Today I had the first of the factory price rise announcements made in great Chinglish.

Due to the cost of raw material is getting higher and the exchange rate of the US Dollars is keeping devaluing, XXX is hard to keep the prices unchanged.

......we are sorry that we have that we have no choice but to increase 10% for all our products from April”

Given the country involved has its FX rate tagged to the USD I had to smile. Surely enough though the commodity prices are indeed at record highs so base level inflation in our golfing goodies will look to be a part of 2009 product lines.

Agreed, we’ll be feeling the inflation everywhere except our salaries, which are experiencing downward inflationary pressure, from what I’ve seen.
This makes the effect all the more noticeable for the average punter, when they’re told their rent is going up by $20, their petrol expenses are going up, and their weekly paycheck isn’t changing at all.
My friend also runs a sportsgoods store that imports certain lines direct from the US and said prices are going up on the 2009 stock he’s ordering now. I think we’ll definitely see golf prices going up, and more people purchasing overseas if the US$ continues dropping in value.