Now if I could just figure out how to tenderize an LCD flat panel.

Two issues that seem to have come to the fore are fuel cost and fuel cost. The reason I repeated myself is that there is so much grain going into biofuels, grain that should/could be used to feed people that it's causing a "hyper-inflationary" rise in other food costs. Livestocks are fed a significant diet of corn, which is being diverted to "fuel" production. This has been a windfall for ADM and Cargill. Biofuels would much better serve us, if they were made from non-food sources like sawgrass.

 

The price of soft drinks has as much as doubled in some cases in our area. Again, a direct result of the shortage of corn syrup to sweeten it and the cost of fuel to make/deliver it. Everything has gotten ridiculously expensive. If we're complaining, imagine how bad it really is for most families.

As an aside, I predict that ethanol will go down in history as one of government's giant clusterf***s just like MTBE and several others.

 

J/K

The price of crude settled at 117.46 yesterday. OMFG!!!! Gas prices are just going higher and higher.

 

But it works great in open-wheel race cars.

 

I filled up mama's car yesterday and regular unleaded was 3.53.

 

^^ To overuse sawgrass could create an ecological disaster as well. I had no idea how many creatures depend on sawgrass for food and their habitat until I toured a marsh habitat last year. Our desire to transport ourselves quickly from place to place and our perceived need for every person to own at LEAST one form of motor transport is definitely contributing to a soaring cost of living. We transporting ourselves out of existence.

 

If you think prices for food and fuel is bad now, just wait till this fall! Last year more than 92 million acres of corn was planted, the most ever planted. Our Goverment offered incentives for farmers to plant it feeling that ethanol would help offset petrol prices. A minimal amount of wheat and other grains where planted, because of then lower prices offered. And to make matters worse worldwide their is a shortage of wheat and countries like China are buying up wheat.
Sadly much of our food grains is earmarked for fuel that will never be refined and will spoil.

Don't blame the farmer, he saw a way to make a profit (a rare thing) which was guaranteed by the U.S. Goverment. If anyone is to blame it's a Goverment that puts more importance on the refining of ethanol than it does on more and newer petroleum refineries.

All of the farmers major imputs are up significantly, I use a minimal amount of fertilizer/chemicals on my operation, but fertilizer is double what it was last year. And like you, diesel fuel ( currently $3.70/gallon farm diesel) is killing profitability.

Look for higher prices on all commodities, if you can plant your own vegetable garden and stop paying for that high priced heating oil, it's just diesel fuel sold under a different name!

 

after reading your post I took a quick look at futures and then got a historical record.



yowza yowza yowza....

I shoulda been buying corn futures.

 

It's not the family/small business farmer that's causing this. It's agribusiness, and a lack of foresight.

Thanks for the insight Val, I thought that there was a way to cultivate the sawgrass in "inhospitable" areas. The lack of mass transit infrastructure has exacerbated our problems for certain. The government has tried to kill Amtrak a number of time in the past not so many years, at a time when they should be trying to expand it.

Google "food riots" and see how many places in the world don't have enough food, it's going to get very ugly.

 

lack of foresight???

Can you say deliberate planning.
Do you think Archer Daniels Midland was sponsoring David Brinkley for all those years as an act of charity?

I seem to recall a report that the CEO for ADM had a condo in the same building as Brinkley and a half a dozen other senators, and some congressmen.

this has been a carefully crafted strategy for a very long time.