Currency Induced Cost Push Inflation / Hyperinflation... 

14% increase in wholesale food prices

From www.survivalblog.com

Inflation Watch:

Permalink
 

U.S. Companies Shrink Packages as Food Prices Rise.
Reader Bryan E. wrote to mention: "Over the weekend we had visitors who are in the wholesale food distribution business. They were relating that they had experienced a 14% increase in wholesale food prices during just the month of March. Here are some examples:

Item	Size	March 1st Price	April 1st Price
Sugar	55 lb.	$33	$37
Flour	50 lb.	$11	$16
Butter	30 lb.	$74	$91
Margarine	30 lb.	$17	$24
Catfish	15 lb.	$54	$89
Cheese	42 lb.	$2.55/lb	$2.91/lb

Restaurateurs are greatly concerned about how they are going to adjust for these major monthly price increases during a period of already slow business. Many imported food products now have limited availability because the home countries are retaining them for domestic use."

Reader J.D.D. sent this: Week Ahead: Inflation on the Mind

Bill in New York sent this: Prices at LDS canneries show inflation for food up between 11 and 49%. Here is a quote: "The LDS's raising food prices at their canneries by 11 to 49% in just three months should be a serious wake up call to all Americans on the true inflationary conditions that exist in our economy, and that we need to constantly look outside government reports for the true data affecting our spending and finances."

Zach L. sent this: Indiana Farm Bureau reports grocery prices up 4% (in First quarter of 2011.)

Gold’s Safe Haven Status Confirmed As "Risk Free" Status Of US Sovereign Debt Questioned

Submitted by Tyler Durden on 04/19/2011 06:57 -0400

Gold and silver closed higher yesterday (+0.45% and +0.65%) after S&P, somewhat belatedly, cut its outlook for the US from stable to negative. While the move seemed to surprise some, many market participants have been warning that this was inevitable for some time. Despite somewhat sensationalist reporting, gold did not surge, nor did equities “plummet”. However, both acted as they are expected to with more risky equities selling off internationally and safe haven gold rising marginally in all currencies. Gold was particularly strong in euros due to eurozone contagion fears and rose from €1,035/oz to over €1,050/oz. In dollar terms, soon after rising nearly $20 per ounce, gold gave up the gains with very determined selling seen at the $1,500/oz level. $1,500/oz will likely be reached in the coming days and the question is do we see profit taking and a correction at this level or does gold surprise most market participants again by continuing to rise to the $1,600/oz level.

The Primary Dealer - New York Fed Ponzi Circle Jerk Continues

Submitted by Tyler Durden on 04/19/2011 11:45 -0400

Exactly one week ago, we commented on what many said was a "strong" 3 Year auction primarily courtesy of a 57.4% primary dealer takedown. We also said: "Keep an eye on CUSIP QC7: it will be the most monetized 3 year paper by the Fed over the next 2 weeks." Today was the first POMO operation since last week's auction focusing on 3 year paper. We present the results of the $6.678 billion POMO below. They, and the 28% flip of the entire PD take down, speak for themselves. Bottom line - not so covert monetization continues in broad daylight, with Primary Dealers naturally getting their tip value for allowing the ponzi to continue, as everyone else praises the low interest rates on Treasurys, and says just how easy it will be for the Treasury to find Treasury buyers once Qe2 is over. One thing is certain: had PDs known they would have to hold on to these bonds instead of just collecting a hefty fee for flipping them back to the Fed, they would still have submitted bid...at far higher interest rates.

Help Break the Bankers' Price Suppression Schemes Against Gold & Silver

Greece Staring into the Abyss: Yields Soaring!

Watch Obama Address A Town Hall On Deficit Reduction

Submitted by Tyler Durden on 04/19/2011 10:32 -0400

Another day, another set of prepared remarks on deficit reduction, another lesson in the proper grammatical usage of the future tense from the president. Watch it live here.

112 Hedge Funds Scream In Pain As GM Drops To Fresh Post-IPO Low

Submitted by Tyler Durden on 04/19/2011 09:57 -0400

Nobody could have expected this. Certainly not the 112 hedge funds which hold GM stock on expectations the government, the Fed and GETCO would never let "that company" plunge this far. Next up: a congressional hearing for GETCO regarding charges of ponzi maintenance dereliction. As for the much touted "breakeven" on GM by the US government, the WSJ summarizes it best: "To break even, the U.S. Treasury would need to sell its remaining stake—about 500 million shares—at $53 apiece. GM closed off 27 cents a share at $29.97 in 4 p.m. trading Monday on the New York Stock Exchange, hitting a new low since its $33-a-share November initial public offering." Good luck with that: not even State Street can institute a short squeeze of such epic proportions.

Paul Farrell On The 10 "Doomsday Trends" Set To Destroy America

Submitted by Tyler Durden on 04/19/2011 09:22 -0400

Feeling like the daily dose of objective "truth" from Tim Geithner's latest media circuit has got you down? Fear not: here is MarketWatch's Paul Farrell summarizing the 10 ways in which the very system is destroying America, to lift your spirits up. To wit: "Doomsday Capitalism? Capitalism is killing America? Yes, that’s the message in my tenth book. “Doomsday Capitalism, 10 Self-Destructive Trends.” But you’ll never see it in print. No one, even book publishers want to read this truth: Capitalism is destroying America. Why? Super-Rich Capitalists get rich off these macro trends. They want happy talk. Back in 2007 Vanguard founder Jack Bogle called my warnings “prescient.” But that didn’t stop the meltdown. Next time financial historians warn of a bigger meltdown; a total collapse has been the destiny of every nation for eight centuries. This time, capitalism is the saboteur." Cheerful stuff.

Guest Post: Getting Off The Globalist Chessboard: An Introduction

Submitted by Tyler Durden on 04/19/2011 09:09 -0400

To put it simply, America is nearing a checkmate scenario. Like the final torrid maneuvers of a rigged chess match, we have been pressed, manipulated, and attacked into the last remaining corner of the “grand global chessboard” left to us; centralized control of all social and economic power into the hands of an unworthy elite. If we continue playing the game by their rules, we will lose. There is no doubt. There have been many solutions presented to us in the past to combat this development, but nearly all of them function within the constraints of Federal politics. Working within the system has earned us no quarter, and frankly, no results. Our only recourse (and, frankly, the best recourse all along) is to STOP relying on the rules of their game, and to walk away from the chess board completely. Globalization is essentially just another word for centralization, and the key to centralizing any system is to remove all options until the masses are completely and utterly dependent upon a single dominant paradigm. Globalists have deceived many Americans into believing that centralization is a “natural” process - that their game is indeed the only one in town. The widespread acceptance of the fiat monetary system is a perfect example of the average person’s unfortunate lack of economic flexibility. Only recently, in the face of dollar devaluation and complete financial collapse have many finally begun to question the legitimacy of a single brittle and corrupt economic structure. American politics are no different.

Canada Inflation Surges: Core Comes At 0.7% On 0.2% Consensus

Submitted by Tyler Durden on 04/19/2011 07:35 -0400

A surprise out of the Bank Of Canada, which just announced that despite expectations for CPI coming at a modest 0.6% and 0.2% for the core, inflation was a blistering 1.1%, and 0.7% ex-non core items. Has the inflation genie finally come out of the bottle in the northern neighbor? While Goldman attempts to talk down this "ugly report", attributing the spike to a short-lived commodity spike (that's that temporary word again), the currency market was not as easily fooled: USDCAD moved a good 50 pips from 0.963 to 0.958 in seconds, giving the dollar another push in the race to the global currency bottom.

As Greece Sells 3 Month Debt At Record 4.1% Yield, CreditSights Explains The Negative Downstream Effects Of A Greek Restructuring

Submitted by Tyler Durden on 04/19/2011 07:29 -0400

Even as Greek debt hits new and improved daily record highs each and every day, with the Bund spread for 10 years hitting a ridiculous 1,140, the country continues to pretend it has capital markets access. Although in theory it still does. Even with a Greek restructuring now virtually assured, although as the CreditSights note below notes this would be a political suicide event, the country still managed to sell €1.625 billion of 3 month Bills at the stunning rate of 4.10. Reuters reports: "Greece sold more than 1.6 billion of three-month debt on Tuesday, raising funds to roll over 800 million euros ($1.14 billion) of maturing government paper later in the month, with yields rising above 4 percent. It was priced to yield 4.10 percent, up 25 basis points from an auction in February and around the rate of about 4.2 percent Greece pays on its EU/IMF bailout loans." Yet even with the "attractive" yield the Bid To Cover plunged from 5.08 to 3.45, as the only bidders were banks themselves propped up by the ECB and China: according to PDMA foreign investors accounted for 36% of the issue.

S&P Downgrade Warning: Goldman Sachs Damage Control Part 2

Submitted by Tyler Durden on 04/19/2011 07:11 -0400

For all those who read the initial attempt at damage control from Jan Hatzius over the S&P warning yesterday, this follow up from Goldman's Alec Phillips will come as no surprise. To all those who may have missed the prompt note which came out after Mohamed El-Erian FT oped, the below will still not come as a surprise. Bottom line: "Although the US already appears to be on the edge of AAA territory by rating agency criteria and further deterioration of those measures seems likely, policy credibility is likely to be more important than the level of fiscal ratios at any given time. While enactment of major structural reforms to entitlement programs or the tax code look challenging in the next year, today’s announcement from S&P may on the margin increase the likelihood that Congress enacts one or more fiscal rules along with the increase in the debt limit, which we already viewed as a good possibility. The most likely change would be discretionary spending caps, which could apply for multiple years and would be difficult to undo once put in place. A second possibility is some version of the “failsafe” concept that President Obama proposed last week, which would require automatic reductions in spending and “tax expenditures” if by 2014 the debt to GDP ratio has not yet stabilized and is not projected to decline in the second half of the decade." Of course as those who followed our notes during the S&P conference call, to a rational man, none of the above would come as credible, therefore inevitably pushing the US to an AA handle by 2013. Of course, this little piece of theater is once again very much irrelevant in the grand scheme of things: by 2013 we will have much bigger issues on our hands.