Coffee at Highest Price in 47 years (semafor.com) 48
An anonymous reader shares a report: Coffee beans hit their highest price in 47 years, driven by bad weather in Vietnam and Brazil, the biggest producers of robusta and arabica beans respectively.
Brazil saw its worst drought in 70 years this year followed by heavy rains, raising fears that next season's output will drop, further pinching already tight global supplies. Vietnam has itself had three years of low output.
Arabica beans hit $3.18 a pound on Wednesday, leading Nestle, the world's biggest coffee company, to increase prices. As well as climate concerns, future prices are being raised by worries about tariffs: Roasters "will try to import now, because otherwise you will be paying tariffs later," one trade analyst told the Financial Times.
Brazil saw its worst drought in 70 years this year followed by heavy rains, raising fears that next season's output will drop, further pinching already tight global supplies. Vietnam has itself had three years of low output.
Arabica beans hit $3.18 a pound on Wednesday, leading Nestle, the world's biggest coffee company, to increase prices. As well as climate concerns, future prices are being raised by worries about tariffs: Roasters "will try to import now, because otherwise you will be paying tariffs later," one trade analyst told the Financial Times.
Re: (Score:2)
Consider yourself lucky.
Brazil is the biggest coffee exporter and is not a target for punitive tariffs.
I'm a tea drinker. The biggest tea exporter is China.
Time to stock up.
Cup of Joe (Score:2)
"Joe even made a cup of Joe expensive"
He cooked coffee plants with space lasers! [independent.co.uk]
Tariffs? Seriously? (Score:2, Interesting)
As well as climate concerns, future prices are being raised by worries about tariffs
Trump proclaims that he "loves tariffs" which is stupid, but I have hard time believing that even he could be that stupid. Exactly what coffee growers are there in the U.S. that he is trying to "protect?"
But apparently the futures markets believe he is actually that stupid. We'll see.
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Trump proclaims that he "loves tariffs" which is stupid, but I have hard time believing that even he could be that stupid.
He honestly believes tariffs are paid by the other countries. But then again he did somehow manage to bankrupt several casinos.
Exactly what coffee growers are there in the U.S. that he is trying to "protect?"
Some coffee is grown in Hawaii but on the global scale its closer to a rounding error.
But apparently the futures markets believe he is actually that stupid. We'll see.
https://www.pbs.org/newshour/p... [pbs.org]
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Trump proclaims that he "loves tariffs" which is stupid, but I have hard time believing that even he could be that stupid.
He honestly believes tariffs are paid by the other countries. ...
Even worse, his supporters believe him and can't even be bothered to Google tariff [wikipedia.org] to see that he's wrong -- oh, wait ...
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Oh, modded "troll" because I pointed out the president-elect is fucking senile. The man performed mock oral sex on a microphone [c-span.org], and also randomly danced for a half hour at a campaign event. [cnn.com] During his previous administration, he stored classified documents in a bathroom. [youtube.com] You think his mind has improved with age?
Obviously, enough of the American public was either ignorant to all this or simply just didn't care, because Trump won the election. The American public being collectively willing to let this al
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Well when group A loathes group B, you its pretty much ensures group B will eventually loathe group A.
You don't have to understand why people like Trump, Just accept they do and they don't have to be morons, or evil to do so.
I have guesses why people support Trump, my best guess is that they have seen decades of their watching their jobs go overseas, and they just want a change, any change since the current system isn't working for them. They are voting the other people out not voting Trump in. But I am sur
Re: (Score:1)
Trump proclaims that he "loves tariffs" which is stupid, but I have hard time believing that even he could be that stupid.
Plenty of stupid people like tariffs, and Trump cares more about his ideas being popular than sensible.
H.L. Mencken once said that every complex problem has a solution that is simple, obvious, and wrong.
Tariffs are one of those solutions. It takes at least five minutes to understand why tariffs don't work, which is more intellectual effort than most voters are willing to exert.
Exactly what coffee growers are there in the U.S. that he is trying to "protect?"
Hawaii grows coffee.
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As well as climate concerns, future prices are being raised by worries about tariffs
Trump proclaims that he "loves tariffs" which is stupid, but I have hard time believing that even he could be that stupid. Exactly what coffee growers are there in the U.S. that he is trying to "protect?"
But apparently the futures markets believe he is actually that stupid. We'll see.
Didn't your people rebel over additional taxes imposed on a hot beverage? When will we see the Larger Than Usual Charleston Coffee Kerfuffle?
Tax policy that is mostly ignored (Score:2)
Didn't your people rebel over additional taxes imposed on a hot beverage?
I don't know who "your people" is supposed to refer to here but there is a bigger picture that bears mention. This is not an issue of paying more tax of any specific item. It has everything to do with stupid, myopic, and deceptive tax policies that raise the tax burden on consumers in the lower 80% of the income earners in the country in the name of "protecting" jobs or whatever in some industry which mostly doesn't even exist.
And you can bet whatever you have in your wallet if such proposal does go thr
Commodities are only going one way (Score:3)
Re: (Score:2, Interesting)
You plan on paying white people prices to harvest that coffee?
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You think they are building this internment camp for shits and giggles? https://www.dallasnews.com/new... [dallasnews.com]
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Not sure why it would need to be a "snappy gotcha" in any case, it's a reasonable point.
The minimum wage in Florida is, as far as I can tell, currently $13.00 USD an hour. *40 a week * 4 weeks is $2080 USD a month.
The minimum wage in Brazil is, as far as I can tell, the equivalent of $265 USD a month.
These are obviously nothing more than some notepad numbers, but even if I'm 25% off it should be pretty clear that the difference in labour costs aren't negligible, and are going to be passed on to the cons
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The minimum wage in Florida is, as far as I can tell, currently $13.00 USD an hour. *40 a week * 4 weeks is $2080 USD a month.
The minimum wage in Brazil is, as far as I can tell, the equivalent of $265 USD a month.
These are obviously nothing more than some notepad numbers, but even if I'm 25% off it should be pretty clear that the difference in labour costs aren't negligible, and are going to be passed on to the consumers.
Noting that comparing wages in different countries w/o also comparing their costs of living is almost meaningless.
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Sure, why not? Someone will just make coffee picker robots and all will be well. Besides, nobody ever wants to discuss where labor factors into the total cost of production for agricultural goods.
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Ah yes, someone. Someone will invent that robot, someone will pick those crops. Someone will do that job...
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Do your research:
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=... [youtube.com]
Shouldn't take much imagination to see where things are going.
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Sure, why not?
Because Americans don't apply for the jobs. [youtube.com] Amazingly, that's not some armchair podcaster or left-wing loon, it's a news report from Florida about farm owners explaining that part of the process to hire migrant workers requires that the jobs be posted for Americans to apply to. Rather unsurprisingly, Americans don't want to work those sorts of jobs.
This all happened a few years ago because our idiot governor was raising a stink about migrant workers coming here, so the farm owners spoke up and said "They'
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Right, because nobody ever posts jobs that are already filled.
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Sure, why not?
Because Americans don't apply for the jobs. [youtube.com] Amazingly, that's not some armchair podcaster or left-wing loon, it's a news report from Florida about farm owners explaining that part of the process to hire migrant workers requires that the jobs be posted for Americans to apply to. Rather unsurprisingly, Americans don't want to work those sorts of jobs.
This all happened a few years ago because our idiot governor was raising a stink about migrant workers coming here, so the farm owners spoke up and said "They're not taking your jobs, they're doing work that still needs to be done because Americans don't want to do it."
Is there a "looking for work and having to accept if offered" requirement in order to collect unemployment benefits, like in many states? 'Cause then this sounds like a good way to force people into taking those jobs instead of paying out benefits.
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Why aren't Starbucks growing coffee in Florida?
Because if it's anything like the cheese we produce in America, it will probably be mediocre at best, to cup of Satan's taint sweat at worst. Regional differences absolutely do make a difference in the quality of the resulting coffee cherries.
Could you grow coffee in Florida? Absolutely. Should you? No.
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Why aren't Starbucks growing coffee in Florida?
Growing and harvesting coffee is labor intensive.
America is a developed country with an expensive, educated, highly skilled, and productive workforce.
Americans are six times as productive as Chinese per hour worked.
It makes zero sense for Americans to pick coffee beans and sew T-shirts instead of designing tensor processors and making movies.
This fundamental principle of Comparative advantage [wikipedia.org] is why tariffs are so stupid.
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America is a developed country with an expensive, educated, highly skilled, and productive workforce.
The highly educated don't pick coffee cherries even in the countries where it is presently grown. The thing with America is that we've a multitude of jobs for the lower educated folks which pay better and are less miserable than harvesting crops in the blazing hot sun.
As someone already said earlier in the thread, Florida's minimum wage is presently $13 per hour. Why work in a field when you could earn better money at one of the various theme parks and resorts?
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Good points, but wouldn't those in charge also have to be in favor of global free(er) trade to make all that work well. My understanding is that many Republican politicians aren't. Perhaps Democrat ones too, but this incoming administration will be (R) heavy ... and run by someone one of his former Wharton professors (apparently) said was, "the dumbest goddamn student I ever had." (Google: wharton professor trump dumb [google.com])
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Florida is flat. Coffee likes to grow at high altitudes, like on mountains. Sure it can be made to grow in lowlands, but it will make poor beans.
So, until someone figures out how to grow coffee in the Florida mountains...
good (Score:5, Insightful)
Coffee has, for a very long time now, been priced too low. Most people have no idea how little money coffee farmers make. In a particularly bad year, they can starve to death.
Yet the coffee you're sold is 100x higher in price. Most of the profit is going to middle-men and corporations. Ironically, the coffee you actually receive is often poor quality, because it's designed to be mass produced and quality isn't a concern.
We should all be paying more for coffee, so that the farmers can make a sustainable living, and increase the quality of the coffee. We should be paying more for NGOs to ensure forests aren't cleared just to grow more coffee, and to prevent farmers from having to grow opium to make a profit. We should be paying the middle men less, and we should have better roasts that are more specific to improve flavor and choice.
If you have a say in the coffee you buy, buy from local roasters, who buy from small farms, ensure sustainable agriculture practices, and living wages. You will spend a very small amount more money and the result will be better for everyone involved.
I'm sure droughts & tariffs (Score:2)
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We should all be paying more for coffee, so that the farmers can make a sustainable living
Oh good. After 50 years of trickle-down theory not working, you've devised another version of it. This time it will surely work well and not make the corporations wealthier with no benefit to the farmers.
Tea (Score:3)
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Good thing I switched to Tea this year.
Which, depending on type, also comes from Asia or South America. China and India are the worlds top two producers.
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Good thing I switched to tea this year.
Generic coffee costs about $8 per pound, which makes about 25 cups, so 30 cents per cup.
Generic black tea costs $2 for 100 bags, so 2 cents per cup.
My morning drink is green tea, which is 5 cents per bag.
With or without tariffs, tea is a cheaper habit than coffee.
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Good thing I switched to Tea this year.
Good thing picking tea leaves isn't super labor intensive and much of it comes from Asia and South America. :-)
Cuppa Josephus (Score:2)
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The highest price ever, or the highest price ever adjusted for inflation?
In America, the highest price ever, when adjusted for inflation, was in the Confederacy during the Civil War.
Sometimes, when the pickets were within shouting distance, the soldiers would swap Union coffee for Confederate tobacco.
Now there is a _real_ crisis! (Score:2)
Now take into account that with climate change, coffee will possibly vanish completely, and you begin to understand the scale of _that_ problem.
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The submitted article seems to be taking climate change into account already.
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coffee will possibly vanish completely
Unlikely. Coffee grows best in tropical montane climates.
As the global climate warms, coffee will be grown further from the equator and further up the slopes.
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Not with the soil that is still there. Now, if this was a proper, natural climate change over 10'000 years or more, sure.
Re: Now there is a _real_ crisis! (Score:2)
When this happens, my productivity will drop drastically. It's time for me to retire, I guess.
Fuck. I love coffee. (Score:2)
I have looked at the concerns around coffee. I understand the ecological, environmental, and exploitation issues with the industry. And on this topic I choose to look the other way. I love coffee. I cannot possibly pay attention to every single cause or concern. I donate time, money, and blood, to a variety of causes. But I'll keep drinking coffee as long as it is available. Sucks that the price is rising.
Dammit (Score:2)
This is awful! it is not going to keep me awake at night!!!
All of the sudden (Score:2)
Suddenly high prices for stuff make headlines.
Weird.