The absurdities of the European system of sugar subsidies are highlighted today in a New York Times article. Rampant fraud and corruption plague a byzantine system of rules and regulations created to support a program that primarily benefits large multinational corporations. Because of the subsidies, consumers in the European Union pay an average retail price of $0.63 per pound, while the global average is only about $0.36 per pound.
The historical trend of the European wholesale import price can be studied in further detail in our commodities section. Click on the graph below to manipulate and download the data.
I just updated the historical commodity prices section with the latest IMF data. Historical data for 8 price indices and 49 commodities now includes June 2008 numbers. I’m including a chart showing that the aggregate commodity price index, i.e. the index that tracks energy, metals, food, and raw materials, continued its upward march in June. It increased 5.7% with respect to May 2008, 32.6% with respect to January 2008, and 62% with respect to June 2007. Inflation has clearly become a serious problem around the World.
Click on the image above to play with the data
A very interesting article about bananas in the NY Times mentions the rapid rise of prices for what has been one of the lowest-priced fruits in the US. I decided to use the new commodity prices section to investigate how much prices have changed over the past twenty five years.
Over the past six months, the price of Central American and Ecuadorian bananas has increased by 43%. Between May of 2007 and May 2008 the price increased by 19% (the price peaked in March of 2008). A five year time frame shows an appreciation of 198.9%, while a 25 year time frame shows a price increase of 83.89%. There is significant volatility in the price of bananas. The lowest price within the past 25 years was USD 250.51 per metric ton in June of 1994, while the highest was USD 1027.36 in March of 2008.
Commodity prices have been in the news lately. Using data from the International Monetary Fund, you can now graph monthly prices for 55 primary commodities and data series for 9 commodity price indices. Most of the series go back to January of 1980.