I agree with you. Policymakers have assumed (and connived) for years to create a "cheap food" basis to the US economy. Money that consumers don't need to spend on food can be spent on "everything else."

Now that assumption is being broken. Another assumption of easily accessed credit is being broken. In trying to fix the latter issue (the credit markets), the Fed and other central banks have created a situation where the debasement of their currencies results in escalating prices for anything tangible and real, outside of housing which was already inflated by too much easy credit.

I've said it before and I'll say it again: Policymakers in DC don't give a rat's ass about farmers or ranchers. At all. If they did, they'd quit trying to keep taking production land out of production, especially in the west. They genuflect in front of the ethanol issue ONLY because Iowa holds one of the first political events in the presidential election cycle. If Iowa were somewhere in the middle of the cycle instead of first/second, then ethanol would never have gotten the tax breaks it already received.

Now that the "cheap food" assumption in policy be being broken, and the consumer spending stats out this morning confirm what I and other "bears" have been warning of (high fuel prices crimp consumer spending and demand destruction sets in), and we have a strong correlation between consumer spending and job creation in the US economy (like over 90% correlation), it means that the increase in consumer food/fuel prices will now start to negatively affect job creation, to be seen by the end of the summer, IMO.

Policy makers know that without better job stats, they're going to be out of a job in about 18 months. So they are going to flail around to try to "cure" the high food price issue. They can't, because to actually solve the high fuel/food price issue, they'd have to call out the USAF's strategic bombers and crush the Federal Reserve into rubble. Politicians are pussies when it comes to debating the Fed and the Fed's policies, so that won't happen.

So the policymakers are going to point a quavering finger at ag programs, like ethanol and subsidies as they run out of any and all other room in the US budget to cut spending without cutting into the "sacred" Medicare and Social Security programs. Ag is going to be early on the chopping block. I've said that in the past, too. Use this flush time to get free of ANY need for ANY dollars from Uncle Sugar. Because the time is coming that they take them all away in their quest to postpone the inevitable Greek-like situation where they must cut public welfare spending for the freeloaders.