Saturday, February 12, 2011

Who do you BELIEVE?

The US government and Ben Bernanke claim that inflation in our country is low and under control. How low? According to them it is at 1.5%. Funny, the rising stock market is being led by the surging price of commodities. Here is what 1.5% inflation looks like according to the latest Wall Street stats: Cotton is up 146%, Coffee is up 90%, Corn is up 87%, Wheat is up 80%, Soybeans is up 58% and Live Cattle is up 25%. Gas? Every time you refill you know you face an empty wallet or a credit rejection to one of your charge cards. Last year, it was high at around $2.50 per gallon and this January it is over $3.00 per gallon and in an uptrend. Of course, Ben and the government don't need energy or food and that explains their attitude.
However, Kraft Food and Sara Lee(and nobody doesn't like Sara Lee)claim that they have to raise the price of their products because of the rise in commodities or they will lose money for their shareholders.
So, who you gonna call? GhostBusters?
P.S. By the way the government revealed on a back page that 215,000 fewer jobs were created than originally calculated in 2010. And it takes at least 150,000 new jobs per month just to keep up with the population growth. What was January's figure again? Oh, yeah, 36,000 and the stock market keeps rising.