Why have the gas prices and food prices rised so high recently?

Question

I heard in the news and saw in the paper about this why has this happened?

Answer 1

The real problem is overpopulation.  That's "the elephant in the room" nobody wants to acknowledge.  The rate of population increase has exceeded the rate of food production increase every year for the past 6 years.  There are no more reserves or stocks of food.  And there are almost 7 billion hungry mouths!  We have added a billion people to world population in about decade.

Rising incomes in places like China and India have them demanding more and better food at the same time their populations (especially India's!) are increasing.

Then compound that with rising demand for oil & petroleum products, including fertilizers.  Fertilizer costs more, transporting food costs more.  

And peak oil has arrived -- the reservoirs are running out.  There has not been a proven major discovery since 1986, and drilling in ANWR (the last major field that has yet to be tapped) has been stopped by environmentalists.  There used to be 10 fields that produced over a million barrels per day; we are down to 4, and will be down to 3 MBPD fields before the end of this year.  The fields are played out.  We used it up.

The only solution is birth control to the point where population is substantially reduced.  Alternative energy can help, but some things (like some fertilizers, etc) can only be created from petroleum.  Energy efficiency can help.  Eliminating waste in food can help; so can eating less.  But the uncomfortable truth is these measures are not enough.  Consider: US per capita energy consumption has been declining for years, but our population grows at one of the fastest rates of any country in the world, and more than 3/4 of the growth is due to immigration.  We would have to eliminate immigration entirely and lower our birth rate to actually reduce total consumption even as we continue to reduce per-capita consumption.

This is just the beginning of rising prices!

Answer 2

Food prices have gone up because gas prices have gone up. Food has to be shipped to stores which uses gas. However with the amount of vegies that have been contaminated with ecoli and salmanila they should be forced to lower the prices because they are really making people sick. Gas prices have gone up because demand for gas is high while supply of demand is low. Also and most importantly GAS COMPANIES ARE GREEDY JERKS.

Answer 3

Because no one made any moves to fix our energy problems for close to fifty years. We were apparently so confident we didn't have to that we spent fifteen of those years worshiping SUV's and acting like there was no tomorrow.

We allowed the oil companies to suppress non petroleum energy technologies so they could maintain their monopoly. We elected oil men as leaders, we signed a devil's deal with Saudi Arabia and as a people we shut our brains off and went into permanent self gratification mode. Believing, I guess, in the theory of no consequences.

But as you can see there were consequences.

But we are still so deluded that if anyone says the things I just said, we are supposed to label them a crazy, plug in our ipods, drag on our cigarettes and go back to sleep.

Rate this answer with a thumbs down. It makes you uncomfortable.

Answer 4

Supply and demand

Answer 5

its because people want more money for things

Answer 6

You haven't seen its a racket by the government to get billions in their coffers

Answer 7

the world is evil.

Answer 8

Lots of reasons.  The value of the US dollar has dropped, meaning you get less of everything for each dollar.  Because of that, investors buy oil and other stable goods to protect themselves from the loss of the dollar.  Plus India and China are increasing demand for oil as well.

Food cost go up because there are a lot of petroleum products involved in farming, and if nothing else, it's got to be delivered miles from wherever it was raised to your local store, on a truck, which uses gas.