Oil price jump wreak havoc?

[jamesqf]

Originally Posted by redneck

You got to be joking, I hope...

A 50% increase in the price of oil will most likely lead to a 15% increase in cost of consumer goods across the board.

Funny, 'cause it never has before. We've had how many big spikes in the last few decades? (Seems like one every couple of years.) The price of goods (other than a few things like airline tickets & FedEx shipping) doesn't go up, and the economy doesn't collapse, despite the doomsayers, except when a series of really stupid economic moves has it teetering on the brink already, waiting for the least little nudge to send it over.

[Arragonis]

Originally Posted by jamesqf

Funny, 'cause it never has before. We've had how many big spikes in the last few decades? (Seems like one every couple of years.) The price of goods (other than a few things like airline tickets & FedEx shipping) doesn't go up, and the economy doesn't collapse, despite the doomsayers, except when a series of really stupid economic moves has it teetering on the brink already, waiting for the least little nudge to send it over.

Thats because the % of the total cost of oil of most things is not yet significant but it will become so at some point. The cost of sending something and the cost of flights is the most dependant on the price of fuel just now.

Food will follow - take a look at the country of origin of a lot of food and the distance from where you are is quite scary sometimes. We have thousands of miles of greenhouses in the UK but the tomatoes I bought this morning came from Egypt. The supermarkets (Tesco, Walmart etc.) drive prices down from their suppliers, and in turn they look to reduce their primary cost (labour) by moving to where that is cheaper.

But at the same time the cost of making that environment suitable to produce things it doesn't naturally (last time I looked Egypt was hot and dry and tomatoes like hot and wet) costs energy, which is oil, as well as water locals can't use. And the cost of transport (Egypt is not local to the UK) means oil plays a factor there too.

We (in Europe) get our stuff from North Africa, you (the US) get yours from Central and South America. The same drivers are in play - costs.

We all remember times when food came from local sources - I remember going to local markets and buying salad and vegetables from local farmers - and accepting it was smaller and less "lush" in the winter, or cheese and accepting it tasted different when the cows were inside in winter and feeding on silage.

Nowadays supermarkets screen us from this. The payback may not be now but it will happen at some point. At this point those greenhouses here may come back into use as they are local and in a lot of cases energy efficient (recycling biomass for example). But maybe a lot of us may have made choices here.

Most of us like to support the local suppliers so if we went back to using local markets, shops and suppliers then that would also stimulate local suppliers to invest and grow, and employ people and allow the local economy to grow instead of the one in China, Egypt and elsewhere.

And in the event that oil is in short supply then those local producers are there to maintain supplies.

Seems like damn good insurance to me.

[jamesqf]

Originally Posted by Arragonis

We have thousands of miles of greenhouses in the UK but the tomatoes I bought this morning came from Egypt.

Having a fresh tomato in February is a luxury, is it not? So you folks in Britain can, without more than a bit of whining, do without your February tomatos, and your package flights off to Spain or various Indian Ocean resorts.

The supermarkets (Tesco, Walmart etc.) drive prices down from their suppliers, and in turn they look to reduce their primary cost (labour) by moving to where that is cheaper.

Now is it really cost of labour that grows tomatos in North Africa in the winter? Or is it more the total cost of growing them in open fields & shipping, vs constructing & running greenhouses to grow them locally?

...last time I looked Egypt was hot and dry and tomatoes like hot and wet...

Last time I looked, the area along the Nile IS hot and wet.

We (in Europe) get our stuff from North Africa, you (the US) get yours from Central and South America. The same drivers are in play - costs.

It's far more gowing seasons than anything. I can today buy fruit - peaches, blueberries, blackberries, etc - that's grown in Chile and shipped here by air, but it's expensive. As the season progresses, I'll see stuff grown in northern Mexico & southern California, and it'll be cheaper. Later on, it'll come from California's central valley (or some from my own garden, or the few farms this side of the Sierra Nevada), and will be cheap because it doesn't have to be shipped very far. And as the season runs towards fall, I'll see it coming from Oregon, Washington, and finally southern BC.

I'd see the same pattern when I lived in Switzerland. Early fruits & vegetables would come from North Africa, then as the season progressed from southern Italy & Spain, then the north. In midsummer I could get the same fruits from local fields, then later from places in northern Europe.

But all this is luxury: our forefathers didn't have much of it. (Though you might be surprised at some of the things they did have. I'm reading a book "Founding Foodies" about cooking in American Revolutionary times, and many recipes call for lemons, limes, mangos, & other tropical fruit.) And yet they didn't starve, nor suffer an economic collapse for want of fresh tomatos in midwinter.

[NeilBlanchard]

Food that is grown to survive transport is no where near as good as locally grown food in season.

We're eating oil, and natural gas; and this is unsustainable. We're running out of water in the aquifers, too.

[camopaint0707]

how the heck is this thread about tomatoes?

[Frank Lee]

Because there will be hell to pay if I don't have access to cheap pizzas anymore!

[Arragonis]

Originally Posted by Frank Lee

Because there will be hell to pay if I don't have access to cheap pizzas anymore!

Ah, you've met my son

[Arragonis]

Originally Posted by jamesqf

Having a fresh tomato in February is a luxury, is it not? So you folks in Britain can, without more than a bit of whining, do without your February tomatos, and your package flights off to Spain....

Agreed.

And whilst tapping this I'm looking forward to going to Spain in a few weeks and munching a few grapes from South Africa too. I'm just as hypocritical as every other whining brit.

Which leads to a question - is any of this price hike having an effect on people now ?

[redyaris]

Only those close to, or at the "margin" the rest of us just whine weather brits or not. As to imperial hypocracy that's been around quit a while and you don't seem to have a monopoly on that either.

[jamesqf]

Originally Posted by NeilBlanchard

Food that is grown to survive transport is no where near as good as locally grown food in season.

True enough, which is why I have a garden & fruit trees. But still, there are no locally-grown fruits & vegetables in these parts from at least November to March. (Well, OK, I have a bit of lettuce &c in pots in the sunroom, but that's hardly enough to live on.) So it's a luxury to have some fresh stuff in the winter months, rather than live off dried & canned.