Food costs push higher due to energy, currency

[unhappycamper]

Food costs push higher due to energy, currency
By Matt Millham, Stars and Stripes
European edition, Tuesday, June 17, 2007

What has four wheels, costs more to fill up today than it did a year ago, yet doesn’t cost a penny to operate?

Give yourself a pat on the back if you guessed a shopping cart.

U.S. food and beverage prices are up 5 percent from a year ago, according to a Bureau of Labor Statistics report released Friday.

And for Americans in Europe — where the Defense Commissary Agency buys some merchandise on the economy — food prices in general have risen even faster than they have in the U.S. because of the dollar’s feeble performance against local currencies.

While cost-of-living allowances cover those currency-related increases for many overseas Americans, nobody who shops the commissary is protected from U.S. inflation.


Rest of article at: http://www.stripes.com/article.asp?section=104&article=55597

[whistle]

1. ...and commodities speculators who are making huge profits