...over the last several years. Virtually every American has made changes in their day-to-day life related to this higher cost. Even though gasoline/oil companies and the people who invest in them are making money, prices are too high; many Americans have to decide between buying gasoline and paying for their prescription medications, healthcare, mortgage, and food. The government needs to step in and set guidelines to prevent gas companies from raising prices so quickly. “While drivers have been painfully paying up at the pump, oil companies have been racking up eye-popping profits” (Krantz, 2005, ¶ 1). During the second quarter of this year, one gasoline/oil company recorded profits each minute were in excess of what an average American earns in one year. According to Clifford Krauss’ article in the New York Times, “Exxon’s profits were nearly $90,000 a minute over the quarter” (2008, ¶3). Mr. Krauss’ article also states, “Record earnings for Exxon, the world’s largest publicly traded oil company, have become routine as the surge of oil prices in recent years has filled its coffers” (2008, ¶2). This is only one company; the other oil companies are showing earnings of the same, if not more. Americans are scaling back on their spending in many areas of their lives. The price of food, clothing, medications and other staples of life are rising in relation to the rising cost of shipping. People tend not to travel as far during their vacations, but to stick closer to home...
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...Pollan’s article Michael Pollan’s essay, The Food Movement, Rising, is separated into three parts which are “Food made Visible”, “Food Politics” and “Beyond the Barcode”. Pollan mainly discusses the cheap food politics and some of these food safety scandals, the environment and health problem problems, the appearance of obesity in America, and fast and junk food compared to local food. I agree with Pollan that health is the most important thing all the time. However, people in our modern economy need convenient and cheap food at the present, although sometimes the quality and health cannot be ensured. As far as I am concerned, what we can do is to try our best to make healthy food with the environment in mind. Producing food for a reasonable price, health, safety, and low pollution should be the best choice for modern society. Cheap food accompanied with the reform of food production is required because of the modern economy and society. As Pollan states, “Cheap food has become an indispensable pillar of the modern economy. But it is no longer an invisible or uncontested one” (2). As we know, the most important thing for people to survive is eating. Most people in the world are not wealthy and full of ability. The recession affecting unemployment has swept across the whole world in recent years. It has influenced how much family’s income is spent on food. The decline of family income makes the United State family want to buy cheap food. The author writes, “companies like Wal-Mart...
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...World Food Prices: Causes and Consequences Alex F. McCalla Professor Emeritus, Department of Agricultural and Resource Economics, University of California, Davis, 1 Shields Avenue, Davis, California, USA 95616 (phone: 530-752-1529; fax 530-752-5614; e-mail: alex@primal.ucdavis.edu) INTRODUCTION It is a great honor to be invited to give the CAES Fellow’s Address in my home country, to give it on the 400th Anniversary of the founding of Quebec and to do it in Quebec City. The topic given me is current, topical and emotional. Food prices are always controversial, either too high for consumers or too low for farmers and often unstable. The paper is divided into four parts: the first places the current situation in historical context; the second identifies some competing explanations for high food prices; the third analyzes in more detail the Structural Change/Shock story; and the fourth notes the consequences, especially for Developing Countries. The paper closes with the big question - When the bubble breaks, will long run real prices be on a higher level with a stable or increasing trend or will we back to “Business as Usual” with real prices dropping down to the previous level and continuing their 150 year downward trend? THE CURRENT SITUATION IN HISTORICAL CONTEXT FAO’s price index of all foods in dollar terms has more than doubled since last three years of the 20th century, and the real food price index has increased by over sixty percent (Figure 1.). Between...
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...underlying causes of high food prices Alessandro Flammini October 2008 The development of this report was coordinated by Maria Michela Morese and Jonathan Reeves (Global Bioenergy Partnership Secretariat). The views expressed in this report reflect those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the Global Bioenergy Partnership or those of the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations. For info: alessandro.flammini@fao.org ACRONYMS ADB Asian Development Bank DDG Dried distillers grains DEFRA Department for Environment Food and Rural Affairs EU European Union FAO Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations GHG Greenhouse Gas OECD Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development PRC People’s Republic of China UAE United Arab Emirates US United States of America USDA Department of Agriculture of the United States WFP World Food Programme of the United Nations WTO World Trade Organization Table of contents EXECUTIVE SUMMARY ..................................................................................i BACKGROUND.....................................................................................1 THE CAUSES.......................................................................................4 THE CLIMATE ISSUE ......................................................................... 4 INTERNATIONAL STOCK LEVELS......................................................... 5 INCREASED GLOBAL FOOD DEMAND..................
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...Table of contents Components | Page | Question 11.1 The Causes of Global Food Crisis i. Rising of Population Growth Rate ii. Increased oil price iii. Increase Demand for Biofuel iv. The Exchange Rate of US Dollar v. Weather Disruption & Natural Disaster vi. Low Global Stocks of Grains vii. Tariffs and policies 1.2 The Effects of Global Food Crisis i. Effects at the national level ii. Effects at the household level | 1-11 | | 11-13 | Question 2 i. How the governments intervene ii. Why the governments intervene | 13-20 | References and Appendices | 21-23 | Question 1: Causes and effects of global food price rises. 1.1 The Causes of Global Food Crisis Figure 1: Sources of Food Price Increases, January 2007–February 2011 (percentage points, year-on-year) Source : FAO The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO)Food Price Index is a measure of the monthly change in international prices of a basket of food commodities. According to the data of FAO, FAO Food Price Index (FFPI) reached an average of 234 points in June 2011, which is approximately 1 percent higher than in May and 39 percent higher than in June 2010. It reaches its peak that is 238 points in February. A high rise in international sugar prices was behind much of the increase in the June value of the index. International dairy prices rose slightly in June, while meat prices are stable. Among the major cereals, prices...
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...1301 7 May 2015 We Must Continue Subsidizing Clean Energy to Save Our Crops Currently, the world in which we live is slowly becoming the future graveyard for mankind. Around 230 years ago, the industrial revolution allowed humans to further specialize in the division of labor with the aid of advanced machinery. In today’s society, people adamantly rely on machines such as city busses, aircraft, and automobiles to make their lives easier and more productive. Unfortunately, many of these machines burn fossil fuels such as gas, oil, and coal to create enough energy to function. When these fossil fuels are burned, they release carbon emissions in the air, which causes many negative effects to our climate. Sadly, thousands of American companies that rely on burning fossil fuels to support their factories and machinery are unwilling to invest in alternative sources of cleaner energy due to higher costs. Many of these companies disguise their fears of incurring higher costs by claiming that reducing carbon emissions will not significantly impact our ecosystems. Although it is a debated topic, most environmental scientists claim that climate change will decrease crop outputs due to increasing temperatures, disappearing quality pastureland, and higher incidences of insect reproduction and disease. In order to save our crops, I argue that we must continue subsidizing research and development for cleaner energy. To start, nearly all climate scientists acknowledge that increasing temperatures...
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...“The Food Movement, Rising” Michael Pollan wrote an article entitled “The Food Movement, Rising”. This article talks about how food impacts many facets in the nation including politics, society and family. In this article he shares how food is not just about food and is a much larger issue than meets the eye. He talks about how the issues of food have impacted the country and therefore the world (Pollan). Then, he breaks the issues down on macro and micro levels, focusing on the impact of food on politics, society, and family. Finally, he points out the real cost of food, directly and indirectly. I agree with Michael Pollan about the ongoing issues with food and I am against industrial agriculture too. Americans have not had to think very hard about where their food comes from, or what it is doing to the planet, their bodies, and their society. (Pollan) Pollan points out the exact current problems about food. He believes that people should eat better food. However, Pollan neglects to mention that it was a problem hundred years ago, and it is still a problem today. He points out in his article that food in America has been invisible as an issue until the early 1970s, when food price inflation pushed the topic to be an important national agenda. He mentions that “before this food was never an issue to be discussed in America because it was available at cheap prices”. Also, Americans were completely ignorant of what was the bigger cost they were paying for cheap foods and how...
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...produces it. The main commodities such as aluminium, cocoa, coffee, copper, corn, copper, cotton crude oil, lead, heating oil, gold, lean hogs, live cattle, natural gas, nickel, platinum, palm oil, soybeans oil, soybean, silver, sugar, tin, unleaded gas, wheat and zinc. Economic recovery will make food, metals and other raw materials more expensive in 2011, the head of the World Trade Organization said on Monday. Addressing a United Nations conference, WTO Director-General Pascal Lamy said the prices of crude oil, copper, gold, corn and soybeans would be rises most this year, with less pronounced increases in natural gas, zinc and cattle. Besides that, Frenchman said "2011 will see the prices of most commodities rise, as the rise in global GDP bolsters demand, led by emerging economies”, estimating worldwide economic output would increase 4 percent in 2011. Over 70 percent of the growth will come from commodity-intensive emerging markets. China, India and Latin America, in particular, will be acting as a 'pull' for global commodities. That’s means rising commodity prices could be a boon for countries where raw materials are grown, mined, produced and refined. The commodity price change related with the supply and demand on the price. Price is determined by the interaction of supply and demand. Market price is dependent upon both of these fundamental market forces. The successful commodity trading transaction occurs when buyers demand and sellers supply agree on price. When this exchange...
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...The Greenhouse Effect and Global Warming: Definition, Causes, and potential effects to humans, Plants, animal communities and natural resources. Discuss with illustrations. INTRODUCTION There's a delicate balancing act occurring every day all across the Earth, involving radiation the planet receives from space and the radiation that's reflected back out to space. Enormous amounts of radiation, primarily from the sun strikes the Earth's atmosphere in the form of visible light, ultraviolet, infrared and other types of radiation that are invisible to the human eye. About 30 percent of the radiation striking Earth's atmosphere is immediately reflected back out to space by clouds, ice, snow, sand and other reflective surfaces, according to NASA (National Aeronautics and Space Administration). The remaining 70 percent of incoming solar radiation is absorbed by the oceans, the land and the atmosphere. As they heat up, the oceans, land and atmosphere release heat in the form of infrared thermal radiation, which passes out of the atmosphere and into space. It is this equilibrium of incoming and outgoing radiation that makes the Earth habitable. Without this balance, the greenhouse effect sets in. Definition Greenhouse Effect: The warming of the atmosphere due to the increased amounts of greenhouse gases such as carbon dioxide, nitrous oxides and methane. These gases form a blanket over the Earth, trapping the energy or heat from the sun and preventing it from leaving the atmosphere...
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...has recently gained significant importance as one of the fastest growing niche sectors within the tourism industry around the world. In Bangladesh we have started it with a longer vision. Modern cruises with ever-larger vessels have transformed the ship from merely transporting tourists to various destinations to become a resort in its own right (Kester, 2002; Papathanasis & Beckmann, 2011; Weaver, 2005). With the extended facilities offered, competitive pricing and aggressive marketing campaigns we think our cruise business will give its guests an elite type of vacation which they can remember for their rest of life. HR Strategy of Cruise Business Cruise business is simple managing a floating resort. This business is very closely related with hospitality rather than sport, recreation, entertainment, beauty, health and therapy. On the other hand if the human resource management is not proper in such case this would not bring any effective result for such kind of business. The HR personnel of this cruise will also maintain different partnerships with different department of this cruise liner in order to serve all parties in the best interest of the business. By confronting different issues and getting feedback it will report to the manager so that the performance of the overall team can be better. HR personnel also should develop business strategies that are in alignment with the cruise’s business objectives, by focusing on all aspects of the human asset. Continuously improving...
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...A Study of Impact of RBI policy rates on inflation *Prof. Pallavi Ingale Introduction The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) is the Indian central bank. The RBI’s most important goal is to maintain monetary stability - moderate and stable inflation in India. The RBI uses monetary policy to maintain price stability and an adequate flow of credit. Rates which the Indian central bank uses for this are the bank rate, repo rate, reverse repo rate and the cash reserve ratio. The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) raised repo and reverse repo rates 13 times in previous year. RBI also deregulated savings bank deposit rate with immediate effect. This step was taken to arrest rising inflation in Asia's third largest economy. But this RBI's decision to hike short-term lending and borrowing rates could lead to higher interest rates and impact the growth momentum of the economy. An Indian company has postponed expansion plans and review future profitability projections after the Reserve Bank of India raised key interest rates. The central bank also revised the GDP growth rate for FY11-12 to 7.6% from the earlier 8%, while the projection of WPI inflation has been kept unchanged at 7% for March 2012. Reserve Bank of India (RBI) The Reserve Bank of India was inaugurated as on April 1 1935. Originally, the Reserve Bank was constituted as a shareholders’ bank based on the model leading foreign central banks on that time. The bank ‘s fully paid share capital was Rs. 5 Crores divided into shares of Rs. 100 each...
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...Historical behaviour of food prices and their likely future path By Anne-Sophie Corbeau Georgios Gavotsis Jie Yue Michael Mahmoud Nanditha Chinnaraj Raphael Zumofen Business Economics Lecturer: Professor David Shepherd Imperial College Business School MSc Management Word Count: 2495 10th November 2011 “The common theme for why all these commodity prices are higher is the substantial increase in fund flow into these markets, which are not big enough to withstand the increase in funds without pushing up prices” By Kevin Morrison, Journalist for the Financial Times April 9, 2006 Table of Contents i. Introduction 1 ii. Movements in food prices 1 iii. Structure of the food market 8 iv. Government Intervention in the Food Market 10 a. Tariffs and Quotas 10 b. Subsidies and Export Taxes 11 c. Price Support Mechanisms 13 v. Forecast of food prices evolution over the next 20 years 16 vi. Bibliography 21 Introduction The aim of this paper is to analyse the various factors that have contributed not only to rise of food prices over the last two decades, ending the trend of falling food prices#, but also how the structure of the food commodity market and government intervention have contributed to price spikes and generally increasing food commodity prices. The paper will conclude with a forecast of long-term food prices and the factors that will contribute to a continued increase...
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...Turn risks and opportunities into results Exploring the top 10 risks and opportunities for global organizations Oil and gas sector Contents Introduction Executive summary Part 1: Risks Ernst & Young sector risk radar The top 10 risks 1. Access to reserves: political constraints and competition for proven reserves 2. Uncertain energy policy 3. Cost containment 4. Worsening fiscal terms 5. Health, safety and environmental risks 6. Human capital deficit 7. New operational challenges, including unfamiliar environments 8. Climate change concerns 9. Price volatility 10. Competition from new technologies 1 3 6 7 8 8 10 12 14 16 18 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 26 28 29 30 32 34 36 38 39 40 42 Part 2: Opportunities Ernst & Young opportunity ladder The top 10 opportunities 1. Frontier acreage 2. Unconventional sources 3. Conventional reserves in challenging areas 4. Rising emerging market demand 5. NOC-IOC partnerships 6. Investing in innovation and R&D 7. Alternative fuels, including second generation biofuels 8. Cross-sector strategic partnerships 9. Building regulatory confidence 10. Acquisitions or alliances to gain new capabilities Methodology Introduction While risk continues to dominate the business agenda, competition is also becoming just as dominant a feature. Market volatility, pricing pressure, variations in market performance, demanding stakeholders — all have contributed to a global economy that encourages competitive drive. And with that drive comes...
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...8 Table 3-Annual Inflation Rates-Developed Countries 8 Inflationary Trends and Analysis 9 Figure 2- The Last Decade 9 Figure 3- Inflation and Unemployment 9 Conclusion 10 Recommendations 10 Executive Summary Analysing the domestic inflation rate, it was found that the main driver of inflation was food prices. Rising global food prices is expected to continue to put upward pressure on local food prices and subsequently the headline inflation rate in Trinidad and Tobago. While this is a global phenomenon, developing countries are expected to be impacted harder than that of the developed nations. This is due to lower incomes as well as less developed and efficient market systems. Food accounts for a substantial portion of imports in Trinidad and Tobago therefore making us highly susceptible to imported inflation. To limit the impact of imported inflation, local agriculture and manufacturing sectors need to expand. Another contributor to the inflation rate was the average annual oil price for the corresponding year. These two variables possessed a strong positive correlation. Energy prices affect transportation and production and when they increase, the cost of final products increase. Inflation was found to reduce one’s purchasing power, as each dollar becomes less valuable over time. The best way to guard against inflation is to invest in assets that would yield a greater return than current and expected inflation...
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...Bangladesh”. We have found this report as of informative, beneficial as well as insightful. We have tried our level best to prepare an effective & creditable report. The report contains detail description upon Inflation and the Price inflation in Bangladesh. Here we have gathered information through different sources. I honestly hope that this analytical assessment will identify the causes and impacts of price inflation of Bangladesh. Therefore we hope you will find this report worth all the effort we have put in it. Sincerely Yours, A.T.M. Golam Kibria Khan Executive Summary The current wave of inflation has been eroding purchasing power of the low and middle income people in Bangladesh, as they need to pay much higher bills for food grain and other commodities. The Exchequer of Bangladesh, which absorbs the petroleum price hike significantly, is also under severe pressure as oil prices hike in the international market. The concerned authorities in Bangladesh have taken several measures to contain the current inflation. However, some of their measures have proven to be countervailing and the ongoing inflation in the economy shows no sign of restrain. The relationship between inflation and economic growth is a...
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