Be afraid. Be VERY afraid. It's starting: Dow Chemical raises prices.

[TygrBright]

http://biz.yahoo.com/ap/080528/dow_price_increase.html

Dow's decided all of a sudden that letting the * Administration set energy policy at the whims of Big Oil CEOs might not have been such a good idea after all, because now the cost of transportation and petro-dependent feedstocks have escalated so much Dow can't maintain its obscene profit margins on its obscene products without raising prices TWENTY PERCENT across the board.

I'm not here to post-mortem the devil's dance of greed that brought about this consummation. Nor to discuss the appalling nature of Dow and all its works. Fruitful topics, both, but the real kernel of terror hiding in this story can be found in one word.

It's a word that makes virtually every Establishment economist pee her/himself in sheer funk, a word that sends the red lights whirling in Wall Street establishments and the klaxons blaring "ah-OOO-gah! ah-OOO-gah!" in the corporate HQs of banks and investment firms and suchlike. A word that sends scaremongers from about 85% of the media and pundit cribs and barracks into Full Yammer Mode.

Inflation.

Dow's action is a shot across the bows of the "cautious lack of total pessimism" school of economic analysis that has been trying to hold things together, teeth and toenails, to prevent the final flip over the edge into the massive cesspool of Uncontrolled Economic Chaos.

Please, do not count me among the number of those who immediately begin to run in circles, scream and shout at the second quarter in a row of miniscule rises in key economic indicators. The mere specter of potential inflation considering the faint possibility of peeping its head over a distant horizon does not send me fleeing under the bed begging the Fed to slash rates and pleading with America's employers to Hold The Line on wages, for the love of God.

In fact, I think some things desperately NEED to see a little inflation. Wages, for example. The prices of stuff we don't need or stuff made of crap that poses potential long-term hazards to our health and sanity, for another. Anything that will make us think twice about throwing perfectly usable (or re-usable) stuff into a landfill, for a third. A little inflation in those places can only do us good in the long run, and I, for one, will paste a smile on my phiz and belt up and cope with it.

But two things about this Very Bad Sign do disturb me:

First, we all know that inflation will not be confined to the sectors where it will cause short-term pain but do long-term good. We no longer have in place the regulatory, taxation, and oversight infrastructure that worked to mitigate the impact of runaway inflation back in the 1970s-- when, incidentally, the nation's wealth disparity was about as low as it has ever been and its safety net as strong as it has ever been. No, nowadays there is nothing to stop the greedheads and corporate shills from shifting every erg of impact onto the backs of those least able to absorb it, and continuing to squeeze as much smash-and-grab profit from the chaos as they possibly can.

Second, those who ARE terrorized by the specter of inflation have good reason for their pusillanimity. They make nothing, they have no tangible assets of barterable value, their "wealth" is built entirely on the mutually-agreed-upon delusion of the "markets" and the abstruse conceptual tools for assigning value and moving it about based on nebulous, situational criteria designed to reward wealth for accruing more wealth. When "value" becomes subject to the volatility of inflation and the Law of Scarcity, the electromagnetic pulses that form the empire of "trailing zeros" on the bottom lines of their net worth statements collapse. So they have good reason to do anything --anything at all-- anything they can bribe, steal, manipulate, force, blackmail, extort, or terrorize others into going along with-- to stop inflation, no matter what it costs. And in the end, that's likely to cost us all a lot more than the inflation.

Not much scares me with regards to the shared fantasy we call "the economy." Reality is always there and I'll always figure out a way to get by, until there isn't a way anymore and I die, and we all come to that someday so I'm used to the idea. I've got a lot of confidence in my own ability to adopt, adapt, and improve, to make lemonade when handed lemons, to find silver linings, and to see windows opening when doors slam.

But this makes me distinctly nervous. Anyone who can make a credible commonsensical case for why this ISN'T what I think it is, please help me out here.

trepidatiously,
Bright

[phantom power]

1. It was completely inevitable. Expensive energy ==> expensive *everything*.

Including the expense of obtaining more energy.

[kestrel91316]

2. I'm DEFINITELY phasing out storebought household cleaners.....

Vinegar, baking soda, salt, lemon, and VERY judicious use of what ammonia, bleach, washing soda, and borax I already have on hand. And I am glad I know how to make my own soap and related stuff.

[truedelphi]

13. Your body will thank you for this. We weren't built to assimilate this junk. n/t

[L0oniX]

15. We've already cleaned out most of the chemicals because we have parrots.

[NMDemDist2]

3. I have no words of comfort for you my friend

I have been watching this slow motion train wreck for years.

I have done everything I prudently could, such as selling my inflated Metro house for an acre in a small community close to oil, gas, water and salt. Don't discount the availability of Salt. Check out this book for an eye opening history http://www.amazon.com/Salt-World-History-Mark-Kurlansky/dp/0142001619/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1212005308&sr=1-1

I told hubby last night that of all the things I would miss if the 'Great Meltdown' happened, the greatest would be black pepper.

I have been re-thinking my needs and wants for the past 5 years and things keep getting smaller, simpler and I have done away with most everything that needs a contract spanning months or years.

14 more months of a car payment and I'm done.

It would still be a great adjustment, but I think hubby and I would/will feel it less than most.

other than getting those horseback riding muscles back in shape...... :rofl:

[katty]

4. this is no surprise--bound to happen-now it has

[tnlefty]

5. Sent it off to the greatest page!

Hopefully, others will take notice.

[Joe Chi Minh]

6. I'm not a fan of horror films, but your writing style certainly conveys the enormity

of what is occurring, in a wonderfully witty way, trepidatious one. Kind of gallows humour. Hope we'll see more on the subject from you soon, though you've obviously conveyed the nub of the issue.

[KSinTX]

7. Well done, Bright and thanks

I agree with you on about every point and you put it much better than I ever could. The striking thing for me was the idea that we have an abundance of what I call "fake wealth." I've watched people lose huge percentages of it with a minor downturn of the stock market and watched from afar the housing markets in CA, FL, NV etc. Jeans worth $50 in most places selling for hundreds of dollars in NY. Homes worth no more than $500K selling for a million or more in CA. While there are so many more examples, it was something I couldn't get my head around until I realized that all this wealth, masqueraded by people with jobs such as self-employed videographers or mom-and-pop caterers was illusory. It simply did not exist. You have confirmed that belief for me and thanks.

Managed to become debt-free seven years ago and don't plan to ever go back. I sorta like sitting on my very real assets in my very real house driving my very real car!

[PatSeg]

8. Great Post!

Love your writing style.

[cliss]

9. Re: chemical prices.

It's not just chemicals, it's everything that's going up in price. We are currently in a situation where we have runaway inflation. The government estimates it at around 4 %, but unofficial reports say it's around 37 %.
That was from the end of 2007. It's gone way up since then.

The main driving force of this is the price of oil. The price of oil is being driven by decisions by the Fed. The Fed has been lowering interest rates, which have sunk the Dollar.
As the dollar went down in value, the oil-producing countries had to raise their prices. They're not getting any more money; it's just that our currency is devaluating every day.

Don't be surprised if we have inflation like the Weimar Republic where a loaf of bread cost $1 billion bucks.

Yeah it's nerve wracking but there's nothing we can do about it. The best thing we can do is start out on the road to self-sufficiency. Cut back on our life styles, start to live beneath our means.
Use natural ingredients, like Az Dem. good post!

[TygrBright]

11. "Live beneath our means"....an excellent capsulization.

I will nick it, if I may, for future use.

Living beneath our means is what my grandparents knew all along, and my parents had painfully reinforced during the Depression. I was amazed to realize that even in the worst depths of the Depression, when they were renting out rooms in their house, bartering shampoo-and-set and car washes/tune-ups with the neighbors, living on peanut butter and beans and day-old bread, my grandparents were SAVING MONEY, EVERY SINGLE WEEK.

They used cash ONLY to pay house payments and utility bills, and occasional grocery bills for things they could not grow, trade for, make, etc. Any cash money they got that didn't go for one of those things went into the savings account. If they'd lived "up to their means" they could have had meat several times a week rather than once. They could have taken the trolley to work rather than walking or swapping for rides with co-workers. They could have had new shoes once a year rather than making do with amateur re-soling jobs and spit shines. They chose, rather, to live "beneath their means," so that when a neighbor's kid got sick and the choice was between paying a hospital bill or making a house payment, they could help out.

Those habits stayed the same long, long after the Depression was over and they had a solid income from a Union job and a paid-off house. They watched an old black-and-white television for years, though they could easily have afforded a new color set. They waited until the prices came down and THEN bought a nice color TV. But their favorite way to spend an evening was sitting around with family and friends playing penny poker and cracking a beer or two. Television was there for when the kids and grandkids visited on Sundays, and we could all sit around and watch Disney together.

They could have afforded to fly to Florida or Arizona or Hawaii for the whole winter every year, or to take a cruise or a package tour abroad annually or even to buy a second home in the sun. Instead, they chose to take two holidays a year, a short drive to somewhere in Wisconsin or Minnesota to visit family for a week or two in the summer, and a longer drive in the winter, shared with friends, for two or three weeks in the sun at a cabin-style resort in FL or the Gulf.

Technically, they lived beneath their means. But they enjoyed life tremendously. When they bought "stuff" it wasn't just to show they could do it, or to have 'what everybody has' or to keep score in some nebulous one-upmanship. They used their resources to enhance a lifestyle that depended on friends and family and doing the things they loved doing.

What worries me is how many of us live in our private bubbles of consumer stuff and media-shilled "experiences," cut off from the kinds of relationships and activities that can sustain us in hard times. We have a steep learning curve before us, friends.

somberly,
Bright

[rucognizant]

14. Learn ..

to bake your own bread!

[MISSDem]

16. I bought ..63 pound of organically grown, enriched white flour

and it was over three dollars (it cost 6.34 a pound). Tortilla chips that were $2.00 are now $2.30 over a matter of weeks. $1.99 items are now $2.40, etc. Everything is up, up, up.

[bronxiteforever]

10. Kick & R-

[boomerbust]

12. ITS HAPPENING

And the Corporate Cowboy will ride off into the sunset secure in the knowledge that he accomplished everything that was planned. Never ending war and the huge relocation of wealth to the top 1 percent of the population.

[Locrian]

17. once upon a time....

Once upon a time we bought what we needed. We were happy with less because things do not equal happiness. Sad that this is the inevitable end

PLEASE check out the BBC Channel 4 series "Century of the Self". It lays it all out on how we have become the "good consumer" instead of the "good citizen"..


video.google.com/videoplay?docid=8953172273825999151

Along these general themes, The Century of the Self asks deeper questions about the roots and methods of modern consumerism, representative democracy and ...
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Century_of_the_Self