Why Energy Prices Are Projected to Increase 50% in 2022—After Doubling Last Year | Jon Miltimore

Sometimes I have to remind myself how good we Americans have it because—let’s face it—there is a lot of bad news out there, particularly on the economics front.
Inflation, which hit 8.5 percent in March, gets the most attention, and rightly so. Less attention has been given to financial markets. The Nasdaq just had its worst month since 2008 (the year of the financial meltdown). The S&P 500, meanwhile, is having its worst start to a year since the Great Depression.
And then there’s food and energy prices. There’s no way to sugarcoat the data—which is a shame, because there’s no place Americans feel the pinch more. (We all eat and use energy.)
In its latest Commodity Markets Outlook report, the World Bank projected commodity prices will remain higher for years to come. Perhaps most alarming is that the multilateral bank projects energy prices will soar 50.5 percent this year—after nearly doubling in 2021. The rise in energy prices, the Wall Street Journal reports, has been “the most significant since the early 1970s.”
Food prices, meanwhile, which rose 31 percent last year, are projected to increase 23 percent this year. Needless to s …

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