Wednesday, August 22, 2012

The rising cost of food and energy

For those paying attention, the rise in the cost of food and gasoline over the summer has been dramatic. And it is going to get worse. Locally I have seen gasoline prices rise 40 cents in a little over a month. right now they are hover at $3.85 a gallon for regular unleaded and #4.15 for premium.

The same story is playing out in the grocery isles. Campbell's soup has risen to $1.75 a can for soups that were averaging 79 and 89 cents a can before Obama took office.

The story below demonstrates the urgency of the dilemma as corn and soy are in just about every aspect of our lives. And the EPA mandate to manufacture ethanol is going to really impact the food supply if those mandates are not dramatically reduced or eliminated.

Keep your eye on the staples in your grocery isles between now and the first of the year and watch the cost of gasoline. i am guessing that we will be over $4 a gallon long before Christmas and the cost of food will see a 30% increase by the first of the year.

So how are you liking the hope and change? Ready for four more years of it?


 Rows of corn severely damaged by widespread drought is left standing on August 16 for insurance adjusters to evaluate after the rest of the field was removed on a farm near Bruceville, Indiana. US corn and soybean prices closed at new record highs Tuesday as a new survey showed worse-than-expected crop damage from a brutal drought across the country's central breadbasket.
 Drought devastating crops and prices
US corn and soybean prices closed at new record highs Tuesday as a new survey showed worse-than-expected crop damage from a brutal drought across the country's central breadbasket.
The price of corn jumped 1.7 percent to $8.3875 a bushel, while soybeans finished at $17.3025 a bushel, up 2.8 percent from Tuesday.
That left the corn price up 68 percent from June and soybeans 39 percent higher.
An all-time record hot July accompanied by nearly three months of extreme drought have baked the country's prime farmland in the midwestern and central states, where the world's largest corn and soybean crops are grown.

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