Diamond Author
Everyone is talking about deflation, and people say there's no inflation going on, but that really isn't true, especially if you been to the grocery store lately. Have you noticed lately that even when you go to the grocery store for just a few items, you end up spending quite a bit of money, and you look at the receipt and you don't how can that can be, as you only bought a few items? The reality is the grocery stores have been really good at putting 99 at the end of every price.
Also grocery stores have noticed their prices rising and this is for several reasons. Some of it is the artificial inflation caused by oil prices, because each of those products must be shipped to market by truck, train, or delivery vehicle, all of which use fuel. And the oil barrel prices have been climbing steadily, well not exactly steadily, more like jaggedly, but in an upward trend.
Also, energy prices have been going up, and the processing of food also costs more. The price of wheat, and grain has also increased somewhat, and many foods use wheat as one of their ingredients. If you don't believe me just ask a person who can't eat wheat in their diet, how hard it is for them to buy food which doesn't have wheat in it. The price of fish has also gone up and we know this because the Gulf of Mexico oil spill.
And, we recently noticed that Wal-Mart is now raising their prices on about 60% of their items, and they are unrolling their rollback prices with which they put forth as recession started, as they went for a strategy of "low-cost high-volume" to weather the global economic crisis. Why did they raise prices so soon you ask?
They have no choice in this, and also many of the products in Wal-Mart are made in China, and the Chinese citizens now want to be paid more in their factories. Some of the items that come from China are food items, not very many due to the perishable shipping issues, but more than you might think. The other day, an acquaintance of mine asked;
Where is the inflation, I don't see it, and everyone in the media is talking about deflation?"
Well, I've seen inflation at the gas pump, with the price of cars going back up, with increases in my phone bill, cable bill, energy bills, health care insurance, I see inflation everywhere, and I'm not sure what everyone else is talking about, but to me it's rather obvious.
Now I realize much of his inflation is artificial inflation costs caused by government regulators, new government laws, the ineptness of our politicians, OPEC which is a cartel raising prices - a Mother Nature such as storms, oil spills, and what have you. Nevertheless the price of goods is going up, and this price inflation doesn't seem to have anything to do with an increase in average wages or from more consumer spending in the United States.
So whereas, we see deflation in some industries, and we know that our dollar is becoming worth less and less, we also see the prices rising to counteract the force, and because of the other issues I mentioned above. What we have is a real dilemma on our hands, and no one seems to know how to fix it, and indeed most of the people who are trying to fix it, are the very people who allowed it to happen in the first place.
Personally, I don't really care much about this issue as I am not that affected, but reminds me of stupid humans are we look at the bigger picture. Oh, I'm sorry are you a little weak human did I offend your little weak mind, sorry about that. Anyway, if you can muster the brainpower, maybe you should consider all this.
About this Author
Lance Winslow is a retired Founder of a Nationwide Franchise Chain, and now runs the Online Think Tank. Lance Winslow believes it's hard to write 20,000 articles; http://www.bloggingcontent.net/
Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Lance_Winslow
