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Politics : Formerly About Advanced Micro Devices -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: combjelly who wrote (371876)	2/25/2008 12:28:54 AM
From: tejek	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 1578695

Fish meal is commonly used as a protein supplement for a variety of uses, like animal feed. Soybeans can be used also. But, by the early 1970s, soybeans were being used for a lot of other things, too. So when the fish meal went away, there was strong pressure to substitute soybeans. But, that meant all those other uses for soybeans got starved. And the repercussions were enormous. Yes, but fertilizer is just one aspect of the current farm problem and escalating prices.......today, its not only the fertilizer that's going up in price.....but its also the stuff going into the making of fertilizers such as natural gas which has started to spiral up in the last few months. If you have any doubt, look at the charts of traditional fertilizer companies: clearstation.etrade.com That in and of itself is bad enough but the actual food crop and livestock feed is being diverted from homes and cattle farms to ethanol production. Farmers are selling all they can produce and more......farm equipment companies like Deere are booming. Look at the price of corn over the past 7 years.....you can see the spike up starting in late 2006 going into 2007. futures.tradingcharts.com It takes about 6 months for increasing prices to percolate through the economy and start to be felt as inflation. Now check out cattle: futures.tradingcharts.com And then there is wheat......its inflationary spike started later.....more in 2007 when global shortages developed: futures.tradingcharts.com These jumps in the prices of cattle, corn, and wheat are spreading to oats, barley, rice and soybeans. Food prices are going through the roof and the supermarket margins are getting destroyed. So its not just oil.......in fact, oil may be the lesser of the two problems. And as I posted to JF, I don't think inflation is really the worst problem......its this deflationary downward spiral that is freezing up the credit markets and reducing liquidity in the economy. So then, I can see where there are similarities between the 1970's and the present but there are a lot of dissimilarities as well. For that reason, I don't think its wise to paint them with the same brush. Just IMO.