Rabid Liberal Rants

Let’s see, Bush says the country is not head into a recession.

Yet today, the market fell 315 pts on recession fears, oil pushed past $103 for the first time, the dollar hit another low against the euro, US Midwest manufacturing activity “plummeted” in February, consumer setiment slumped to a 16 year low.

Yep, Bush knows best.

Stagflation = Stagnation + Inflation. Which is where we are heading right now. It means, high prices for food and commodities, while at the same time, there’s no economic growth, no job growth. It also means, start saving. Hold off on big ticket items if they’re not necessary. Cut short the vacation, maybe start thinking about a backup if you lose your job. Reign in spending. Do you really need all those premium channels with your cable TV? Do you really need cable? Maybe you don’t need a land-line if you have a cell phone. Maybe it’s time to get a COSTCO or BJ’s membership and buy in bulk. Eat breakfast at home and bring your lunch to work. Don’t eat dinner our all the time.

Save money. The worst part of stagflation is that it makes it harder and harder to save any money. The more cash you have to call upon in an emergency, the less desperate or destitute you’ll be.

Food prices continue to go up due to more demand for grains, oil prices, and population growth in developing countries. Even my local bagel store had to raise bagel prices to $0.85. Wheat prices surged on Monday this week, and demand for soyoil/soybeans has been solid. Irwin Kellner comments in Marketwatch, explaining “Why it takes a lot more bread to buy dough these days”.

On the supply side, bad weather has affected key wheat-growing areas such as Australia and South America, cutting into harvests and thus reducing inventories. Another reason for reduced wheat supplies is that many farmers have diverted their land to biofuel crops, such as corn for ethanol.

As I as said in an earlier post, we’re in a recession. And according to some, it will only get worse. The problem is, the government continues to print money, without any backing, continues to borrow money (such as for the stimulus package), and the OPEC countries are migrating away from the dollar, and moving to the euro, to buy/sell oil.

It’s getting so bad, here in NYC, some tourist shops are accepting euros!!

Texans were out in force to protest the NAFTA Superhighway, officially known as the Trans Texas Corridor, I-69.

Here we go again. An opposition group, like the Iraqi National Congress that provided “shaky” intelligence on Saddam’s WMD program, says Iran is speeding up nuke plans, contradicting the U.S. National Intelligence Estimate report that said Iran halted their program in 2003.

Smells like another war front opening up. I predict it’ll happen before the end of summer, to redirect our attention away from the failing economy. Don’t forget the real reason we’re going to war with Iran.

Another article which explains why food prices are going up. From the Christian Science Monitor:

Two major trends have been pushing prices up faster than they have risen for more than 30 years. One is that increasingly prosperous consumers in India and China are not only eating more food but eating more meat. Animals have to be fed (grains, usually) before they are butchered. The other is that more and more crops – from corn to palm nuts – are being used to make biofuels instead of feeding people.

An excellent article which reiterates the point, that food prices are going up, because of corn being diverted from human consumption to ethanol production.

The amount of corn it takes to produce 75 litres of ethanol– roughly a tank of fuel– is enough corn to feed one person on a 2,000-calorie-a-day diet for a year

Of course, the Iowa Corn Promotion Board will be right there saying it’s not their fault.

Lou Dobbs talks about the North American Union

Paul Craig Roberts, Assistant Secretary of the Treasury in the Reagan Administration, writes about the dollar’s decline and what affect it might have if the government doesn’t clean up it’s act.