The Economist shows that the price of breakfast — if breakfast consists of coffee, toast (or some other wheat product) and orange juice — is going up. In other news, The Economist explains that while poor harvests are a factor, the price surge may be due as much to low interest rates as to low harvests. Investors are apparently looking for “investable markets”. Does that sound like speculation to You?
And, in celebration of International Beer Day ((Two days ago, alas; why can’t we keep up with these things properly?)) there’s this fine chart showing the rise of craft breweries in the US. The blogger from whom I picked up the story says this is all down to Jimmy Carter deregulating the beer industry in 1979, but commenters there are not so sure. They’re wrong, and the internets prove it. That’s politics for you.
Cornflakes, toast, jam, eggs, coffee is breakfast? A ‘newspaper’ (as The Economist likes to call itself) that boasts a global readership should know better. In most of Asia that’s not breakfast. Vegetables are, rice is, noodles are, soup is, local cereals are. Orange juice indeed.
I’m entirely sure that it isn’t “all down to Jimmy Carter deregulating the beer industry”, because Jimmy Carter didn’t actually deregulate the beer industry at all. What he did was sign HR 1337, which legalized homebrewing (while explicitly prohibiting sale of same); Carlson appears to have misunderstood the nature of this legislation as deregulating the industry (as opposed to ‘deregulating’ personal behavior), and Kain picked up Carlson’s error.
Thanks Tom for the clarification.