Unfortunately for your readers, Gwynne Dyer did not reach far outside the mainstream media for his information on why food prices are rising dramatically around the world, easily seen in the overly simplistic headline [“Food prices reflect markets”, June 5-12]. A major less-publicized cause of this unsettling trend is the current inflationary monetary policy of the U.S. government. In the process of trying to save the corrupt and broken U.S. banking system and worldwide financial system from collapse, the U.S. Federal Reserve has been printing U.S. dollars at an extraordinary rate, with the rest of the world trying to keep pace. Is the world consuming double the amount of wheat it was just two years ago, justifying a doubling in prices? Of course not.

The massive increase in money supply (printing U.S. dollars) is crushing the U.S. dollar and pushing up commodities like oil and wheat priced in U.S. dollars. This is not primarily a story about supply and demand as many want us to believe; instead, it is the story of a hidden inflation tax being unleashed on the world by the Bush administration and Federal Reserve. If politicians wanted to do something to slow rising food prices, they could stop inflating our money supply at almost Weimar Republic levels. But they know that would lead to something they fear much more—deflation.

> Aaron Ford / Vancouver