Unemployment, Foreclosures, Food Prices….All On The Rise

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Lots of data out today on producer prices, inflation, and unemployment…..none of it good.

December producer prices had the largest monthly gain since January 2010 due to increases in “energy, food, and raw-material costs.” This is the sixth consecutive month of higher producer prices. Wholesale inflation increased 4% in 2010 and:

Food prices, meantime, rose by 0.8% last month. Prices for fresh and dry vegetables surged 22.8%, accounting for three-fourths of the increase in the food category.

I seem to remember a certain talk show/tv host warning about the increase prices of food.

But hey, not everything went up:

…the price of sporting and athletic goods showed a monthly decline of 2.5%. Shoe prices dropped by 0.4%.

Well, that’s a relief.

Meanwhile unemployment claims went up by 35k to 445,000 last week. The prediction by economists? A 2k decrease:

The 35,000-claim surge came two weeks after new claims had fallen below the 400,000 mark for the first time since July 2008, which was two months before investment bank Lehman Brothers filed for bankruptcy and brought turbulence to financial markets.

And the coup de grâce:

Tough times ahead folks

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Unemployment high ?? the Dow ois up wall Street is happy and corporate profits are at an all time high. And you guys are worried about THE WORKERS ?? That is crazy talk like SOCIALISTSwould do. Capitalosm is about profits and profits are good.

I see from your post John Ryan, you have no clue as to what drives the economy. Look at the volume of buys and sales each day. There is quite a lot on the sideline.

Since I am retired I don’t have to worry about my job, but I still have to eat, and I still have to help defeat ObamaCare or pay a lot more for my supplemental health insurance and hope I don’t get so medically expensive that the Feds decide that I ain’t worth keeping.

@John ryan: Do you always have so much trouble typing, or is it just when you are the influence of something strong?

I note that the DJIA was down about $24–that doesn’t make me very happy.

I’m not real thrilled about the fact that nobody can afford to hire me, and hasn’t really, for about 7 years.

That wasn’t so bad until the recent (last 4 or 5 years) government actions sucked all of the value out of my savings and drove the value of my house so low that I’ll lose most of what is left trying to sell it.

There was an article in the Wisconsin State Journal last night talking about rising food prices and that essentially it has only just begun but when Glenn Beck says it “that’s just crazy talk” …. You can only appreciate what that article means if you live in the liberal wingnut area of Madison, WI.

You can’t dump the kind of money this admin has into the economy and avoid inflation….. It’s coming folks…
Advice, start a garden at work and put a cot in your office.

And to think the unemployment numbers probably don’t reflect a new wave of people who quit looking for work and are thus no longer counted as unemployed. Last month’s “drop” in unemployment was mainly due to those falling off the unemployment rolls despite the spin.

The Victory Garden is NOW a Family Famine Farm . . . the FFF is required and the entire family will contribute to its production. I own my place, no mortgage . . . the value went down as everyone knows that except the “Tax Assessor” . . . my property tax and personal property tax both up by 20% and that ain’t no little chunck of change . . . total increase of over 500 dollars in tax. They got ME by the nads. I can not simply walk away . . . so I must battle the tax man . . . I dropped my farm as an agricultural business . . . thus all my equipment had to be sold at auction . .. gone to the scrapper. Equipment that I can never replace . . . 500 bucks, 500 bucks, 500 bucks . . . destroyes a lifestyle. So what was only a few years ago a family farm, producing 5 million pounds of pork per year (2000 slaughter hogs X 250 lbs live weight), 25 calves (I only had a few cows), 10,000 bales of hay (small sqaure high quality horse hay) . . . now is a hobby farm . . . simply because of escalating taxes. Lives are a changing folks. I am old and no one wants to farm, no one wants to work, everyone is on the entitlement scam. My daughter who is a Nurse Practioner (100K/yr income), her husband a Professional Engineer (200K/yr) = gross salary 300K per year, drive a Lexus, have 500k home, jet to vacations 2 or 3 times a year . . . ah the list goes on . . . takes her children to the IHS for medical treatment and gets clothing allowances from the tribe . . . entitlements are destroying US.

Go figure . . . wow, am I confused in this world.

Food prices are raising daily, I guess we will have to learn to eat our shoes as they are going down in price. What has the government done about it? Added more regulations on food producers, like family farms, which used to be the breadbasket of the world. Government intervention is proven to be the plague on everything they touch. When we get rid of the socialist democracy that we have today our country will start to heal and only then. Reagan said it best “Government is not the solution, government is the problem”.

J Ryan,
Contrary to popular liberal/socialist/progressive/academic thinking…our economy (and capitalism) is not an “us” vs “them” zero sum game based on finite wealth. And the solution for getting it going and removing some of the barriers to wealth is not more Gov spending, intervention and taxes.

All food crops should be grown as sold as food, not as gasoline alternatives.
When I look at the price of corn and the food riots that are already occurring it is more than troubling that stupid greenies are forcing whole countries (like the USA) to subvert food crops into energy crops.
And when I see greenie apologists claiming we can divert food into energy without being the cause (or part of the cause) of 8%+ food inflation in Asia I know they lie.
People are dying in food riots in some places today.
That’s nothing to play politics about.
http://news.google.com/news/search?aq=0z&pz=1&cf=all&ned=us&hl=en&q=food+riots&oq=food

@Tallgrass: Reading about your farm is saddening to me. It’s not enough to be out of debt; the government punishes those that have ( with taxes ) and hands out to those that don’t. The gulf between those that want to produce and work and those who are fine with consuming and leisure is the problem, not class warfare. The Federal Government and certain states, must get out of the way.

I’m all for whoever pushes through repeal legislation to get the Government out of our lives. Taxes are punitive and too many are being forced to make decisions like you did because of tax policy. Does the county care if your farm fails? Does it care if it drove you off and your land value dropped to .10 on the dollar? Not really. They don’t think that way. Of course someone would come along and take your property at the new price…

It’s frustrating. I wish the best for you.

We have recently passed the $14 Trillion mark on the USA debt.
See it live here:
http://www.usdebtclock.org/
Frighteningly, it only took us 7 months to go from $12 Trillion to $13 Trillion.

But we cannot continually raise the debt ceiling forever without consequence.
$18 Trillion is the top point where our total debt is still reversible.
See graph here:
http://www.businessinsider.com/chart-of-the-day-interest-to-revenue-ratio-2011-1

But before we hit the $18 Trillion mark our debt rating will be downgraded.
And, once that happens the slide to an irreversible debt goes faster as our interest rates on our debt rises….due to the increased risk.

Obama gambled that the world didn’t need the USA to be a class-leading country, but he is being proved wrong.
The food riots are spreading.
More people are in indefensible situations all over the world than ever before…..while we are in a less capable situation to assist them.
Brilliant move, Obama!
His only hope is to shut off the availability of our reading the news about all of it.
Hence the web neutrality crap.

I suppose we can look forward to two more years of incessant Doom and Gloom rhetoric from the right-wing propaganda machine.

Just what America needs as it tries to get back on its feet.

Maybe Glenn Beck is hoping to expand his list of commercial sponsors to include the purveyors of survivalist provisions.

Yeah. Probably.

Where do you score your stuff, Greg?

@Nan G: #10

I am guessing that most of the plants-to-fuel plants are subsidized by the USA or the state they are in. The last I knew, Iowa still heavily subsidizes their ethanol plants, but that was several years ago. This ads to total taxes paid. Take away the subsidies and the price of ethanol will go up.

A long time ago I read where a decision had to be made what kind of fuel to use in cars. At that time there were gas, steam, and electric powered cars. You couldn’t have all three because fueling places would have to be set up around the USA.

It was decided to have a competition between them. All three types of vehicles were brought to one place and put in a building. A fire broke out in the building and only the gas powered car was saved. Supposedly, that is why the gas powered car was the one that was chosen.

@Smorgasbord:
Good point, Smorgasbord.
Actually, whatever fuel is subsidized, when the subsidy ends the consumption goes down and the prices go up.
http://news.google.com/news/search?aq=f&pz=1&cf=all&ned=us&hl=en&q=fuel+subsidies
Above are (today, anyway) articles about US fossil fuel, Bolivia restoring subsidies, Iran & Indonesia ending fuel subsidies, Syria increasing fuel subsidies, and so on.
Between 1950 and 2007 the USA alone gave more than $100 Billion in subsidies to renewable energy ideas.
And we have piss-poor to show for it all.

@Tallgrass: #7

Turning the working farm into hobby land might have worked out better for your wife if you have one. Obama got the death tax back. If you would have kept it a working farm and died, the Feds would have gotten either 45% or 55% of its value, and your wife would probably have had to sell the farm or parts of it to pay the taxes. The amount she sold it for would then be taxed too. This is why we are losing family farms, thanks to all of the donations the big farm companies make to the politicians so they can get even bigger and control the prices easier.

The Fair Tax would end all of this and make it fair for everybody.

@ Nan G, #16:

Between 1950 and 2007 the USA alone gave more than $100 Billion in subsidies to renewable energy ideas.
And we have piss-poor to show for it all.

Oh my God. $100 billion over–uh–57 years.

And all the nation has to show for it are renewable energy sources currently providing 11.14% of our total annual electrical power consumption.

http://www.eia.doe.gov/cneaf/electricity/epm/table1_1.html

Why on earth would anyone think it’s a good idea to expand that?

What was it Obama said about the price of our energy would necessarily have to SKYROCKET?
Well, the more we subsidize renewables the higher it goes.
You can get a megawatt hour of energy from:
Natural gas for $0.44 (forty-four CENTS)
Wind for $23.37
Solar for $24.34
All in 2007 dollars.

How much more of THAT can we afford?
Spain gave up.
It no longer subsidizes any renewable energy garbage.

Between Canada and the USA we paid $5.4 Billion to ”capture” CO2.
But guess what?
Injecting that gas into the ground just leads to it bubbling out of the ground later.
And farmers are having to abandon their land because of it.
Soil that normally only measures about 23,000 ppm CO2 is now topping 110,000 ppm!

Sometimes I think the only thing greenies are really good for is being the victims in con games.

@Nan G: #12

Things are going according to Obama’s plans. You can’t declare martial law without a crisis.

Never brought up martial law, Smorgasbord.
Perhaps you have not been aware of Obama’s work-around Congress through regulations via his various czars and cabinet heads.
Take EPA, for instance.
The EPA created a Significant New Use Rule that prevents automotive refrigerants in car air conditioners.
Any idea how anti-business that is?
The EPA is demanding that 8 (maybe more) states run all business permits by them.
Supposedly this is to cut ”greenhouse” gases, but the states are part of the 20+ state consortium suing ObamaCare in the courts.
Obama, therough the EPA can grind all business in those states to a complete halt.
Think that isn’t anti-business?
Obama through the EPA has just put mines in the Appalachians out of business.
Think that won’t hurt us all?
And Obama has even been using the EPA to take flouride out of drinking water.
I guess that is good for business….if you are a dentist.

@Tallgrass, you can challenge your assessed value rate with your tax assessor’s office. If they haven’t noted any improvements, and your values are down, it’s worth a try to put in the application.

In Washingon State, it was happening so often, and tying up officials time, that they finally did a blanket 10% reduction in property taxes (at least in SW Washington). In Oregon? Not likely they’d do that. Without sales tax, they depend heavily on both property taxes and state income tax. So they’ll only deal with those who confront them.

@drivey by johnny ryan the stock market figures, which still remain an enigma to the savvy, are definitely good for the commoner. Since many are vested in these via 401Ks, etc, they are perhaps making up for the losses.

However, with the capital gains (potentially state as well as federal) it would take to cash out, weighed against a still… and likely to remain… soft housing market, combined with the rising costs of everything, still do not compute.

Your simplistic views are amusing, but baseless.

@Nan G: #21

I brought up martial law. My opinion is that Obama and his crew want to overthrow the USA. One way is to borrow and spend it so far into debt that we can never pay it back. Lack of jobs, people losing their houses, higher prices for products, cities cutting back on police, and inflation coming can only lead to increased crime and eventually Obama declaring martial law. I do hope I am wrong, but I am guessing that I ain’t.

You and I agree on all of what you said. Add to your list that he wants to sign every treaty the UN wants the world to sign. That would give all of our Federal land to the UN to control. This would even include all of our Federal buildings, including congress, the white house, and military bases. Some of our National Parks are already in a partnership with the UN.

If Obama gets his way and gets millions more acres declared national parks or monuments (some of the land being private property) that would add more land controlled by the UN.

Even if I am way off on Obama’s agenda, he still wants to make millions of acres of private property Federal land. This means less of a tax base for the states the land is in.

Smorgasbord: Even if I am way off on Obama’s agenda, he still wants to make millions of acres of private property Federal land. This means less of a tax base for the states the land is in

Huh? Tax assessed values generally remain the same. And if anything, a private citizen ownership of formerly private federal lands wouldn’t enjoy any particular govt breaks for property tax revenues the feds were.

Don’t understand your concept, Smorgasbord. Please clarify for me.

Ethanol subsidies are wasteful and a complete joke. Now its affecting the world’s food supply. Isn’t government intervention grand.

Nan, I’ve done co2 sequestration in areas where there is no geological faulting and no lithographic outcrops for hundreds of miles. I would never do it in foothills or mountainous areas where pressurized co2 could permeate into the ground water. Co2 is used to stimulate wells and not for its disposal.

Your stated ppm measurements for co2 content in soils is probably the slaking of acidic soils with lime, unless its well stimulation in poor shallow areas.

Federal taxes as a result of Obama programs are going WAY up.
These are linked to just ObamaCare:

Payroll taxes.
Before ObamaCare they were 1.45% and 2.9% if self-employed.
Under ObamaCare they will be 2.35% and 3.8% if self-employed.

Medicine Cabinet Tax
Americans will no longer able to use health savings account (HSA), flexible spending account (FSA), or health reimbursement (HRA) pre-tax dollars to purchase non-prescription, over-the-counter medicines.

Tax on Medical Device Manufacturers
ObamaCare requires a new 2.3% excise tax on all devices sold for over $100.

Excise Tax on Charitable Hospitals.
A Catholic Hospital doesn’t do abortions? OK….for $50,000 a year.

“Black liquor” tax hike.
When paper is made a by-product can be used cleanly as fuel to power the pulp plant.
Not anymore!
Obama figured he could collect $23.6 billion in taxing this clean, renewable bio-fuel.

The IRS is God Tax.
This provision allows the IRS to disallow completely-legal tax deductions and other legal tax-minimizing plans just because the IRS deems that the action lacks “substance” and is merely intended to reduce taxes owed.
Obama expects ~$5 billion from this one.

Many more are listed here:
http://www.atr.org/comprehensive-list-tax-hikes-obamacare-a5758#
Americans for Tax Reform.org

@MataHarley: #24

You read it backwards. Obama wants to make private property Federal property.

@Nan G: #26

Keep in mind that EVERY democrat voted for EVERY one of these tax hikes. They could tell their voters that they didn’t know the tax increases were there because they didn’t read the bill.

The ObamaCare bill was passed illegally in so many ways. One of them is that when a bill that has been introduced into congress is changed it becomes a new bill. I forget how long it is, but all new bills have to wait a while before they can be voted on.

The ironic thing is that since nobody saw the bill before it was passed, anything could have been added to it AFTER it was passed. Something else to consider is that the politicians didn’t write the bill. They farmed it out. The company that wrote the bill could have secretly put stuff in for themselves or whoever else they wanted.

M,H,#22 The rising stock market “an enigma to the savy” just proves the savy don’t know squat. Long ago at Merrill Lynch I learned a monkey throwing darts at the W.S.J. consistantly out performs the market and the “savy”.Moral is buy yourself a monkey with a good arm.Saves in commissions too cus bananas are still cheap.

Smorg#23 A birther going straight to martial law and ” Obama wants to overthrow the government” How the hell do you sleep at night?

Day gonna come when the dummies wake up and smell the $1,000 per pot coffee.
What? How dat happin? Obama sez everyding all fine.
The taxes, anti-energy regulations, inflation and gas prices….and the idiots will give Obama a pass.

“MORE REGUALATION” they will cry. “MORE BENEFITS” they will scream. And they’ll vote for this bozo in 2012. The RINOs will wilter and sell us out. The MSM will give us smoke and mirrors. The rest of the world will laugh.

All of these problems (and many more) and all they can do is b**ch at Sarah Palin for her “blood libel” comments and blame her for the Tucson shooting. Sickening.

@rich wheeler: #29

How….do you sleep at night?

A lot less securely and poorer since Obama took office. At least I have a place to live, unlike the 1,000,000 people who had their house foreclosed last year. I am retired, so I don’t have to worry about a job like the 15-20% in this country who don’t have one.

@Timothy: #30

And they’ll vote for this bozo in 2012

Bozo won’t be running in 2012. Illegal clowns won’t be allowed to run for president in 2012. There are 26 states so far that have or are writing state laws that make it mandatory that a politician prove they are a citizen of the USA before they can run for president in their state. The democrats have finally admitted they never vetted Obama (proved he is a US citizen) in 49 states as required by the Constitution.

http://www.canadafreepress.com/index.php/article/15127

Obama’s job approval rating seems to be on the rise of late. His Real Clear Politics job approval margin moved back into positive territory on January 11th, and has now reached a +3 point spread for the first time in several months. The biggest change is with Rasmussen, where his margin is now only -1%. That shift appears to reflect a declining percentage of strongly disapproving responders.

@MataHarley:

Janet Reno had something to do with removing productive land from the tax base in the county in Missouri where our farm is. I don’t know how they did it but do know why. It was for prairie chickens, Janet Reno decided we needed prairie chickens, perhaps to feed the bobcats and cougars they also thought we needed. Don’t know why Reno had anything to do with any of it, but she was the one everyone down in that county were accusing.

Anyway, in the 80’s the county was so poor they had to close the court house down, they couldn’t even pay utilities, the treasurer operated the county’s business out of her home. They fought their way back, got the court house open again, and when Reno did that they were furious because they would no longer receive taxes from that land and they needed every penny they had to keep the county running.

A close friend of ours is the Treasurer now, she wasn’t at that time, I should ask her why they lost the revenue off that land. You would think the Fed government should have to compensate.

Edit to add.
I found out what happened, the county does receive some compensation from the gov’t but they lost money, if the land is farmed/productive the gov’t only goes back one year to compensate. That property did not have a crop the year prior to the gov’t taking it over so they have forever lost those dollars. Still don’t know what Reno had to do with it.

Anyway, we are compensating for idle federal land.

I had a dream . . . but I have come to grips with the situation and am satisified with the effort that I put into it, even though in cost me dollars and cents, it did give me perspectives and joy that are priceless. I have a really good friend in my lawyer/accountant (opps, better not say that very loud) and his advice has been of great help in reducing the monetary and emotional pain of what I have been through. In some ways the desire to farm cost me my wife (now my ex-wife), my children and grandchildren (I have not seen them in 4 years) . . . a dream to build a family in the end destroyed it. I have a wife now, a different kind of person (raised in the Mormon Church of strong family values) and I have her sons and daughters and grandchildren that treat me like their father and grandfather. So what I find is that a lot of the pain was caused by the deterioration in the family perspectives, be that as it may.

Having been a farmer does two things, first it makes me a most consciously aware person of commodity prices at the producer/farmer level and second it makes we astonished beyond rationality at the way our food demographic system is being compromised. If you have any awareness at all of what is about to happen . . . you best buy you a small plot of ground in the country cause food is going to sky rocket in price, as it already is. Wow, I sound like a survivalist . . . just call me an escape from affluence artist. LOL

@Smorgasbord, what am I missing here? What “private” land does Obama want to buy up? The last I understood was his June 2010 EO, mandating a fire sale of identified wasteful federal assets… meaning selling federal land and buildings. Not buying them.

Thus my comment that selling federal assets to the private sector would result in better property tax revenues for the State.

What’s Obama planning on purchasing?

ah ha… you’re talking about Obama’s Outdoor Initiative, eh Smorgasbord? I’m not sure if you’re speaking of the mining rich land that is adjacent to the current national parks, or of the many investors that actually own some private parcels within already designated federal or state parks. I know on the latter, development is limited via State zoning laws, and the property tax revenue from scattered grandfathered small cabins is small. The larger issue would be the loss of energy potential from the mining lands adacent to the parks.

Certainly eminent domain is always a craw in the throat of private landowners. But I suspect the lost revenue for States for single family forest tracts is small, and already limited severely by the States. So the larger question is the impact on energy development. To my knowledge, that initiative has not gone anywhere as of yet… and hopefully a GOP majority would be able to quell any assault that affects our ability to become more energy independent.

UPDATE: A conservative blogger, LD Jackson had a post up on Dec 31st about this. Says the GOP has plans to hold hearings and may consider defunding to halt any BLM attempts. Not to mention the state governors themselves.

Presently, House Republicans say they have plans to hold hearings on the new policy and possibly cut funding to prevent the BLM from moving forward with the directive. All in all, I think it is something that needs to be looked at very carefully, as I think the implications may be more far-reaching than we may realize. If you will look closely at the quote from the Wall Street Journal, you will find that the practice was mostly abandoned in 2003. As it stated, the governor of Utah had to take the federal government to court to prevent them from an action that would basically be the seizure of state lands. I really do not intend to stir the fire with this, but does this not go to the very root of the issue of states rights? At the very least, I think it is something that should be discussed.

@Greg:

Yea…only “half” the country disapproves of him now — but he’s listening. Lets face it…we are a nation divided even to the utter core over fundamental issues. I think the point is to find common ground we “can” agree on and work to those issues…instead of taking turns ramming highly contentious things 1/2 the country is extremely divided on down the “other” sides throat because “you won”. I think the problem is going to be finding those issues that represent that “common” ground…as they seem to be shrinking faster than Al Gore’s polar bear ice — despite the promises of politicians. My gosh…politicians wouldn’t lie to you just to get elected would they???

At this point…one side has to be against whatever the other brings up (or wants) — even if it’s something they personally agree with, or think will be beneficial — because a win would somehow be seen as a “political” victory or endorsement of their side — it’s not enough anymore for it to just be the right thing to do for the people and our country or even just make common sense.

God help us.

The latest gig is to have the UN make the national parks into world heritage sites. In Canada the UN has Niagara Falls, Banff National Park, Jasper National Park, and one up north that has huge natural gas potential. In the states, I know of Glacier and Yellowstone. There are many more in both countries. As far as i see it, this is no honor, but a power grab by the UN and justifies its existence. As an honor to Jesse Helms and for freedom in both countries, both countries should leave the UN.

Already got the issue, Smorgasbord. Not happened yet. No surprise he tries for it. Less worried about the “revenue” repercussions from individual, long holding private investors who own land in already designated parks than I am about this admin putting energy rich land off limits. I’m caught up now to your nuance. Sorry for the delay. Just haven’t been following his federal monuments proposal. After all, it’s something that is common in many admins prior to this.

Big News yesterday as Russia’s Putin signed a deal with BP.
Obama made BP shut down drilling for oil WE could have obtained, so they took their toys and went where they could do business.
So this is what Obama’s ”smart diplomacy” of Russia and Chicago-style shakedownof $20 billion from BP got us.
High-priced wind-mill/solar energy.
The customers of Russia will, OTOH, get inexpensive oil energy.
And we lose thousands, actually, tens of thousands of jobs in the deal, too.

I guess Obama knew what he was talking about when he promised that energy prices would necessarily skyrocket under his Administration.