Your paycheck will buy a whole lot less at Wal-Mart come June

"To those who think that buying food in the corner deli is becoming a luxury, we have five words: you ain't seen nuthin' yet. U.S. consumers face "serious" inflation in the months ahead for clothing, food and other products, the head of Wal-Mart's U.S. operations warned Wednesday talking to USA Today. And if Wal-Mart which is at the very bottom of commoditized consumer retail, and at the very peak of avoiding reexporting of US inflation by way of China is concerned, it may be time to panic, or at least cancel those plane tickets to Zimbabwe, which is soon coming to us.

The world's largest retailer is working with suppliers to minimize the effect of cost increases and believes its low-cost business model will position it better than its competitors.

Still, inflation is "going to be serious," Wal-Mart U.S. CEO Bill Simon said during a meeting with USA TODAY's editorial board. "We're seeing cost increases starting to come through at a pretty rapid rate."

Along with steep increases in raw material costs, John Long, a retail strategist at Kurt Salmon, says labor costs in China and fuel costs for transportation are weighing heavily on retailers. He predicts prices will start increasing at all retailers in June."





via Zerohedge.com and economicpolicyjournal.com

Silver heading up and up, $50 an ounce soon

Short squeeze! Here comes 50-dollar-Silver

Silver is blasting through all barriers, topping $36.5 this morning! The white bullion market is tight, and the short squeeze in the futures market is exerting a constant upward pressure on the price. If current trends persist, the all-time high of $49.45/ounce will be reached in the near future.

Silver is performing exceptionally, outstripping a vast array of commodities and stocks. Even unrest in the Middle East has not stopped the price increasing, whereas during similar circumstances in the past, silver would have taken some serious blows.

Demand far outsrips production

As far as silver is concerned, we are living in exceptional times. Supply shortages have existed since the Fifties, but this deficit was traditionally eliminated with the (once strategic) reserves of central banks and other financial institutions, who wanted to get rid of their silver due to its lack of monetary use. Consequently, bank supplies have fallen rapidly. Today, the shortage on the silver market is mainly supplemented by recycling used silver, aka ‘scrap’.

It wont be long before we look back on $50/oz fondly...<heavy sigh>

Hope you've been buying gold...

http://gonzalolira.blogspot.com/2010/10/signs-hyperinflation-is-arriving.html


I've been buying as much as I can afford, like a savings account, of small approximately 1/4 oz foreign numismatic coins, like the Mexico 10 peso gold coin, or the Colombia or Uruguay 5 peso, or the UK gold Sovereign, since late 2008.  Wish I had been able to afford more than I've got.  Better storage of wealth than anything else, although tools and ammo are pretty good too.  The gold is more portable, and probably easier to exchange...