This is somewhat in synch with Krugman's thinking at the end of his most recent column on this «finite world» (which was
on commodity prices generally, not food):
Not exact matches
Journalism
on financial markets
generally, and
commodity markets in particular, often resorts to rounding up the usual suspects to explain anomalous
price movements.
Early in the period, talk of a bottoming in
commodity prices and a more optimistic tone in world markets
generally saw the currency rise to around the top end of this range
on several occasions.
Over time, the stronger global environment could also generate further upward pressure
on commodity prices and hence manufacturing costs, and
on traded goods
prices more
generally.
The 1970's saw a rise in the
price of
commodities generally, and gold acted as a barometer for how little people trusted the new financial system that replaced one of the rarest metals
on earth with «made up money».
What's been curious in the last month is that oil
prices have been
on a wild ride, and
commodity prices generally have been
on a wild ride.
As a result,
commodity prices have
generally declined over the very long term
on an inflation - adjusted basis.
The statistics that I have seen
on the returns
on commodities, over the past two decades or so, have
generally shown that they exhibit lower expected returns and higher
price volatility than equities.
While inflation is a relatively consistent, expected decrease in the value of currency,
commodity prices are based
on discounted expected future value, and thus do
generally avoid consistent drops in
prices, and so provide safety from inflation in some sense.
A condo is a housing
commodity that is
generally priced and traded
on a
price - per - square - foot basis.
In the past, branding was
generally focused
on functional benefits,
price competition, and
commodity features.