A full-page analysis in this morning’s Financial Times by Robin Harding and Chris Giles about inflation worryingly echoes the analysis Jeremy Rifkin made when he came to the European Economic and Social Committee last September. He reminded his audience that although everybody remembers 2008 primarily as being the year of the financial crisis, the first half of the year was characterised by rocketing oil and food prices, an inflation scare and food riots. (Google ‘2008 food riots’ and you will see for yourself just how worrying things got). Just recently the UN and the FAO have delivered solemn warnings that food prices are on the rise again. Rifkin’s argument was that one of these inflationary peaks for essential commodities such as corn and wheat could prove a tipping point into economic turmoil and social unrest. The FT’s analysis is more about the knock-on effects on inflation more generally (with the challenges that central banks will face). Not particularly agreeable morning reading…