Got a newsletter from a LQS in Arizona last night and the price of cotton going up is addressed. I will copy and paste for it is very interesting. If we here in the U.S. would stop outsourcing (as in cotton mills) we could maybe get somewhere. Here goes.....
COTTON PRICES INCREASE
There has been a drastic increase in the price of cotton as most of you will notice when you purchase fabric. The largest grower of cotton is China, second is India followed by the United States. The price is determined by supply and demand.
The price of cotton has gone up from 62 cents per pound to $1.65 per pound. China and India are not exporting cotton anymore and the world's need for cotton has grown. When a shortage occurs, the price will go up (Fab Shop News Dec. 2010). Another problem is the people speculating in cotton. When that happens and supply does not equal demand the price will go up because the speculators want to drive that price up regardless of what those of us who sell and buy the produce can afford. Another issue is that eighty percent of the cotton produced in the United States is exported as we no longer have the mills here as we did years ago to produce the finished goods.
As with the price of gasoline we as shopowner's do not know when this increase will level off and price increases will end.