years, for the equivalent goods that would've costed $50 in upfront capital (good shoes).

So an enterprising banker would be willing to lend this poor person $50, to be repaid with eight $10 installments yearly, for a total of $80 - a 60% return on investment (7.5% pa returns).

This would've kept the poor person's cashflow the same - $10 per year, and he'd have paid an extra $30 for the priviledge of the upfront capital, but saved $20 vs buying new shoes every year for $10, ten years straight.

If those shoes were so important, this would've been the way to do it, not buy a crappy pair every year that end up costing you more in the long run.

Edit: my main point is that financing is a potential way out for those who lack the capital, but is able to to handle the cashflow.

Re: Food Prices Are Soaring Faster Than Inflation and Incomes

#154

Post by mrfusion »

ketzu wrote: post #64
tinus_hn wrote: post #39

Turns out lockdowns aren’t free, even if you just don’t compensate businesses.

Was "lockdowns are free" a serious position held by a relevant number of people?

Lives over stock market was a big thing on the media.

Re: Food Prices Are Soaring Faster Than Inflation and Incomes

#155

Post by BostonEnginerd »

luxuryballs wrote: post #138
dijit wrote: post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are you kidding. There will be an insane recession, if not a depression. Capitalist economies have a short boom bust cycle and a long one. Short ones cause recessions every 10-20 years. Long ones cause depressions every 100~ years. It was clearly stated that Covid (if nothing else) could easily cause a recession, with other factors played in as well then it could easily trigger a depression.

These boom bust cycles are caused by fiat money, inflationary debt/spending, government stimulus and over regulation that causes false market signals and creates bubbles, it’s not a capitalism problem, capitalism would be the solution.

Weren’t there a number of long painful recessions in the US during the 1800s - when currency was tied to gold?

Re: Food Prices Are Soaring Faster Than Inflation and Incomes

#156

Post by onion2k »

thaumasiotes wrote: post #47
onion2k wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Did you respond in the wrong place? "More money" is a premise of "Most people in the western world aren't likely to buy more food, just because they have more money."

Yes, and my reply was to clarify that in some parts of the world COVID hasn't resulted in people having more money despite the government 'money printing machine' going in to overdrive.

Re: Food Prices Are Soaring Faster Than Inflation and Incomes

#157

Post by Cthulhu_ »

european321 wrote: post #150
xbmcuser wrote: post #33

As someone that is the food mostly spice trade prices have started going up in the last 2-3 weeks though prices have not even reached pre pandemic levels. Black Pepper prices have jumped 20+% in the last 20day that price is still 50% cheaper than what it was 4-5 years ago. The largest problem is not availablity of goods rather shipping. I would advise investing in shipping companies if you are active in the stock mar…

Most shipping companies in the stock market have rocketed in the past 2-3 months, so that opportunity has passed I think.

Common stock advice: if you hear about an investment opportunity, you've probably already missed out.

Ex: Bitcoin stocks (yes they're stocks / investment products) are only really reported on when they're at an all-time high. They may go up a little more if you're reading something fresh off the press, but it's not going to go up as much as it already has. I mean if you bought a year ago you could have had a 10x return on investment, if you invest now it'll be 10-20% return on investment at best.

Re: Food Prices Are Soaring Faster Than Inflation and Incomes

#158

Post by michael1999 »

babesh wrote: post #108
Uberphallus wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Modern capitalism usually moves the capital to labor. But you can’t move sunshine or soil, so modern agriculture moves the labor to the capital.

Re: Food Prices Are Soaring Faster Than Inflation and Incomes

#159

Post by Threeve303 »

RobertoG wrote: post #97
adflux wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure, almost all central banks over the world have printed an astronomical amount of money. Even though they may state there is no significant inflation, I dont buy it and neither do many other economists. Stock prices, house prices and now, at last, commodity prices have gone through the roof... But you're probably earning about as much as you were a year ago, or less, if your industry was affected... It's not just…

Inflation can be created, basically, by two things, an excess of demand respect to what the economy can produce or problems of supply. Personally, I'm surprise at how robust are the global supply chains that have been able to keep things more or less normal despise what we have been through the last year. The quantity of reserves created by the Central Banks are irrelevant if they are not spend in the economy. There…

The examples given above seem like a textbook definition of inflation inside of a closed loop economic system. That is not what the U.S. has and it’s definitely not the situation if a country has a reserve currency. The Triffin dilemma may hold the answer in that as you supply your currency to the rest of the world, you are creating local deflationary effects while essentially exporting inflation.

When the rest of the world begins using other systems than the reserve currency to conduct trade, the end result is that the inflation returns home as demand for your currency drops.

Re: Food Prices Are Soaring Faster Than Inflation and Incomes

#160

Post by ChuckNorris89 »

Cthulhu_ wrote: post #157
european321 wrote: post #150

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most shipping companies in the stock market have rocketed in the past 2-3 months, so that opportunity has passed I think.

Common stock advice: if you hear about an investment opportunity, you've probably already missed out. Ex: Bitcoin stocks (yes they're stocks / investment products) are only really reported on when they're at an all-time high. They may go up a little more if you're reading something fresh off the press, but it's not going to go up as much as it already has. I mean if you bought a year ago you could have had a 10x retu…

Pretty much this. Once the hype has reached the mainstream, the opportunity has peaked or already passed.
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