HD Radio: Why no one is buying

You gotta eat – that’s why.

Some food costs have increased at a rate not seen since Gerald Ford was President.

*

For the past two decades the cost of food staples – eggs, dairy, and flour grew minimally. Now, the U.S. Labor Department is informing us that the same food staples have increased in double-digits. Dairy is up twenty-six percent, beef – fifty.

I paid thirty cents a gallon more for gas on Wednesday than I did the previous Friday.

But that’s not the problem.

The average household spending for gas is around four percent. Food accounts for thirteen percent!

Let’s go back one year ago today. You paid sixty percent less for eggs. You paid thirty percent less for veggies.

Oil + production and transportation costs = even higher food prices.

The demand for corn and soybeans for alternative fuel sources like ethanol and biodiesel, corn prices have more than doubled and soybeans have tripled in the commodity markets over the last two years.

The rise in corn prices also adds to cost of livestock feed, which translates to higher prices for meat, poultry and eggs.

And a bad wheat-growing season caused their prices to triple.

The higher food costs hack away at discretionary income and slaughter consumer confidence.
When one spends more for the basics - other expenditures have to give.

Add this: Few are making more money than they did two decades ago and more are out of work.

The weakened US dollar, which has fallen to historic lows against other currencies, is also impacting consumers with higher prices to make up for the loss in value.

Inflation fears increase, which in turn make commodities a buy to investors viewing them as holding value during inflationary periods. Follow this. Investors buy. Demand grows. Commodity prices go through the roof.

If you were around in the seventies, you remember those nine percent a year increases in food prices.

Get this. They’re already up a full five percent from a year ago. That’s over double the average rate of the previous decade. Some forecasters who follow such things now predict an annual food increase of seven and a half percent!

Do you really believe anyone is going to spend a hundred bucks or more on an HD Radio?

Just asking.

*

photo: President Gerald Ford in 1976 with Dick Cheney (left), then Ford's chief of staff, and Jim Baker.
----
The weekend edition of All Things Considered on National Public Radio will feature a special piece on The Buzzard book.... and see a classic Buzzard St. Patrick's Day ad here.