commodity and food price rises unsustainable:, page-15

Hello All,

Interesting read and thanks for the list fluffy. I was just watching the program 'Landline' on ABC, and their commodity market commentator said the 'cotton' and 'wool' were skyrocketing. I enjoyed watching todays show, very informative and few happy farmers doing good on Wheat and few struggling dairy farmers due to the flood. Before this program I watched today's Inside Business. As I was chewing through some of the thoughts, following thought struck me (I hope I'll write it right to get the point across). Some of the data shows that people are saving their money nowadays after 2008 rather than splashing it on many things on credit. So the retailers are facing tough conditions(you can find the data on the reports filed by MYER, Woolworths, Wesfarmers etc to ASX). I can understand if food prices are rising in today's environment due to shortage of food production, instability in certain regions etc. But why would the prices of cotton and wool will increase when their final products are going to be sold by these retailers later on. May be consumers in US are willing to splash around. I don't know. I also would like to ponder on few other things but with this one example I would like to ask few more questions. In 2007-08, AUD USD exchange rate was at 94c and brent crude was at 140USD per barrel and at the pumps I was paying around A$1.35-40 per litre. Today the oil is at USD86 per barrel, at AUD USD exchange rate 1.0033 and I'm still paying around $1.40 per litre at the pumps. I don't think that the sums are adding up here or probably I'm poor at mathematics. Hope someone can clarify on this.

Cheers
PMT

PS: I for one will be delighted to see a farmer rich than a rich retailer.