Ok, so I've got a few questions. Bascially, inflation is out of control. It's not under control, like the fed reserve would like us to think. They've basically changed the way that they calculate inflation so that we don't get too frightened and think, crap, inflation is out of control.
Health care costs are rising at least 10% a year.
"Crude foodstuffs and feedstuffs" are up 18.8% since the same time LAST YEAR.
A barrel of oil is up 100% since 2003.
Those are just the ones that I remember the numbers for. There's much more (see
http://bigpicture.typepad.com/comments/ ... _of_i.html and related links)
So this is trouble. We're creating less jobs than there are new workers (which means that in real terms, we're actually losing jobs), the housing market is still tanking, retailers are doing badly, the dollar is doing badly, the stock market is seeing the beginnings of its own bubble bursting, and prices on everything are rising.
And that's just us. In Mexico, which recently hit its national peak in oil production (and which depends on its oil industry for 40% of its income) the ethanol craze has made the price of tortillas triple and in some areas quadruple since last summer.
Ok, so here's my question. I know that no-one cares about Mexico. They could all starve to death and the mainstream media would report something like "Mexicans cause own death by refusing to eat more tortillas out of sheer third-world stubbornness". And people would eat it up with a FoxNews spoon.
But the world does care what happens to the USA. And, more to the point, people care what happens to the US economy. People really, really care, because the entire global economy is dependent on the US consumer right now.
All of this recent inflation, I'm sure, can be tied to the doubling of the price of oil within the past 3 years. So: higher oil prices means higher prices in general equals more inflation means Mr. American consumer consumes less means US economy does worse.
So my question is:
WHY IS OPEC NOT INCREASING ITS PRODUCTION QUOTAS?
Can someone tell me what's up?