Inflation

The 'basket' and services of goods used calculate the various price indices used in inflation statistics seem to not make sense to me at the moment. Who is going to buy a camera or TV (down 11.5% in a year) when food is inflating by something in the region of 6% and household energy costs look like they will be going up by something like 17.5%! Not to mention the prospects of the job market remaining at best static and employers clamping down on wage rises.

Shows what food and energy speculation (over and above the effect of the rise of the 'BRIC' economies) has on regional/national inflation.

Nobody minds normal commodity trading (well members of the SWP might), but the use of energy and food in speculative, 'get-rich-quick' schemes seems morally flawed.

I just published this and on the post published page was an ad suggesting you can 'get-rich-quick' by trading in carbon credits. The world can go to hell in a handcart providing market speculation can go on. I dispair!