Food for thought in larder price
claim By The Mogambo Guru
Agora's 5-Minute Forecast quotes C Larry
Pope, CEO of Smithfield Foods (reckoned to be the
world's largest pork processor), as saying,
"There's going to be real food inflation in this
country," which is not news to me or anybody who
eats; then he says, "I think we need to tell the
American consumer that things are going up," like
we consumers are a bunch of stupid halfwits who
have not noticed that we are paying a lot more for
everything, and have been paying more for a long,
long time.
As part of my Assigned Mogambo
Duties (AMD) here on planet Earth, I am to make
disparaging noises when I think my Valuable
Mogambo Time (VMT) is being wasted, so as to
promote efficiency. So, per my mission parameters,
I made a big, noisy farting noise, as virtually
dictated under AMD, at my
assessment
of his
old "news", which I considered completely barren
and worthless, and thus a complete waste of time.
But it turns out that when he blandly said
that "things are going up" in price, he was just
laying a trap for me! Too late I realized what was
happening, and I revealed my ignorance of the
extreme nature of the price rises, as he says,
"We're seeing cost increases that we've never seen
in our business."
I immediately latched
onto that "never seen" phrase, as I still carry
the psychic scars of my teenage years, when I
invariably had to meet some girl's stupid parents,
and then I invariably had to listen to some crap
about how her stupid father had "never seen" such
a loser as me, or had "never seen" such a
worthless juvenile delinquent as me, or had "never
seen" such a dangerous psychopathic lunatic as me
and blah, blah, blah.
But price increases
of such magnitude that they have never been seen
before? And in the food business, which means that
prices for food will rise faster (and probably
higher) than at any time in history? Yikes! This
is too, too, too freaking much!
The next
thing I know, I am screaming out of the window:
"Prices for food are going to go higher, and
probably going to go higher than at any time in
history, you laughable halfwits who keep voting
for morons (except Ron Paul), to represent you in
Congress, who then let the Federal Reserve create
so excessively much money and credit that the
rises in prices will destroy you, and I am going
to laugh at you - hahaha! - as you crawl around in
the filthy gutter in your misery, and I hope I am
there to see your face when you realize that your
stupid trust and laughable ignorance in letting
the layers of fascist, socialistic, communistic
governments literally become the American economy,
and it cost you everything as the dollar went into
the crapper and things exploded in price! Hahaha!
Nice job of "democracy in action there, you
lowlife morons!"
Addison and Ian of the
Forecast obviously do not have any raving lunatics
in their families and are obviously embarrassed
about the "screaming out of the window" thing.
Their response is a little more calm: "Ahh
... inflation, the hidden tax, continuing in a
grocery store near you."
And if you don't
like those references, then check out the
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette headline "Pittsburgh-area
retail prices rise 3.4% in last half of '07",
which is a lot of price increases in half a year!
The funny thing is that the article also
remarked, "A market basket of goods and services
that averaged $100 in the early 1980s would have
cost Pittsburgh-area residents $203.30 in the
second half of 2007." You will no doubt notice the
smirk on my Stupid Mogambo Face (SMF), because
this only comes to 2.8% annual, compounding
inflation in prices over 25 years! Hahahaha!
Hell, Ben Bernanke of the Federal Reserve
is on record as saying that he wants inflation to
be about 2% a year! He calls it "inflation
targeting"! Hahahaha! We're freaking doomed
because this is crazy!
Okay, the point is
well taken that hearing a crazy man talk about
other people being crazy is probably not the best
evidence, but inflation in prices is supposed to
be zero or less! Not more! Inflation should be
zero or less! And yet here is the foul Federal
Reserve trying to cause inflation in prices!
I end the show with a heroic little scene,
where I am alone on the stage, and I majestically
raise one fist to the sky and proclaim, "Show me
the economics textbook that says that inflation
should not be zero! If not, then show me where
gold and silver are sold, because, brother, that's
the only thing that can save one's financial butt
from certain ruination!"
The applause was
not as thunderous as I had hoped, but the message
is clear; "inflation targeting" means that we're
freaking doomed!
Richard Daughty
is general partner and COO for Smith Consultant
Group, serving the financial and medical
communities, and the editor of The Mogambo Guru
economic newsletter - an avocational exercise to
heap disrespect on those who desperately deserve
it.
Republished with permission from
The Daily
Reckoning .
Copyright 2008, The Daily
Reckoning.
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Office: Unit B, 16/F, Li Dong Building, No. 9 Li Yuen Street East,
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