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Since 2007, the world’s Central Banks have collectively put more than $10 trillion into the financial system since 2008. To put that number into perspective, it’s equal to roughly 15% of global GDP.

 

This kind of money printing is literally unheard of in modern history. And it has set the stage for a roaring wave of inflation to hit the financial system. Indeed, the first signs are already showing up… not in the “official” Government data (which is bogus) but in how those who run businesses around the globe are acting.

 

Most people believe that when inflation hits, prices have to go higher. This is true, but higher prices can be manifested in multiple ways. Firms usually do not simply raise prices in nominal terms as price elasticity can kill revenues because it would hurt sales.

 

Instead, companies resort to a number of strategies to maintain profit margins without hurting their sales. One of them is to simply leave part of a package EMPTY, thereby selling LESS product for the SAME price (a hidden price hike).

 

Food manufacturers, like the politicians currently debating health reform, may have a solution to the obesity crisis: Feed Americans a lot of hot air. But this heated air is not just a figure of speech for packaged goods companies including Ralcorp Holdings' (RAH) Post Foods and PepsiCo (PEP) subsidiaries Frito-Lay and Quaker.

 

In many packaged products, as much as 50% of the contents is just empty space, an investigation by Consumer Reports reveals. And we consumers are buying that nothingness every day.

 

http://www.dailyfinance.com/2009/12/08/how-much-for-the-air-as-much-as-half-of-food-packaging-is-empty/

 

Another tactic corporation use is to simply sell smaller packages for the SAME price (another means of selling less for MORE= a price hike).

 

U.S. Companies Shrink Packages as Food Prices Rise

           

Large food companies have recently announced that they will raise the prices they charge grocery retailers for commodities-based products. For example, a chocolate bar will cost more soon: Hershey last week announced a 10% increase for most of its confectionery goods.

 

Of course, straightforward price hikes could cause consumers to buy less of those products or to choose less costly store brands. So in many cases, food companies are trying a different tactic: Keeping the price of an item the same while decreasing the amount of food in the package. The company recoups the costs of the rise in commodities and hopes consumers don't notice that they're getting less of the product for the same price.

 

http://www.dailyfinance.com/2011/04/04/u-s-companies-shrink-packages-as-food-prices-rise/

 

However, perhaps the most scandalous policy employed by companies looking to engage in stealth price hikes is to swap out higher quality ingredients for lower quality/ lower cost alternatives. One bigname coffee maker was caught doing this just a few years ago.

 

Reuters is reporting that many of America's major brands have been quietly tweaking their coffee blends. While most coffee companies consider their blends trade secrets, and are loath to disclose exactly what goes into them, both circumstantial and direct evidence suggests they're now substituting lower-grade Robusta beans for some of their pricier Arabica, and degrading the quality of our coffee…

 

At least one coffee roaster has admitted it. In November, Massimo Zanetti USA, which roasts for both Chock full o'Nuts and Hills Bros., publicly confirmed upping its Robusta usage by 25% this year.

 

Why the switcheroo? Prepare to not be shocked. The answer is: price.

 

Last year, a shortage of Arabica caused prices of the premium bean to spike as high as $3 a pound — $2 more than what a pound of Robusta would cost. This compares to a five-year historical trend of Arabica costing closer to 70 cents more than Robusta. In recent weeks, the trend has reversed, with Arabica prices falling to just a 62-cent premium over Robusta.

 

http://www.dailyfinance.com/2012/06/19/noticed-that-your-coffee-tastes-funny-heres-why/?a_dgi=aolshare_twitter

 

In simple terms, inflation is already around us, though it’s not yet showing up in LITERAL price hikes. Instead, we’re all paying MORE for LESS. And it’s only a matter of time before the situation really gets out of control.

 

For a FREE Special Report on an uniquely profitable inflation hedge, swing by….

http://phoenixcapitalmarketing.com/goldmountain.html

 

Best Regards

Graham Summers

via Zero Hedge http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/zerohedge/feed/~3/WBAYr5MqXLU/story01.htm Phoenix Capital Research

The real life magic-mushroom, banana dictatorship envisioned by George Orwell just went full retard.

From VT Senator Bernie Sanders:

U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) today asked the National Security Agency director whether the agency has monitored the phone calls, emails and Internet traffic of members of Congress and other elected officials.

 

“Has the NSA spied, or is the NSA currently spying, on members of Congress or other American elected officials?” Sanders asked in a letter to Gen. Keith Alexander, the NSA director. “Spying” would include gathering metadata on calls made from official or personal phones, content from websites visited or emails sent, or collecting any other data from a third party not made available to the general public in the regular course of business?”

 

Sanders said he was “deeply concerned” by revelations that American intelligence agencies harvested records of phone calls, emails and web activity by millions of innocent Americans without any reason to even suspect involvement in illegal activities. He also cited reports that the United States eavesdropped on the leaders of Germany, Mexico, Brazil and other allies.

 

Sanders emphasized that the United States “must be vigilant and aggressive in protecting the American people from the very real danger of terrorist attacks,” but he cited U.S. District Court Judge Richard Leon’s recent ruling that indiscriminate dragnets by the NSA were probably unconstitutional and “almost Orwellian.”

 

Sanders has introduced legislation to put strict limits on sweeping powers used by the National Security Agency and Federal Bureau of Investigation to secretly track telephone calls by millions of innocent Americans who are not suspected of any wrongdoing.

 

The measure would put limits on records that may be searched. Authorities would be required to establish a reasonable suspicion, based on specific information, in order to secure court approval to monitor business records related to a specific terrorism suspect. Sanders’ bill also would put an end to open-ended court orders that have resulted in wholesale data mining by the NSA and FBI. Instead, the government would be required to provide reasonable suspicion to justify searches for each record or document that it wants to examine.

Uhm… yes?

 

via Zero Hedge http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/zerohedge/feed/~3/QAlgSutwIw8/story01.htm Tyler Durden

On December 31 we demonstrated the biggest operation in the history of the Fed’s temporary open market operations: a $198 billion reverse repo under its brand new fixed-rate scheme, which, at least according to the Fed, was supposed to be a mechanism designed to prepare the market for the “normalization” of the Fed’s balance sheet and allow seamless liquidity extraction. What the Fed did not announce was that it was also the biggest collateral window-dressing scheme ever conceived (that there was $200 billion in free liquidity sloshing around was a distant second highlight).

What we said then was that “We will leave it up to readers to decide what is more surreal: that the Fed is allowing banks to “window dress” to the tune of several times more than total Treasury holdings owned by the Primary Dealers as disclosed by the Fed, or that there is an unprecedented $200 billion in free liquidity floating out there.”

Well, if what happened in the last days of 2013 was indeed merely reverse repo-assisted window dressing, then we would expect the that first days of 2014 should see a comparable collapse in the magnitude of the Fed’s reverse repo operations. Sure enough, as the chart below shows, this is precisely what has happened following today’s far more modest $56.7 billion reverse repo operation conducted among 50 bidding counterparties and the Fed, of course.

In short: collateral window dressing on; collateral window dressing off, all with the blessing of the banks’ overarching regulator, the Federal Reserve. What is most disturbing is that both the world’s largest financial firms, and by implication the Fed, just admitted there is a massive collateral shortage currently if banks are forced to pad their books to the tune of nearly $200 billion in “high quality collateral” just to pass year-end auditor muster.

And a tangent: in the past two days, the Fed has first withdrawn and subsequently re-injected a record $140 billion in liquidity, or nearly two months’ worth of post-taper POMO. One may be tempted to wonder just where it is that these hundreds of billions in fungible electronic monetary equivalents have ended up…

via Zero Hedge http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/zerohedge/feed/~3/ZYqKy5qfuRk/story01.htm Tyler Durden