Food Prices World Bank? A rather presumptuous title.*
The World Bank, which sits half a world away on the shores of the shallow, mosquito-ridden Potomac, has announced magisterially, as it does, that it’s not entirely happy with the way food prices are going, propelled ceilingward as they currently are by pricier petroleum, the insatiable appetites of Asian consumers and inclement weather in various agricultural centres. While not threatening the regime-toppling (or in our case, the neighbour-murdering) levels of 2008, they nevertheless bear watching, says the Bank – although it admits somewhat shiftily that it does not yet have a mechanism for the measurement of the onset of a crisis. (Hark – the marching feet of mechanism-weilding consultants). Back home, you will be pleased to know on a broadly related subject, the dear old PPI eased back to 7.2% year-on-year in March, suppressed (that word again) by lower commodity prices.
*If you remember this, perhaps it’s time you retired...
Comment: A bit of a contradiction there, then. And contradictions in a globalised world have a nasty way of resolving themselves.