Annual inflation in Kuwait has reached an all time high of 9.5% spurred by strong housing and food costs. Inflation is on the rise across the Gulf region with Saudi Arabia and Qatar at all-time highs. In Kuwait, the recent parliamentary regulations and central bank reforms created to aid the economy’s inflationary dillema has yet to show progress. In the December 2007 index, housing was a major factor effecting the figures.
“The currency basket will make a slight difference but not when you are facing such significant drivers… We hear about food prices rising by 60 and 70 percent for some items. It is a global issue”- Randa Azar-Khoury, National Bank of Kuwait
Previous inflation figures were as follows (chronological):
- October 7.26%
- November 6.68%
- December 7.54% (previous record)
- January 9.5% (new record)
“We hear about food prices rising by 60 and 70 percent for some items. It is a global issue”,
says Mrs Randa Azar-Khoury.
Thailand says nevertheless that the US dollar price of rice is too low.
April 26, 2008 18:34 PM
Thailand Wants Opec-like Cartel For Rice
By D.Arul Rajoo
http://web7.bernama.com/bernama/v3/news_world.php?id=329218
SNIP
BANGKOK, April 26 (Bernama) — With the rice price soaring in tandem with the skyrocketing oil price, Thailand’s largest enterprise has call on the government to form an Opec-like alliance on rice TO ELEVATE ITS PRICE.
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We can’t control the oil prices, so why do we have to fix domestic produce prices. We must allow prices of agricultural products to rise and therefore raise overall salaries of public sector officials accordingly,” said the head of the country’s biggest agro-industry conglomerate.
UNSNIP
The mainstream media prevent us from thinking in a logical way.
If you want to think, you must start with the facts
which you must analyse.
And on these facts you can try to apply your ideas
(but this presupposes that you have ideas).
You must not start with your ideas
and then distort the facts
in such a way that they suit your ideas.
Let me repeat,
the price of rice is at present going out of hand
because on international markets, rice is being traded for worthless US dollars.
Thailand wants to allow the US dollar prices of agricultural products to get even more out of hand.
This will only speed up the dollar’s demise.
Can you spell “dollar-induced famine”?
The US has been gaming the system for decades; sucking up two-thirds of the world’s capital to expand its cache of Cadillac Escalades and flat-screen TVs; giving nothing back in return except mortgage-backed junk, cluster bombs, and crummy green paper. Nothing changes; it only gets worse. But this is different. The world is now facing the very real prospect of “completely avoidable” famine because twelve doddering old banksters at the Federal Reserve would rather bailout their sketchy friends and preserve their spot at the top of the economic food-chain then save the lives of starving women and children. Bernanke now has an opportunity to do more damage than Bush with one swipe of the pen. If he cut rates; the dollar will fall, commodities will spike, and people will starve. It’s as simple as that.
(US Fed To Blame for Global Food Crisis Apr 26, 2008 - 03:09 PM By: Mike_Whitney
http://www.marketoracle.co.uk/Article4486.html
Henry Hazlitt, 1946
http://jim.com/econ/chap01p1.html
The art of economics consists in looking not merely at the immediate but at the longer effects of any act or policy; it consists in tracing the consequences of that policy not merely for one group but for all groups.