Monday, December 1, 2014

The price of cheese...

My main barometer on the economy and indicator of inflation is the price of cheese.  I realize that is probably a little too simplistic, but it is an easy price to keep an eye on since I buy a lot of cheese.  A couple of months ago the price jumped from $7.99 for 2 pounds to $8.16 - the first time I had ever seen the price go over eight dollars since I have been out here.  Did a supply run today and found that the price of TFL's leading indicator had jumped to $9.98!  Perhaps it is just a glitch...  38,60,38,0,W

29 comments:

Ronald Mahan said...

You sure nailed that important barometer of inflation. My cheese buying has indicated a similar trend of rapid inflation.

czardastx said...

Around here I've noticed something when I'm out riding my bicycle around the county. When the economy was really bad and money and jobs was hard to come by, there were almost no aluminum cans to be seen on the roadsides. I'd even noticed people out picking up the cans on occasion. Now that the economy has picked up a bit I'm noticing aluminum cans in the ditches all over the place. Not sure if it's applicable out in Terlingua, but it's something you might keep an eye on.

Rev.jimmyleebob said...

the cabal says there is no inflation so it must be your imagination.Even if there was (which there's not ),cheese doesn't count.

remmij said...

butter spiking here - maybe it's dairy wide… as for aluminum, people still going through trash bins to get it, even though the unemployment number is touted to be sub 5% in this area - go figure maybe folks just love aluminum and everyone is suppose to reduce their dairy intake to be in compliance with the healthy decrees - it's all for our own good.
Besides, you have any idea how many of those little micro cows on the ShurFine label have to be tweezer miked to produce two pounds of Colby?
Look for the price to fall all the way to $8.99 soon - it'll seem like a bargin to those with short memories.
Enjoyed the sunset photo, but was I the only one that saw sphinx ☥?

remmij said...

I meant $8.99 for 820 grams of CJ goodness - I'll be buying three cause that has to be a deal… markets and marketing… Homeland might be hoarding cheese now too…
& instead of v

WhyR said...

@ remmij: nah, no sphinx, but I got a crouching lioness, forepaws extended, waiting for a herd of burros to pass...

remmij said...

The people of Morocco thank you - Jben

waxing nostalgic for the 2 lbers & blocks (in 05), but now there is the EBT -
proving that data can be fiber among other things

remmij said...

sphinx… probably just the way the moonlight was hitting it…

just.Bob said...

My homework. Google: Micro-cows being tweezer milked.

WhyR said...

Shazam! now how'd you do thet remmij?

remmij said...

my apologies to Mr. Wells - hope he doesn't mind me playing off his artistry a bit… John, thanks again for sharing the sunset
…am starting to see the lioness thing now - of course it always looks better in the imagination - the magic of the internet & 'puters only goes so far.
The donks are waiting on me.
lioness
brings this to mind -
sleeping gypsy

WhyR said...

I believe thees theeng, she is called "Photoshop", no?

Reality ain't whut it once wuz.

Anonymous said...

cheese! Yes indeed! with some butter on toast for toasted cheese. Chedder is my favorite although pepper jack is a different taste. Colby is good in a pinch. American cheese as a last resort. Well thought out analysis of the situation! thanks

Larry G said...

John is right - USDA - used to have surplus cheese, no more.

" Surplus U.S. food supplies dry up"

As recently as 2003, the USDA had to buy so much powdered milk to support dairy prices that beleaguered officials shipped some to U.S. ranchers for cattle feed.

While the previous surpluses were costly and sharply criticized, much of the food found its way to the poor, here and abroad. Today, says USDA Undersecretary Mark Keenum, "Our cupboard is bare."

U.S. government food surpluses have evaporated because, with record high prices, farmers are selling their crops on the open market, not handing them over to the government through traditional price-support programs that make up for deficiencies in market price.

http://abcnews.go.com/Business/story?id=4770135

mike said...

dairy exports are way up and so goes the price.

pw said...

Must be some regional glitch. I've seen cheese and butter on sale at least 3 times (different stores/brands) in the last month

edlfrey said...

Mike is looking at different numbers than what I found on the US Dairy Export Council webpage. The leading paragraph in their Global Dairy Market Outlook - NOVEMBER 5, 2014 - VOLUME 18, NO. 10 says the following.

"U.S. dairy exporters shipped 137,220 tons of milk powders, cheese, butterfat, whey and lactose in September, down 16% from a year ago and down 11% from August (daily-average basis). This marks the lowest monthly volume since February 2013. Volumes have fallen since March when an all-time record volume of 200,143 tons was shipped. Shipments averaged more than 176,000 tons a month thru the
first eight months of this year."

remmij said...

@WhyR - the Adobe PS, she is like the cheeze (but more difficult to use) & too expensive to consume — used the basic photo editor baked into the OS of the computing device… reality can't be wuz or willB; can only be is, no?
@ Shawn - think I first saw tweezer milking on a Eastern European video site a number of years ago, before uTuber launched - might have been the late 70s - think
[автоматизирани, роботизирани подпомагани по говедата лактоза методи за екстракция с използване на цифрови микро инструменти] was the query… I dunno, maybe it was a Japanese site - sketchy algorithm then - recall it was kinda blurry, like the new Madonna photo shoot - udderly related moovie??
[非デジタルマイクロツールを使用して自動化、ロボット支援ウシラクトース抽出方法] or Romanian - it has a certain melodious, hypnotic quality: [robotizate metode automate, asistate lactoză bovină extracție folosind instrumente micro non-digitale]

Margery Billd said...

I always wanted to be able to get the nutritionally enhanced food that the govt. sends to underprivileged countries.

mike said...

check it out

http://www.indexmundi.com/commodities/?commodity=commodity-price-index&months=300

Darin said...

Look at the price of other dairy products... A gallon of milk is now almost twice as expensive as gasoline.

Barb said...

According to the fed. there is no inflation food might be going up
but maybe things like jet fighters and aircraft carriers are going down so it all balances out.

WhyR said...

@remmij: you hail from Colorado?

WhyR said...

Whatever you do with the cheese, just don't cut it. Not with people sitting near you.

remmij said...

you mean NoColo or Budlandia?
the CA version, scissor drifters

WhyR said...

@remmij: Either, and, or or; the state of the Union where The People have taken their future into their own hands and freed themselves from the paranoia, the heat and the oppression of Pot prohibition and the lies of Harry J Anslinger, may he rot in hell, and have given themselves a bright green future. THAT Colorado. If you're from there, you're a lucky damn dog, you are. And that's not even mentioning the cool breeze, the pine scent, and the clear air, all for free.

remmij said...

may well be Canis lupus familiaris damnasius - the rest is subject to debate.
thought nĩbɫᶞasꜜka was the free, flat land as the Otoe envisioned areas… but my cartography may be off
Ironically, Uncle H.J. - as we kids called him - had Swiss roots, but was still a zealous racist of sorts and dogmatic in his views - something he shared with J. Edgar, but it was a different time and worth noting that JFK kept him in his $18½k/year position until he retired at age 70.
marihuana
moloch
assassin of youth
would like to have a box full of those pamphlets -
Robert James Devine
the goal is not to avoid all mistakes, the virtue lies in learning from them.
as for the little tree pine scent - this one set me back $1.50 + $2.29 shipping… but I saved 79% - a deal, even here in Delaware… (often in transit) am curious why you picked CO out of the 50?

WhyR said...

@remmij: Something, no longer remember what, in one of your posts seemed to suggest such a location.
"That's different" -E. Litella.
"Nevermind" -ibid.

remmij said...

almost 40 years ago, still gold jerry, gold - 12/12/75
recovery board
nevermind
not the R in Why?
CO may be the locomotion… nevermind — 50% high plains, 35% mountains, 15% high desert
"For purple mountain majesties
Above the enameled plain!"

…one lucky damn dog, off to toast the cheese ¯\(°_o)/¯