Oil is not everything
No doubt some day we live very sensitive with a fierce speculation on certain raw materials. Perhaps the most notice and may influence the economy of the civilized countries is oil, but today we'll talk about other raw materials rather interesting. What will it be?
- It is the second most traded commodity in the world (after petroleum)
- Its main producer is Brazil, and behind him, Vietnam
- Finland is the largest consumer per capita
- Its production of 125 million people depend
- Five companies buy nearly half of world production: Kraft, Nestle, Procter & Gamble and Sara Lee, whose sales generate annual profits of the order of one billion dollars.
- And, to make it easy: Each year, 400,000 million drinking cups of this product.
Indeed, you have guessed that many insurance and you're taking one now.
Interestingly, the amount of chances you have to invest a further than we imagined, in very liquid markets (and in the case of coffee, plus hot), such as futures price of oil, coffee or even of pig guts. Therefore, given the interconnectedness that are currently in the economy is normal that a crisis affecting also to raw materials and what is more dangerous to food. Hence the rise in prices is a serious problem for developing countries.
The Bagel Delight is a chain of stores in New York where the specialty is the bagel, a kind of typical savory Donut of this city. For weeks, his establishment of Brooklyn, there is a poster with which warns that global grain prices have skyrocketed and the flour had done a 325% in the past year. The bagel will rise.
For their clients, the rising world price of wheat, is a small problem. For poor countries or developing countries, where the percentage of income devoted to purchasing food is significantly higher than in developed ones (up to three quarters in some cases), the sharp rise in the price of wheat, rice, sugar or soybeans is causing serious social unrest in Haiti, Egypt, Bangladesh and Pakistan among other countries. The reason is that overall prices of foodstuffs have risen by 83% since February 2007 and there is hunger.
The less disturbing.
Around here, if we are hungry we can do is lengthen the term of the mortgage free, to pay less each month, but is it worth?. Who do not know anything, but in Invertia us remember the article entitled: Enlarge the mortgage could quadruple the price of the house with current rates.
The Zapatero government approved on Friday a package of measures to revive the economy that includes free from now on the postponement of mortgages those citizens who have difficulty coping payments. However, consumer organizations warn that the interests runaway if they can resort to this option. In fact, according to the calculations of Invertia, the average mortgage in our country, amounting to 147,000 euros, according to the latest data from the INE-cost nearly three times the capital if requested to hire 50 years and could quadruple the original amount if the Euribor (the rate at which mortgages are tied most of the mortgages in our country) is still rebounding in the coming months.
While we are the government, will lower the forecast of economic growth. We have to see how things change in just over a month.
Secretary of State for the Economy David Vegara, said today that "in the coming weeks or even days," but in any case "before May", the Government will revise its forecasts for economic growth, taking into account that There are "risks to the bottom" and that the initial projections have been "somewhat outdated".
It looks that do not connect here for many months, when they could see the oil for $ 70 rather than $ 114 now. I am afraid we have to get used to expensive oil.
Since we are talking about big numbers, we have the Royal Bank of Scotland makes history: making the capital increase largest in Europe. 15,000 million euros neither more nor less.
Written by Carlos Lopez on April 22, 2008 with 250 comments
Read more articles on Euribor.
