"The Informant"; inflation.

[rj.phila]

has anyone read this book by kurt eichenwald? i just did, and it really gave me a new perspective on how we gauge inflation in our everyday lives. fascinating read(along with his "conspiracy of fools", another great book about the demise of enron). i can go more into detail, but curious if anyone has read it?

[Joan.of.the.Arch]

Have not read it. What is the idea about guaging inflation that the book either proposess or made you think of (I'm unclear on which you are saying)?

By the way, have a look at the second single star review of this book on Amazon. If the author of that review is correct and honest, I would have a hard time "swallowing" the book. Lots of identifiably wrong "facts" make me question much more.

But what about inflation? I'm curious. I probably have some pretty random ideas about judging inflation in my own life. I think that where there are easy alternatives to an inflated product I tend to overlook that inflation. Where there are no alternatives, I give strong emphasis. So if the price of navy beans doubles in a month, well okay, I'll just use great northern beans. But if the price of natural gas for the home goes up, well, I don't have any ready alternatives, so it makes a huge impression when the state utility commission permits a 33% increase.

[rj.phila]

so, basically, the book is about price fixing in the lysine industry. ADM-a huge food products company-settled a case for doing this. and one of the executives became an informant and gathered this mountain of evidence within the company. but there were claims from within the company that price fixing was happening in most of their product lines.

in short, we think of the change in price of a commodity as being the outcome of supply and demand imbalances. but here's a case where in the mid-90's, the cost of some foods were being raised due to price fixing AND production limits in a particular industry across EVERY manufacturer. ADM execs were sentenced, admitted, caught on tape-the whole 9. there were very strong indicators that ADM was doing this in almost all of their product lines, meaning that food prices for consumers were artificially raised across a WIDE swath of markets.

it got me thinking about other industries: if this WAS being done in the high fructose corn syrup market, for example, then maybe it had(HAS) happened in other markets. cell phone service? gas? i mean, WHY does my cable bill need to be 30% higher than in was 4 years ago? production costs? that doesnt make sense. and so on and so forth.

[rj.phila]

also, re: the amazon review: read the book. then go back and read that second 1 star review. and then look at the name. its a character in the actual book. wow. that is hilarious.

[jteezie]

Hmm... sounds like a case study about oligopolies exercising pricing power and of human fallibility. What's new?

You might also like the recent movie: In Time In Time (2011) - IMDb

Conspiracies aside, there are plenty of other seemingly irrational economic forces. Here's an example:
2008 global rice shortage - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia