[jamesqf]

Originally Posted by Thymeclock

No, that's a predictable, cyclical trend in prices, typical of most produce items. If next year's price cycle rotates from $2.49 to 4.75, that's inflation.

Not necessarily. If the price of everything goes up because of a dilution of the value of the currency, that's inflation. If early-season strawberry prices go up because there was a freeze in the Imperial Valley, that's supply & demand working off a crop failure. Really, this is just economics 101, you know :-)

You are saying that when the price of gas goes up, the price of other things goes down? My, what peculiar logic!

What I'm saying is that there's no connection: that the price of gas goes up (mostly) because of factors related to oil supply & demand, not because of inflation. At the same time we saw gas go up, we saw the cost of other things decrease. Here's a good example: cost of a gigabyte of hard disk since 1980: matt komorowski So does this prove that there's been a milion-fold deflation in the past 30 years? Nonsense, of course, just like rising gas prices = inflation is nonsense.

If you truly believe that "there's only so much in the ground, so every barrel pumped decreases the supply" tell us how much exactly is there.

Excuse me, but that has to have set an all-time record for dumb claims. What does the fact that I don't know where all the oil is have to do with the unarguable fact that the amount of oil must be finite, simply because the Earth is finite? Likewise for exploration: some fraction of the finite earth has been explored already, leaving an ever-decreasing amount that hasn't.

But the available supply (actually it is the production not the supply that is limited)

That's (mostly) wrong to begin with: in most places they're pumping as fast as they can. It's like drinking a milkshake through a straw, No matter how big the shake, you can only suck so fast. And regardless of whether you suck fast or slow, sooner or later you run out of shake.

Even in those places where production is artificially limited, it's still supply & demand on the consumer side of the equation.

You could buy a huge tract of land and live in a small cabin if you wish. Nothing is preventing you from doing that.

Nothing but the lack of several hundred million dollars, at a minimum. You just can't buy huge tracts of land these days, unless your personal net worth is up there in Ted Turner territory.

BTW, you never did tell us where you live where we will find those cheap food prices you cited.

Nothern Nevada, not too far (or IMHO not far enough) from Reno. The prices were at the WinCo supermarket WinCo Foods - "The Supermarket Low Price Leader! on South Virginia in Reno.