food prices climb 8th month of record highs

Food Prices Reach Record High (WSJ)

"But while the world isn't yet facing a food crisis..." - exactly, the Austrian idea is this is very much a monetary phenomenon, (excepting weather causes) driven not by real demand and supply issues, but the perception of those issues formed by the investor community trading paper assets - my guess is money is being pumped into banks to stimulate lending on Main St. especially in housing, whereas banks not being charitable exercises, having balance sheet repair objectives ongoing, and institutional managers are simply investing it in what people absolutely need like food commodities since the uncertainty is too great as to where else robust, sustainable demand can be found... er, we're not talking about Apple iPads right at this moment :)

what I find interesting is that the teenagers' stuff led retail sales in Feb, along with the more predictable high-end like Saks, meaning parents are being selectively discretionary for the children, a sign I still read as caution remains the watchword for consumers - the other glimmer of course is that unemployment claims stayed under 400,000 while 200,000 new private sector jobs were created, a few months of good news strung together may do wonders for mood - some of my customers are right back to pre-recession levels in sales, the international share of revenues growing pretty nicely

Food Prices Keep Surging, More Expensive Cheerios Ahead?

and here is the Richmond Fed's governor on growth and employment expectation for '11 and '12, and why he thinks the food and energy run ups are passing events without significant risks to CPI (it would seem to me CPI is a pretty useless number with regard to consumers unless compared to wage rate increases, which are very sluggish and lagging the CPI by orders of magnitude)

Q&A: Fed’s Lacker Sees Inflation ‘Trending Up’