Food has long been heavily subsidized in Egypt. Recently the government has allowed the real cost to peek through. This may have been poorly timed because there are presently a lot of factors driving up these prices.

Canada had a poor wheat crop. Russia had a poor year, so much so that they have restricted export. The US ethanol program has a lot of farmers putting effort into producing fuel instead of food. And a similar program, the European bio-diesel programs, are having a similar effect.

Generally the rest of the world spends close to a third of their household budgets on food. US consumers enjoy low prices because our food is heavily subsidized. Mainly this is through various farm programs, tax breaks, and incentive programs for processors. The US effort keeps wheat, corn, soybeans, sugar, meat and milk products artificially low. Which, paradoxically, keeps fruits, vegetables and non-subsidized food, the stuff you ought to be eating if you want to stay healthy, artificially high.

So...how about those gas prices?

-Blast

. . . $3.85 in SOCAL . . .

Looking at past expense receipts I have on hand at the moment.

Jan 16th: $1.16 per litre ($5.19 per gallon)

Jan 29th: $1.20 per litre ($5.46 per gallon)

Feb 27th: $1.27 per litre ($5.78 per gallon)

Today's pump price: $1.31 per litre ($5.96 per gallon)

Price increase per gallon in 6 weeks: .77 cents.

Costco has Regular for $3.83 at present, in Marina del Rey!I've seen it as high as $4.05 at the Shadier Stations thru out L.A.!

Currently $8.80 per US Gallon in some of the remoter parts of Scotland.

I am planning for $12-14 per US Gallon in the UK within the next 6 months.

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/...lt-2232928.html

With another Western financial crisis again on the cards and with some commentators speculating the end of the US dollar as the Worlds reserve currency status over night (50% devaluation on the cards) then I could also see $8-10 per US gallon in the USA (possibly even higher if the Ghawar field output radically drops output i.e. Peak Oil wrong slide of the slope) by the middle of 2012.

Even North Sea oil and gas output has dropped production output by around 1/3 capacity in the space of 2-3 years.

$3.39 per gallon on the north side of Houston, higher downtown.
-Blast, adjusting accordingly

Lucky you. $3.65 last night to fill up on Long Island.

Anyone want to buy a minivan?

$3.69 here in W. WA, going up daily.

Gas station owner said he's looking for $5.50 by midsummer.

And did anyone here think Blast was off the mark when he first posted?

And coming on the heels of the gas prices going up almost daily is a possibly interesting view from the Huffington Post. Yeah, they can be iffy, but my memory isn't so bad that I don't remember the 2008-2009 'crash' coinciding with gas hitting $4.50 a gallon.

Everything is connected to everything else. We shall see.

Sue

So the Saudis claim they can immediately boost production from 9 million to 12 million barrels a day to make up spare capacity if necessary. But apparently thats never happened before. And their stated reserves are being seriously questioned. And someone tell me why they still don't allow more diesels from Toyota, Honada, Ford, GM in the US? If I'm gonna pay $5+ for a gallon of fuel I wanna get my moneys worth.