Akkam’s Razor

I’ve been hearing a lot about hoarding, rationing, or shortages of some food products - mostly rice, but also flour and cooking oil.  Even the Wall Street Journal is talking like its Y2K!

Stocking up on food may not replace your long-term investments, but it may make a sensible home for some of your shorter-term cash. Do the math. If you keep your standby cash in a money-market fund you’ll be lucky to get a 2.5% interest rate. Even the best one-year certificate of deposit you can find is only going to pay you about 4.1%, according to Bankrate.com. And those yields are before tax.

Meanwhile the most recent government data shows food inflation for the average American household is now running at 4.5% a year.

And some prices are rising even more quickly. The latest data show cereal prices rising by more than 8% a year. Both flour and rice are up more than 13%. Milk, cheese, bananas and even peanut butter: They’re all up by more than 10%. Eggs have rocketed up 30% in a year. Ground beef prices are up 4.8% and chicken by 5.4%.

These are trends that have been in place for some time.

And if you are hoping they will pass, here’s the bad news: They may actually accelerate.

The reason? The prices of many underlying raw materials have risen much more quickly still. Wheat prices, for example, have roughly tripled in the past three years.

Sooner or later, the food companies are going to have to pass those costs on.

What if something else is afoot?  What if it’s manipulation and/or speculation? Consider the following:

• Both production and supply are constant (one could argue China, our main source of rice, might keep crop for domestic consumption or switch to a more lucrative cash crop, but there’s no evidence for that).
• There could be anxiety at the wholesale level (as there has been with flour amongst bakers and pizza shops), causing a ‘rice-run’ at retailers.
• Consumers could be tuned-in to news on the subject and stockpiling (how likely could that be?)
• Or, it could be good, old fashioned pump-and-dump manipulation.

I recall that the most common way prices can be driven up (or maintained) is through scarcity - increasing demand or cutting supply.  Since production and demand seem rather constant, what other explanations are there?  Barry Ritholtz at Big Picture casts a suspicious eye towards the Federal Reserve.  Tim F. at Ballon Juice opines as well.  Angry Bear argues too-low interest rates versus demand outstripping supply.