“Economists frame inflation measurement in such a way that without counting food and energy, I look richer. However, without food and energy, I am not richer, I am starving and cold in the dark.”

…in the past two weeks, there were food-price related riots in tunisia, algeria, morrocco & mozambique, and the Indian cabinet met in a special session to consider how to deal with the rising price of onions…riots over fuel prices were reported in bolivia & chile, with two deaths in chile…this recent week, yemen and egypt have destabilized…

but of course, food & energy are nothing for wealthy economists to concern themselves with, let the rest of the world go to hell…

Short term – bad for us, and long term – bad for everybody, I think. It’s an artificial double distortion that can’t be stable over time (can it?) When it crumbles, who can say what the major effects and ripples might be. I suspect that mercantilism, like imperialism, always leads to a bad end.

JzB