The more you swallow it, the more it pulls up. It is the price of a cup of coffee in American cafeterias, denounces The Wall Street Journal. These days Arabica is in sharp decline on the Chicago commodity exchange: 1,7640 dollars a pound, well below the July prices (2,219 dollars a pound) when drought and parasites weighed on Brazilian crops. In short, the increases are over. But not in bars in New York or San Francisco. The cup, after the upward retouches in the various Starbucks, actually registers new increases. A bit like petrol in our area: increases run fast, decreases take much longer.
The rule, in truth, has to deal with the effects of the economic crisis. In the US, Christmas consumption is better than feared by the disappointing outcome of Black Friday, the traditional start day for Christmas sales. It seems like a disaster waiting to happen, on the contrary the final balance for November, including online sales, closes with a discreet recovery. In short, consumer habits are changing. To the detriment, unfortunately, of the Christmas lights of increasingly poor and deserted shops by consumers who go hunting for discounts on Amazon catalogues, that the goods are kept in anonymous warehouses in the saddest places. And the lights of Manhattan are dimmer axes.
In Europe, depressed and frustrated, good news comes along with deflation. This year, reports the Fao Food Index, which measures the price trend of agricultural raw materials, the Christmas dinner should cost at least 5 percent less. Even deflation has decided to give the children a gift: the tree under which the gifts will be deposited will cost less this year. This is due to the drop in oil, which feeds the ships carrying pines from China, also in this case the leader, or even more to the collapse of the coal which heats the greenhouses of the Dragon.
But the real saving concerns the table. Poultry and pork prices are down (both 14 percent less than a year ago), above all due to the embargo against Russia which has caused a supply surplus in the markets of the Old Continent. The same goes for many vegetables: turkey and Christmas side dishes, from potatoes to Brussels sprouts, have never been so cheap, warns the United Nations agency (sensitive to the tastes of Anglo-Saxon families).
Good news for homemade cake: the housewife will pay less for sugar, butter (even -35 percent) and milk. Also in this case the embargo that eliminated exports to Russia counts. Dulcis in fundo, there is also a drop in raisins (-40%) as well as the rest of dried fruit.
A big party in which, however, one of the kings of parties takes part: chocolate, driven by the cocoa crisis (hit in the heart by the Ebola epidemic which has raged in the areas with the richest plantations). And almonds went up (up 20 percent, due to the drought in California). But, to hit the heart of the gluttons, it will be above all the famine of hazelnuts, victims of the frosts in Turkey. The dinner will be cheaper but, sweet tooth, resign yourself to the expensive Nutella.
