$2.58 and Counting
Friday, October 24, 2008 at 05:40AM OPEC announces a cut in production and oil still goes lower. Some cartel. They couldn't control prices on the way up or the way down.
With today's decline in oil and other commodities, the 'windfall' for consumers works out to a savings of $2.58 per person per day in 2008 versus 2007. This is a sharp reversal from July when the effect of higher commodities was acting as an extra tax of $4.77 per person per day in 2008. Unfortunately for consumers, though, it's not just commodities that are going down in price.
In the above chart we calculated the '08 price change of the major food and energy commodities in the CRB index (Corn, Soy, Wheat, Cattle, Hogs, Oil and Natural Gas) and multiplied the changes by the annual per capita consumption of each item. While this method may oversimplify the actual costs, it provides a good idea of how changes in commodity prices have impacted consumers wallets this year.
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