Soaring Futures

WorldWatch announces that the wheat futures soaring to their highest level in two years, you could soon find yourself paying more for a loaf of bread at your local grocery store. The United Nations' Food and Agriculture Organization said Wednesday that it has cut its global wheat production forecast for 2010 nearly 4% to 651 million metric tons, down from its June estimate of 676 metric tons.

The drought in Russia is definitely the key factor to the rise in prices, but we've also seen problems in Canada, where crops are going to be smaller this year, and Australia may have a smaller crop, so there are other parts of the world that are seeing problems.

One of Europes oldest economies, Portugal has announced that next week
petrol (gas) and bread consumer prices are once more going up, now that crude is once more below the $80 a barrel,with unemployment over the 11% mark and a economy in recession Portugal will continue with serious financial issues mainly due to the monopoly in price fixing in the energy sector by the petrol companies that continue to inflate final consumer prices.

BP, Galp, Repsol, Cepsa, making Portugal somewhat less supportive of economic growth in recent months.

Volatility again

Stocks plunged around the globe, the euro slid to the lowest level since May. Benchmark equity indexes for Portugal and Spain plummeted the most in 15 months. Oil lost 5 percent, the biggest drop in six months, and gold tumbled the most since 2008 as a stronger dollar curbed demand for commodities, some European nations will struggle to finance their budget deficits.
There will be a dramatic increas in volatility again... Even Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway Inc. was stripped of its last AAA credit rating by Standard & Poor’s.
Greece’s ASE Index lost 3.3 percent, Portugal led declines in government bonds, with the premium investors demand to hold the nation’s two-year securities instead of benchmark German bunds widening to 156 basis points, the biggest margin since 1997. Confidence in Portugal was shaken yesterday when it cut an issue of 12-month bills to 300 million euros ($417 million) from a planned 500 million euros.
Credit-default swaps on Portugal’s government debt soared 27 basis points to a 223, the most since at least 2004, according to CMA DataVision prices. Contracts on Greece jumped 14 basis points to 411.5, approaching the record 422. Spain CDSs increased 13 basis points to 165, Italy’s were up 7 at 138 and Ireland climbed 6.5 basis points to 169.5.
The focus is shifting toward Spain and Portugal, where the deficit-reduction plans have now been introduced, in the case of Portugal to finance their budget deficits they must also reduce and freeze the salaries of the "government" employees that number above 700 thousand public servants, some frinch benefits should also be stopped.
Energy companies should restrain from constantly incresing consumer prices such as Galp, BP, Cepsa and Repsol, there is no reason for Portugal to have one of the highest final consumer prices for petrol in the world, crude oil for March delivery fell 5 percent to $71.14 a barrel, however consumers are paying a price equivalent to $92.14 a barrel.
What these companies dont realise is that unemployed people don’t spend money....