December 17, 2007 (LPAC)--The fact that hyperinflation is underway, most visibly in the development of food prices, cannot be hidden even by the "bench markers" among the generally ill-conceived establishment statistical experts. The European Union's experts note an inflation rate of 4.3 percent in food prices in the Euro-Zone countries for November; in the US, figures for the same month are 4.8 percent. In Britain, annualized food inflation was already officially 5.1 percent in October, and figures for November are expected to be higher.
These figures don't tell the whole story, as inflation hits the 80 percent lower-income segment of the population, and hits them much harder. Newly released figures by the German Federal Statistical Office show, that in the consumer basket, where the biggest chunk, namely 30 percent, is the costs for housing, water, electricity, gas or heating oil, hyperinflation has already begun. Food, which accounts for 10% of the consumer basket, in many basic categories has increased dramatically, between November 2006 and 2007. Some examples: bread + 5.4%; butter + 46.1%; Camembert cheese + 10.4%; eggs + 6.2%; yogurt + 11.1%; milk between 22.9% and 27.9% (depending on the category); noodles + 6.2%; fruits + 3.3% (but green paprika even 21.4%!); curd cheese 37.2 %; wheat flour + 19%; rice + 6.6%; salt + 4.7%.
According to a Caritas report, already an increasing number of people on Hartz IV austerity program in Germany have stopped preparing warm meals, to cut their energy bill. Price increases for regular gasoline are 18.8%, for super gasoline 17.6% and for heating oil 23.7%. All utility companies have announced heavy price increases for electricity for January 1, 2008, and natural gas for heating and cooking is already now expected to increase by 20% by April, and by as much as 40 percent by some utilities in various regions..
As for the aforementioned "experts," in the case of Germany, the "Keynesian" trade union linked ones, like Peter Bofinger and Gustav Horn (Institute for Macroeconomics and Economic Research), on Dec. 14 joined hands with Michael Heise, chief economist of Allianz and Dresdner Bank, all of them hysterically denying the hyperinflationary nature of the situation. Bofinger claimed in the German mass tabloid "Bild," that in 2008 inflation will decrease again to 2%; Heise said, we are not entering into times of constant (sic!) high inflation and that it would drop at the latest in the spring; and Horn, the most stupid one of all three, said, that these effects are "very inconvenient" now, but there is "no inflation in the classical sense," since according to definition, this would have to include a spiral of higher wages which then lead to higher inflation. There are "only singular" price increases of oil, energy prices and food (what else is there??). He attributes the inflation rate to the VAT tax increase at the beginning of 2007, whose effects would already "disappear in the statistics" starting from January 2008.
However, what is already disappearing quickly, is not inflation, but the credibility of these "experts", whose silliness and hysterical inclination to isolated "statistical" elements, rather than dynamic processes, doom them to lunacy. Sane citizens better study the LaRouchePAC publications, to understand the weight of the crisis, and most importantly, what to do about it. Just in case anyone cuddles with Santa for Christmas, LaRouchePAC is offering LaRouche's "triple curve", nicely wrapped, with no extra charge!
