Tuesday, October 16, 2012

Cost of food near exponential trend

Here is a chart of the BLS CPI index for food only:
What's remarkable is how stable food prices were until the Nixon years and the subsequent skyrocketing of the index.  Dumping the Bretton Woods exchange system hasn't been good for the cost of food.  Oil prices seem not to have affected this metric as food prices kept rising during the long period of low oil prices in the 1980's and 1990's.

A better phrase for this sort of chart would be a "hockey stick".

Inspired by Illusion of Prosperity.


1 comment:

Stagflationary Mark said...

You might find this chart interesting.

It shows how food prices have risen compared to products and services in general (going back to 1913).

Since June of 2006, food has been on an upward trend compared to most things. That said, it's starting to level out perhaps.