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Strategies & Market Trends : 2026 TeoTwawKi ... 2032 Darkest Interregnum -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: KyrosL who wrote (22241)	9/10/2007 5:54:47 PM
From: Mike da bear	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 217616

Doesn't your tax comparisons with japan ignore the taxes in the US done by states and cities? 4% sales tax on top of 8% already in California as one example.

To: KyrosL who wrote (22241)	9/11/2007 2:46:33 AM
From: energyplay	Respond to of 217616

I would expect US tax rate should be low. There should be some economies of scale - Australia has 20 million people, Canada has 36 million, the US 300 million. But they all need a Weather service, a Supreme Court, Weights and Measures, Radio frequency regulation, Map making, etc. The US should be able to spread this out over 300 million people and a much larger tax base. Even on the transfer payment side - social security, etc. - the large GDP should help keep that bite down. *********** Let me leave military and foreign aid (bribes) for another time. That leaves vested interests, WAYO, waste, and lots of non-sense. Bridges to nowhere, agencies like the FDA which are poorly run, agricultural regulation. It will take considerable political will, like the Base Closing Commission which picked which military bases to close, to beat back some of these weeds of waste and fraud.

To: KyrosL who wrote (22241)	9/11/2007 12:20:05 PM
From: elmatador	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 217616

US wheat prices risen by nearly 50% in the past few months alone, while the market price of dairy products rose 46% in the six months to April. The demographic window causes growth people eat more and better diets. Man! I want to make everyone here rich!! City focus: Rising cost of food Tamsin Brown, Daily Mail 14 August 2007, 9:10am Does the weekly supermarket shop seem to be creating an ever bigger dent in your bank balance? If so, there is a simple reason why. pany name or ticker to get price The cost of essential food items such as a loaf of bread or half a dozen eggs has been rising - and there are plenty of catalysts to send it even higher. US wheat prices hit an 11-year high last week and have risen by nearly 50% in the past few months alone, while the market price of dairy products rose 46% in the six months to April. Fortunately the average consumer is not having to stomach quite that level of hyper-inflation. Even so, in April, the cost of filling a supermarket trolley accelerated at its fastest pace in nearly six years. So why is food becoming more expensive? A changing diet in developing countries is one factor. As the Chinese become wealthier, they are finding a larger appetite for meat and dairy products. A shorter-term but crucial factor this year has been the appalling weather: be it the floods in northern Europe or the drought in major wheat exporter Australia. David Page, economist at Investec Securities, said: 'Most of the world's growing basins have had extreme weather conditions. The common theme is crops have been destroyed over the period and we have concluded that food prices must rise.' The growth of green biofuels is another ingredient as fields of wheat and other crops formerly sold for food are converted to grow alternative energy supplies. The latest inflation report from the Bank of England pointed out: 'Ethanol production in the United States is estimated to account for around a fifth of its maize use, compared with 5% a decade ago. And the share is projected to increase to 30% over the next ten years.' One economist put it more bluntly: 'Ethanol is effectively robbing that land from agricultural produce.' It's not just the consumer that has been feeling the pain. The rise in energy prices has also made the cost of producing food more expensive as it inflates transport and machinery bills. Cadbury Schweppes has found chocolate has become dearer to make as it forks out more for milk. Premier Foods, maker of Hovis bread, said in July that it expected to have to pass on further rises in wheat prices. Morgan Stanley has downgraded its view on the European food sector to 'cautious', partly because of the commodity cost pressures. Relative to overall inflation, supermarket prices have risen faster in the UK than in most other countries. Karen Ward, economist at HSBC, said: 'There has been a lot of talk about the emergence of China and India to the global economy and the impact on supply but I don't think that's all of the story. In the UK, it is partly a supermarket story.' It would appear the big four - Tesco, Asda, Sainsbury's and Morrisons - may have been squeezing consumers' wallets more than necessary. The BoE inflation report concludes prices may have been raised in an attempt to 'boost retailers' profits as demand strengthened'. Economic think-tank the OECD reckons structural changes such as increased demand for feedstock from biofuel producers could keep food prices above their historic averages over the next decade. Not only does the biofuel boom underpin cereal prices, it also makes the cost of feeding a herd of cattle more expensive and therefore impacts meat and milk markets as well. There may be some short-term relief, however. Over the next few months a new price war between Asda and Tesco could take the pressure off. And as you stand at the tills baulking at your total, spare a thought for hard-pressed shoppers in China, where the price of pork has jumped 45% and egg prices are up 31%.