In today's San Antonio Express News there's a story about a local clothes making business that is feeling the pinch of rising cotton prices. She pretty much has to pass most of the price increase on down to her customers, because there's no way to cut enough costs anywhere else. The National Cotton Council of America says the proce of a pound of cotton has gone up to nearly $2.30/lb from $.86/lb a year ago. Some of that is due to bad weather, and increased demand, and some is due to farmers switching to corn for ethanol production. And some is due to the falling value of the dollar, courtesy of the the Fed's QE2 policy. We import some cotton you know, and it's more expensive these days to do that.
The link below describes rising prices in other basic commodities, such as beef, pork, grains, diapers, and paper products, at a time when wages are not going up much if at all. Seems obvious that the spin we're getting from the Fed and the WH that inflation is under control is somewhat suspect.
http://finance.yahoo.com/banki...od=bb-budgeting
Then there's this snippet from Newsweek, which notes that the vauleof the US dollar is down 17% relative to other currencies since 2009.
" To this, the Fed has a stock response. It points to the all-urban consumer price index (CPI-U) and notes that it was up only 2.7 percent in March relative to the same month a year earlier. Strip out the costs of food and energy, and "core CPI"the Feds preferred measureis just 1.2 percent. When Google unveils its new index of online prices, its likely to tell a similar story
And the reason the CPI is losing credibility is that, as economist John Williams tirelessly points out, its a bogus index. The way inflation is calculated by the Bureau of Labor Statistics has been "improved" 24 times since 1978. If the old methods were still used, the CPI would actually be 10 percent. Yes, folks, double-digit inflation is back. Pretty soon youll be able to figure out the real inflation rate just by moving the decimal point in the core CPI one place to the right. "
http://www.newsweek.com/2011/0...cker-shock.html
The link below describes rising prices in other basic commodities, such as beef, pork, grains, diapers, and paper products, at a time when wages are not going up much if at all. Seems obvious that the spin we're getting from the Fed and the WH that inflation is under control is somewhat suspect.
http://finance.yahoo.com/banki...od=bb-budgeting
Then there's this snippet from Newsweek, which notes that the vauleof the US dollar is down 17% relative to other currencies since 2009.
" To this, the Fed has a stock response. It points to the all-urban consumer price index (CPI-U) and notes that it was up only 2.7 percent in March relative to the same month a year earlier. Strip out the costs of food and energy, and "core CPI"the Feds preferred measureis just 1.2 percent. When Google unveils its new index of online prices, its likely to tell a similar story
And the reason the CPI is losing credibility is that, as economist John Williams tirelessly points out, its a bogus index. The way inflation is calculated by the Bureau of Labor Statistics has been "improved" 24 times since 1978. If the old methods were still used, the CPI would actually be 10 percent. Yes, folks, double-digit inflation is back. Pretty soon youll be able to figure out the real inflation rate just by moving the decimal point in the core CPI one place to the right. "
http://www.newsweek.com/2011/0...cker-shock.html