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Food Is Now An Investment – Here’s Why Inflation Isn’t Going Away Anytime Soon

Food Is Now An Investment – Here’s Why Inflation Isn’t Going Away Anytime Soon

Authored by Brandon Smith via Alt-Market.us,

One of the…

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Food Is Now An Investment – Here's Why Inflation Isn't Going Away Anytime Soon

Authored by Brandon Smith via Alt-Market.us,

One of the more difficult aspects of working in economic analysis is the problem of rampant disinformation that you have to dig through in order to get to the truth of any particular issue.  In this regard, economics is very similar to politics.  The propaganda is endless and debunking it sometimes feels like moving a mountain with a teaspoon.

Establishment media sources lie incessantly about our financial conditions, and when they are finally cornered and forced to admit how bad things are, they then lie about the causes.  That said, I find that these lies are usually designed to do one of two things:  Over-complicate the problem so that people give up thinking about it, or, distract from the problem so that people blame a scapegoat.

As for inflation, here is the bottom line:

Central Banks And The Fiat Flood

Rising prices are caused by two main drivers.  The first is money creation, or too many dollars chasing too few goods.  Central banks around the world have been FLOODING the system with fiat currency ever since the debt crisis of 2008 and the Federal Reserve within the US is the worst violator by far.  We are talking about tens of trillions (or more) in money creation, all supposedly as a means to stall or prevent a deflationary crash.

By the time the pandemic lockdowns were initiated and the Fed dropped $8 trillion+ onto the economy through stimulus measures like covid checks and PPP loans, the total US money supply was already at destructive levels.  The covid stimulus was simply the straw that broke the camel’s back.  So, if you want to know who is directly to blame for your daily expenses rising 30% or more in the span of three years, the first set of criminals are the central bankers.

Governments and certain corporate partners are also to blame, but the central banks are the root mechanism for all inflationary movements.  It’s my belief (according to the evidence) that central banks have deliberately triggered a stagflationary crisis with the intent to forcefully replace cash based economies with a new digital and cashless global economy.  However, that’s a discussion for another article…

Shortages And Core Resources

The other primary cause of rising prices is shortages or disruptions in key resources including oil and energy.  Keep in mind that the war in Ukraine has led to the west being cut off from large portions of the resource rich Russian market.  And, the war in Gaza has led to groups in the Middle East like the Houthis denying a multitude of cargo ships and oil tankers from traversing the Red Sea.

By themselves, each one of these events seems like a small threat to the global supply chain, but when they pile up together the effects become detrimental.  For now, the biggest factor is rising energy prices because this is the key resource that allows all agriculture and manufacturing to function.  Every time oil prices rise you’re going to see prices in everything else rise.

This is the exact reason why the Biden Administration continued to dump the US Strategic Oil Reserves on the market for the past couple years.  This was their way of manipulating oil prices down in order to mitigate or hide the greater effects of inflation.  Now that they’re being pressured to refill those reserves and start buying (at a much higher price) global oil prices and US prices in particular are spiking again.

Media Disinformation And Crushing Food Costs

Food costs have risen by 30% or more depending on the product since the beginning of 2020, and even though CPI reports several months ago showed a “slowdown” in overall inflation, this does not mean prices are going to go down anytime soon.  In fact, they will only keep rising with each passing year.

CPI is a tool for measuring the AVERAGE price increases of over 80,000 products and services across a wide spectrum.  Many of these items are not necessities and so they dilute the actual inflation we are seeing in everyday expenditures.  If we were to look at an average of daily necessities like housing, energy, food, etc. then CPI would read far higher.

When the media touts a lower CPI print as a sign that the economy is improving, what they usually don’t mention is that the stat only represents how much higher prices are going to go.  A lower CPI does not mean costs on the shelf are going to go down.  Inflation is cumulative.

Meaning, that 30%+ increase in food that Americans have been dealing with – That’s not going away, it’s just not climbing as fast as it was.  And, as we’ve seen in the past couple months, inflation has the ability to return just as quickly to add even more gasoline to the fire.

Not long ago I was reading through an article from CBS that claimed they could explain why there’s been no respite in food prices lately.  In reality the entire piece was disinformation, blaming every possible scapegoat while ignoring the real causes.

Their main explanation is “Greedflation,” or the claim that companies are overcharging on food items.  In other words, blame businesses, don’t blame the Federal Reserve and don’t blame the government.  They’re “innocent” in all of this.

So far there’s no concrete evidence to support the Greedflation theory.  Every business has unique expenses, unique overhead, unique industrial costs, unique quality control and unique resource costs.  One cookie company’s bottom line will be different from another cookie company’s bottom line.  That said, there are universal costs that directly correlate to higher prices regardless of the company, and that includes energy, labor, and core commodities.

For those that track the markets it’s obvious that commodities are climbing.  The Industrial Commodity Index is far higher today than it was in 2020, along with oil and gas prices.  Every base resource that companies use to make products is increasing in value and thus it costs them more to manufacture.  Agriculture in particular is heavily affected by oil prices as well as prices in fertilizer and farming equipment, not to mention higher costs in labor.

From 2020 to 2023 the total costs paid by farmers to raise crops and care for livestock increased by more than $100 billion, or 28%, to an all-time high of $460 billion in 2023.  Funny how that number tracks very close to the 30% increase in overall food prices since 2020. 

The establishment media wants you to believe that high food prices are going to go away soon, and in order to trick you they need to convince you that the cause is something that can be “controlled” or “regulated”.

There is no indication that agricultural costs are going to stop increasing in the near future, so, that means each year food is going to cost you more than the year before. 

It might even cost you MUCH more than the year before.

In conclusion, this is why people need to start looking at food as an investment similar to the way they might look at their 401K or any retirement plan.  If you want to mitigate costs in the future in terms of food you will need to purchase foods with a long shelf life now.  If you think that inflation is a passing phase and that things will go back to the way they were before 2020 then you probably won’t take this concern seriously.  But, consider this:

Well before 2020 I was warning regularly about an impending stagflation crisis.  The food storage I bought in 2020 now costs at least 30%-50% more to buy in 2024.  Meanwhile, some of the top mainstream economists in the country were denying such a thing would ever happen.  When it did happen, they claimed it was “transitory.”  This was also proven false.  Now they claim food will drop after companies are forced through regulation to cut prices.

Whether government intervenes or the market continues to react to poor fiscal policies, it is quickly becoming a necessity to invest in food security as soon as possible.  Government enforced price controls have never actually proven effective in stopping inflation.  Once you remove all profit incentives many businesses will close up shop.  This causes the supply of goods to go down and prices then spike anyway due to shortages.

Do you want to bet your future on establishment economists being right for once, or, do you want to just store some food today in the knowledge that prices are only going exponentially higher?

*  *  *

One survival food company, Prepper All-Naturals, has proactively dropped prices to allow Americans to stock up ahead of projected hikes in beef prices. Their 25-year shelf life steaks currently come at a 25% discount with promo code “invest25”.

Tyler Durden Thu, 04/18/2024 - 00:00

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Spread & Containment

Arboviruses, mosquitoes and potential hosts tracked in real time in São Paulo city

The technology used to sequence SARS-CoV-2 at record speed early in the COVID-19 pandemic has been successfully tested as a technique to monitor arboviruses…

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April 17, 2024

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The technology used to sequence SARS-CoV-2 at record speed early in the COVID-19 pandemic has been successfully tested as a technique to monitor arboviruses and diseases transmitted mainly by mosquitoes. 

Credit: Lilian de Oliveira Guimarães/Instituto Pasteur

The technology used to sequence SARS-CoV-2 at record speed early in the COVID-19 pandemic has been successfully tested as a technique to monitor arboviruses and diseases transmitted mainly by mosquitoes. 

In an article published in the journal Microbiology Society, researchers affiliated with Pasteur Institute in São Paulo, Brazil, and the University of São Paulo (USP), in collaboration with colleagues at the University of Birmingham in the United Kingdom, describe the use of the technology to sequence viral RNA and DNA from blood-engorged mosquitoes collected in São Paulo city with the aim of finding out how arboviruses circulate as a basis for predicting future outbreaks of dengue, zika, chikungunya and yellow fever, among other diseases. 

“The study proved the concept that it’s possible to use metagenomics [sequencing the genetic material of all organisms in an environment at the same time without isolating them] to analyze samples from invertebrates. Previously, it was used to analyze samples from vertebrates [such as humans and other primates]. Our protocol can reveal viral diversity and identify mosquito species while also analyzing their feeding habits, and has the potential to extend our understanding of insect genetic diversity and the dynamics of arbovirus transmission,” said Karin Kirchgatter, a researcher at Pasteur Institute (São Paulo) who coordinated the study jointly with Nicholas J. Loman, Professor of Microbial Genomics and Bioinformatics at the University of Birmingham.

The protocol was developed by researchers affiliated with the Brazil-UK Center for Arbovirus Discovery, Diagnosis, Genomics and Epidemiology (CADDE), which is supported by FAPESP. Arbovirus tracking was made possible by adaptation of a rapid metagenomics technique developed during the PhD research of Ingra Morales Claro, who was supported by a scholarship from FAPESP. 

Another key member of the research team was Ester Sabino, a professor at USP. Sabino led the first sequencing of SARS-CoV-2 in Brazil (in March 2020) and genomic analysis of the first cases of infection by the gamma variant in Manaus, the capital of Amazonas state, about a year later (read more at: agencia.fapesp.br/35414). 

“The success of the tracking test was important. It showed that the technology can also be used to investigate arboviruses rapidly and efficiently. The test wasn’t surveillance but the technique will be an important part of it. We also added information of various kinds, such as epidemiological data, as a basis for predicting new outbreaks of disease,” Sabino said.

How it works

Nanopore sequencing allows for real-time analysis of long DNA or RNA fragments. It works on the principle of minute changes in electric current when the nucleotides of a single-stranded DNA molecule are pulled through a nanopore, a tiny hole (on the order of 1 nanometer in internal diameter) that is made up of certain transmembrane cellular proteins. The amount of change in current is characteristic for each nucleotide. The change in the current is directly read, and the sequence is determined by detecting changes in the current specific to the base in question. The results can be compared to genetic sequencing databases to determine the details of interest, such as the species from which the sample was taken. 

“The technique is still expensive. No genetic sequencing technology can be considered low-cost to date. With time and expanding use, the cost will come down,” said Jeremy Mirza, a researcher at the University of Birmingham and first author of the article. He is also affiliated with CADDE.

Real-time metagenomics can be used to detect emerging viruses and unknown pathogens in samples taken from patients, without requiring reagents developed specifically for certain microorganisms, as do conventional tests.

The protocol described in the article identifies vectors, viruses and hosts by means of a portable device that can be used in future to look for pathogens in remote areas. For the first time, it has now been used to identify not just the virus and mosquito species in a sample, but also the contents of the mosquito’s blood meal.

“We tested the technology on samples collected at the São Paulo zoo, a biodiversity hotspot and hence an interesting area for this type of study. The diversity of vectors and blood meal sources is huge. Large numbers of people are continuously on the move there, it’s a stopover for many migratory birds, and it’s also a controlled location with a known number of animals and species. The mosquitoes can be tracked as they move through the zoo on the basis of the blood on which they feed,” Kirchgatter explained.

The samples analyzed in the study came from engorged mosquitoes collected at the zoo in 2015 and had already been analyzed using traditional techniques. “This enabled us to compare the results and the time taken in each stage of the process,” said Lilian de Oliveira Guimarães, second author of the article and a researcher at Pasteur Institute. At the time, she had a postdoctoral scholarship from FAPESP. 

“In 2015, we analyzed each mosquito individually, identifying the species by classical taxonomy, sequencing specific regions of each specimen and comparing the sequences manually. This took weeks. With the new methodology, molecular identification is feasible in real time. It identifies and correlate species and feeding preferences, as well as the viruses present in the insect.” 

According to the authors, the positive results of the arbovirus tracking test open the door to further research and discoveries. Combining information about mosquito genetic diversity and the transmission dynamics of mosquito-borne viruses presents an opportunity to link novel arboviruses to the mosquito vectors of these pathogens. 

“Further, it can be used to identify animals that may be infected by these viruses and point to risks of spillover into human populations,” the researchers note. “The portability of the technology permits discovery of novel arboviruses in remote environments, and the method can form the basis of an early warning detection system by identifying arboviruses before they spread into human populations, providing a system for preempting future arboviral epidemics”.

About São Paulo Research Foundation (FAPESP)

The São Paulo Research Foundation (FAPESP) is a public institution with the mission of supporting scientific research in all fields of knowledge by awarding scholarships, fellowships and grants to investigators linked with higher education and research institutions in the State of São Paulo, Brazil. FAPESP is aware that the very best research can only be done by working with the best researchers internationally. Therefore, it has established partnerships with funding agencies, higher education, private companies, and research organizations in other countries known for the quality of their research and has been encouraging scientists funded by its grants to further develop their international collaboration. You can learn more about FAPESP at www.fapesp.br/en and visit FAPESP news agency at www.agencia.fapesp.br/en to keep updated with the latest scientific breakthroughs FAPESP helps achieve through its many programs, awards and research centers. You may also subscribe to FAPESP news agency at http://agencia.fapesp.br/subscribe.

Journal

Microbial Genomics

DOI

10.1099/mgen.0.001184

Article Title

Tracking arboviruses, their transmission vectors and potential hosts by nanopore sequencing of mosquitoes

Article Publication Date

19-Jan-2024

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Government

“We Have 15,000 Samples In Wuhan … Could Do Full Genomes Of 700 CoVs”: Rand Paul Drops COVID Bombshell

"We Have 15,000 Samples In Wuhan … Could Do Full Genomes Of 700 CoVs": Rand Paul Drops COVID Bombshell

Last week Senator Rand Paul (R-KY)…

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April 17, 2024

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"We Have 15,000 Samples In Wuhan ... Could Do Full Genomes Of 700 CoVs": Rand Paul Drops COVID Bombshell

Last week Senator Rand Paul (R-KY) wrote in a Tuesday op-ed that officials from 15 federal agencies "knew in 2018 that the Wuhan Institute of Virology was trying to create a coronavirus like COVID-19."

These officials knew that the Chinese lab was proposing to create a COVID 19-like virus and not one of these officials revealed this scheme to the public. In fact, 15 agencies with knowledge of this project have continuously refused to release any information concerning this alarming and dangerous research.

Government officials representing at least 15 federal agencies were briefed on a project proposed by Peter Daszak’s EcoHealth Alliance and the Wuhan Institute of Virology. -Rand Paul

Paul was referring to the DEFUSE project, which was revealed after DRASTIC Research uncovered documents showing that DARPA had been presented with a proposal by EcoHealth Alliance to perform gain-of-function research on bat coronavirus.

Now, Paul points to an email between EcoHealth's Daszak and "Fauci Flunky" David Morens from April 26, 2020 (noted days before by the House Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Pandemic), when the lab-leak hypothesis was gaining traction against Fauci - who funded EcoHealth research in Wuhan, and Daszak's orchestrated denials and the forced "natural origin" narrative.

In it, Daszak laments the "real and present danger that we are being targeted by extremists" (for pointing out that they were manipulating bat covid down the street from where a bat covid pandemic broke out), and called Donald Trump "shockingly ignorant."

He also told David that he would restrict communications "to gmail from now on," and planned to mount a response to an NIH request which appears to suggest moving out of Wuhan - to which Daszak says "Even that would be a loss - we have 15,000 samples in freezers in Wuhan and could do the full genomes of 700+ Co Vs we've identified if we don't cut this thread."

Which means Daszak, funded by Fauci, lied when he said "every single one of the SARSr-CoV sequences @EcoHealthNYC discovered in China is already published."

And Anthony Fauci concealed the '700 unknown coronaviruses' in Wuhan.

Meanwhile, an EcoHealth progress report referenced "two chimeric bat SARS-like CoVs constructed on a WIV-1 backbone."

About that Gmail thing...

Crazy indeed!

 

Tyler Durden Wed, 04/17/2024 - 11:05

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International

Semi Shock: ASML Craters As Orderbook Plummets After China Frontrunning Ends With A Bang

Semi Shock: ASML Craters As Orderbook Plummets After China Frontrunning Ends With A Bang

Exactly three months ago, AI stocks were soaring,…

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April 17, 2024

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Semi Shock: ASML Craters As Orderbook Plummets After China Frontrunning Ends With A Bang

Exactly three months ago, AI stocks were soaring, semiconductor names were flying and the tech sector was euphoric after Dutch chip giant ASML - the world’s sole producer of equipment needed to make the most advanced chips and Europe’s most valuable technology company - reported a record surge in its orderbook (just days after its Asian peer Taiwan Semi did the same)...

... and which the market immediately concluded, in its infinite stupidity, that this was the definitive confirmation of a flood of demand for AI chips and infrastructure with Bloomberg pouring oil on the fire, saying that the ASML results were "a sign that the semiconductor industry may be recovering" adding that "chipmakers are increasingly optimistic the sector’s outlook following a slump that dates back to the Covid-19 pandemic, with TSMC last week projecting strong revenue growth in 2024."

Not so fast, we countered and as we clearly warned in a January article titled "Tech Euphoria Sparked By ASML Surge To All-Time High On Flood Of Chinese Orders... There's Just One Problem"...

... the reason for the surge in ASML orders was that China, and its proxies in Taiwan and other Asian countries, has been flooding the market with chip purchase orders ahead of Biden's escalating China chip sanctions, knowing that the door is closing amid a barrage of sanctions limiting exports of high tech chips - and chipmaking devices - and that it needs to buy today what it may need for the next few years, if not indefinitely. (as explained in "Behind The Tech Meltup: A One-Time Chinese Chip Buying Frenzy To Frontrun Export Curbs").

And sure enough, China accounted for 39% of ASML’s sales in the fourth quarter and became the Veldhoven-based company’s largest market in 2023! Before speculation of chip sanctions, China accounted for only 8% in January to March.

So what? Well, such one-time buying spurts are - as the name implies - one-time... and as we reported 3 months ago, ASML has been targeted by the US effort to curb exports of cutting-edge technology to China, and Bloomberg reported that ASML exports to China have now effectively been halted, vaporizing whatever portion of the order backlog is thanks to China. This led us to conclude the following:

And so with China now scrubbed from the list of ASML clients - forget being its top customer - the question is who will fill the void. Luckily, demand for AI is keeping the chip sector afloat... or so the experts say, the same experts who fawned over ASML's result today which sparked a buying frenzy in the shares, which soared over 9% today, the biggest increase since November 2022, and hitting an all time high.

Good luck keeping that all time high with your largest customer now barred from future purchases by the State Department. As for "record AI chip demand", this quarter will prove very informative how much is real and how much is vapor once the volatility from China's erratic orderflow is finally removed.

So fast forward three months when "this quarter" is now in the history books, and this morning we got confirmation that everything we said was correct (and that the market, in its infinite stupidity wisdom, was wrong. Case in point: on Wednesday, ASML stock was one of the worst performers among the European tech sector, after the largest European company posted orders that fell short of analysts’ expectations, as Taiwanese chipmakers held off buying the Dutch firm’s most advanced machines.

Bookings at Europe’s most valuable technology firm fell 61% in the first quarter from the previous three months to €3.6 billion ($3.8 billion), wildly missing the market's ridiculous estimates of €4.63 billion, just as we said it would.

As Bloomberg notes, the world's top chipmakers like Taiwan Semi and Samsung Electronics held off new orders as manufacturer clients work through stockpiles of hardware used in smartphones, computers and cars. That’s hurting ASML, which also forecast sales this quarter below analyst expectations. And why did TSMC and Samsung over-order? Simple: they too, were expecting the flood of Chinese last-ditch orders, and were looking to frontrun it.

Well they did... and now everyone has a huge surplus of equipment!

Investors had expected TSMC to book significant EUV tools in the first quarter, according to Redburn Atlantic analyst Timm Schulze-Melander (but not according to ZeroHedge). The disappointment in orders leaves earnings and revenue for next year “vulnerable,” he said, confirming what we said one quarter ago when everyone was rushing to buy the stock on a one-off surge in orders.

The level of EUV orders is “extremely low,” indicating major ASML clients like TSMC, Samsung and Intel didn’t increase investments in the high-end equipment, Oddo BHF analyst Stephane Houri said. ASML saw the biggest slump in demand for its top-end extreme ultraviolet machines. Orders for them plunged to €656 million in the period from €5.6 billion in the previous quarter.

In other words, the frontrunning of China's order book is now dead and buried.

And now comes the hangover, ASML now sees sales in the current quarter between €5.7 billion and €6.2 billion, missing estimates of €6.5 billion before demand picks up. And while the company scrambled to reassure the market that "nothing is fucked here", and pushed demand into the second half as every company does when it misses quarterly expectations...

“Our outlook for the full year 2024 is unchanged, with the second half of the year expected to be stronger than the first half, in line with the industry’s continued recovery from the downturn,” Chief Executive Officer Peter Wennink said in a statement Wednesday. “We see 2024 as a transition year.”

... the market was less than willing to buy the BS this time, and with the company admitting that as much as 15% of China sales this year will be affected by the new export control measures - 50% is a more realistic number - the stock finally tumbled as the hangover finally arrives, if with a three month delay, and today the stock tumbled more than 6%....

... the biggest one day drop since last June.

Tyler Durden Wed, 04/17/2024 - 10:30

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