Wholesale prices spike on steep rise in food, oil

[I AM NOT THAT GUY 5,715]

WASHINGTON (AP) - Higher energy costs and the steepest rise in food prices in nearly four decades drove wholesale prices up last month by the most in nearly two years....

The Producer Price Index rose a seasonally adjusted 1.6 percent in February, the Labor Department said Wednesday. That's double the rise from the previous month and the biggest increase since June 2009.

Food prices soared 3.9 percent last month, the biggest gain since November 1974. Harsh winter freezes in Florida, Texas and other southern states sent fresh vegetable prices soaring, representing 70 percent of the increase. Tomatoes, green peppers and lettuce all more than doubled in price.

Meat and dairy costs also rose, reflecting higher prices for corn and soybean that are used in animal feed. Economists expect food prices to keep increasing for the rest of this year. Earlier this month, the UN's Food and Agriculture Organization said world food prices have risen to their highest point since 1990, when the agency first began tracking them.

Gas prices also spiked in February and are even higher now. The national average price was $3.55 a gallon Wednesday, up 42 cents from a month earlier, according to the AAA's Daily Fuel Gauge.

Sharper prices for basic necessities are limiting consumers' ability to spend on more discretionary goods...

...John Ryding, an economist at RDQ Economics, disagreed, noting that consumers will feel the impact for some time.

"We do not buy the Fed's reassurance that these pressures will be temporary and we believe the public, seeing these strong increases in food and energy ... will not be marking back down their inflation expectations," Ryding said.

In addition to rising prices, the weak housing market could also drag on the economy.

Home construction plunged to a seasonally adjusted 479,000 homes last month, down 22.5 percent from the previous month, the Commerce Department said Wednesday. It was lowest level since April 2009, and the second-lowest on records dating back more than a half-century. The building pace is far below the 1.2 million units a year that economists consider healthy.

The stock market dropped sharply in morning trading on the disappointing U.S. economic reports and growing concerns about Japan's nuclear crisis. The Dow Jones industrial average fell by more than 151 points....

...Oil rose $2.20 to $99.38 a barrel in morning trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange.

Wholesale prices rose 1 percent for apparel, the most in 21 years. Costs also increased for cars, jewelry, and consumer plastics.

http://www.breitbart.com/article.php?id=D9M0EJRG0&show_article=1

[one...two...tree 2,762]

Does Briebart know why fuel prices are spiking?

[I AM NOT THAT GUY 5,715]

Does Briebart know why fuel prices are spiking?

It's an AP article. Briebart just makes Youtubes.

[Ban Hammer 13,352]

Does Briebart know why fuel prices are spiking?

does obama?

[JohnSmith2007 353]

does obama?

He sure does, in fact he has stated he wants high gas prices.

CNBC’s John Harwood: So could the (high) oil prices help us?

Barack Obama: I think that I would have preferred a gradual adjustment. The fact that this is such a shock to American pocketbooks is not a good thing. But if we take some steps right now to help people make the adjustment, first of all by putting more money in their pockets, but also by encouraging the market to adapt to these new circumstances more rapidly, particularly U.S. automakers…

The obvious inference is that Obama doesn’t object to $4 a gallon gas per se, just how rapidly the price increased. Most Americans hate it and want gas prices to go down as rapidly as possible. Obama wants to “help people to make the adjustment” to “new circumstances.”

Obama also appointed Steven Chu as his energy secretary. Chu had this to say about cheap gas:

In a sign of one major internal difference, Mr. Chu has called for gradually ramping up gasoline taxes over 15 years to coax consumers into buying more-efficient cars and living in neighborhoods closer to work.

“Somehow we have to figure out how to boost the price of gasoline to the levels in Europe,” Mr. Chu, who directs the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory in California, said in an interview with The Wall Street Journal in September.

The price of petrol in Europe right now is more than three times the price of gasoline in America. So, given Mr. Chu’s preference, instead of paying $1.49 per gallon, I would be paying $4.50 a gallon.