America to lose one-third of its fresh produce when California runs out of water

Grocery-Store-Market-Vegetables-Produce

America to lose one-third of its fresh produce when California runs out of water (Natural News, March 16, 2015):

As Michael Snyder points out in a timely article at The Economic Collapse Blog, California is rapidly reverting back to the desert it was once.

Awareness of this is only now beginning to spread, but almost no one truly grasps the implications of what losing California’s Central Valley agricultural output means to grocery shoppers.

Almost no one realizes, for example, that one-third of all the produce grown in the United States comes out of California’s Central Valley. As the NYT explains:

Read moreAmerica to lose one-third of its fresh produce when California runs out of water

CNN: Even Rich Venezuelans Can’t Find Food – Expert Says ‘Inflation Rate At 68%’, Predicts Up To ‘1000% Inflation’

FYI.

Related info:

Venezuela To Start Fingerprinting Supermarket Shoppers

Obama’s Venezuelan coup fails – the evidence emerges

Venezuela: Coup Plot To Assassinate President Nicolas Maduro And Install A De Facto Government Thwarted

Hugo Chavez On Cancer Inducing Technology – Why He Had To Be Eliminated – To Obama: “You Are The Shame Of All Black People! Leave Us Alone!” (Videos)


March 07, 2015 – CNN’s Maggie Lake reports on the chaos in Venezuela as the cost of living skyrockets following plunging oil prices.

This Is What Happens To Gold In A Hyperinflationary Currency Crisis: Ukraine Edition

Coming to a country near you soon …

This Is The Biggest Problem Facing The World Today: 9 Countries Have Debt-To-GDP Over 300%


This Is What Happens To Gold In A Hyperinflationary Currency Crisis: Ukraine Edition (ZeroHedge, Feb 25, 2015):

As Ukraine’s socio-economic situation goes from wost to worst-er, today’s announcement by President Poroshenko that the government will take actions to stabilize the currency (which as we previously noted, appears to be heading for hyperinflation) has Ukrainians rushing for the exits into precious metals… with only one goal in mind – wealth preservation.

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This is what gold does in a fiat-currency crisis. Now if only Ukraine actually still had some gold

Furthermore, according to RIA, on Tuesday, Ukrainian television channel Ukraina announced that with the new exchange rate, the minimum wage in Ukraine stands at around $42.90 per month, which according to the channel, is lower than in Ghana or Zambia.

Read moreThis Is What Happens To Gold In A Hyperinflationary Currency Crisis: Ukraine Edition

End Of An Era: Prospects Look Bleak For Slowing the Coming Food Crisis

food-crisis

End of an Era: Prospects Look Bleak For Slowing the Coming Food Crisis (Ready Nutrition, Jan 29, 2015):

By and large, the majority of the population have deluded themselves into believing a bright future is upon the horizon. For years, economic forecasters and preppers alike have warned of the bottom dropping out of the economy. You know what I’m talking about – the proverbial doom prediction of “it’s not if, but when.” But, it’s not just a phrase to add for dramatic effect, it was a call to action. It was a warning that the American dream is about to drastically change and that it’s time to prepare accordingly. Quite frankly, the “not if, but when” expression is closer than we want it to be.

Can’t Find Any Inflation? Here’s A Place To Start

Can’t Find Any Inflation? Here’s A Place To Start (ZeroHedge, Oct 27, 2014):

Lately, there has been much anguished consternation, especially among the tenured US economics professors (primarily those who make 6-digits or more per year) and of course, the Federal Reserve where as we revealed last week, at least 113 government workers make $250,000 (excluding bonuses) and thus all are confined within the cozy cocoon of America’s “1%ers”, about the so-called complete disappearance and collapse in inflation. So to help these ivory tower-confined individuals in their holy grail to rediscover the inflation that is more than felt by the rest of America, here are two simple charts.

Ebola Is Threatening Much Of The World’s Chocolate Supply

Ebola Fears Sends Price Volatility Surging In… Chocolate (ZeroHedge, Oct 14, 2014):

The world’s candy-makers are worried. As Politico reports, Ivory Coast, the world’s largest producer of cacao, the raw ingredient in all your favorite candy, has shut down its borders with Liberia and Guinea, putting a major crimp on the workforce needed to pick the beans that end up in chocolate bars. While Ivory Coast (which produces around a third of the world’s total cacao beans) has yet to see a single case of Ebola yet, the price of Cocoa futures has become extremely volatile in recent weeks breaking notably higher than its normal range between $2000 and $2700 pere ton. Simply put – and not wanting to spread panic and fear – Ebola is threatening much of the world’s chocolate supply.

At $15.99/lb — I can no longer afford to eat meat

FYI.

All food prices are rising everywhere.

(I do not eat meat.)


At $15.99/lb — I can no longer afford to eat meat (Intellihub, July 30, 2014):

HAIKU, Hawaii (INTELLIHUB) — I went to the local market today in search of a few steaks to barbeque tonight with my family and what I found may shock you.

Not only could I not afford the three cuts of steak I needed for the dinner I was going to whip up, to top it all off the steaks were very small by proportion.

At nearly $16.00 per pound I had to pass, looks like we will be eating a lot of rice and beans in the near future as meat has become unaffordable for most middle-class Americans.

Food Inflation Watch: California Farmers’ Water Costs Surge 700% After Government Cuts Supply

Food Inflation Watch: California Farmers’ Water Costs Surge 700% After Government Cuts Supply (ZeroHedge, July 24, 2014):

When we reported on the government’s decisiosn to withhold irrigation water to California for the first time in 54 years, we warned there would be consequences: farmers are hit hardest as “they’re all on pins and needles trying to figure out how they’re going to get through this.” Fields will go unplanted (supply lower mean food prices higher), or farmers will pay top dollar for water that’s on the market (and those costs can only be passed on via higher food prices). Sure enough, as Bloomberg reports, farmers in California’s Central Valley, the world’s most productive agricultural region, are paying as much as 10 times more for water than they did before the state’s record drought cut supply.

As Bloomberg Briefs’ Alison Vekshin reports,

Read moreFood Inflation Watch: California Farmers’ Water Costs Surge 700% After Government Cuts Supply

Despite Being Dismissed As ‘Noise’, Inflation Is Here … And It’s Rising

Where The Real Inflation Is (ZeroHedge, July 18, 2014):

Despite being dismissed as “noise”, inflation is here and it’s rising. As the following chart shows, if you eat, drive, use electricity, or live in a house, you are paying dramatically more this year than you did last year. On the bright side, if you wear clothes or use electronics, prices have dropped (but remember deflation is bad…). How much longer can the Fed pull the wool over the eyes of the people?

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Chart: Goldman Sachs

 

If This Keeps Up, They Will Have To Start Putting Armed Guards On Food Trucks

If This Keeps Up, They Will Have To Start Putting Armed Guards On Food Trucks (Economic Collapse, July 16, 2014):

The basic necessities in life just keep getting more expensive.  On Tuesday, Hershey announced that the price of all of their chocolate bars is going to go up by about 8 percent.  That is particularly distressing to me, because I am known to love chocolate.  But if it was just chocolate that was becoming significantly more expensive perhaps that would be okay.  Last month, it was coffee.  J.M. Smucker, one of the largest coffee producers in the United States, announced that it planned to raise coffee prices by about 9 percent.  And Starbucks has announced a bunch of price increases across the board on their coffee products.  Of course we could all survive without chocolate and coffee, but as you will see below just about every food category is becoming more expensive.  If this keeps up, could we eventually see armed guards in grocery stores and on food trucks?

Read moreIf This Keeps Up, They Will Have To Start Putting Armed Guards On Food Trucks

Foodflation – Since QE3, Breakfast Is Up Over 24%

Foodflation – Since QE3, Breakfast Is Up Over 24% (ZeroHedge, July 6, 2014):

Having pointed out the ‘surges’ in the cost of your 4th of July burger at the behest of Greenspan and Bernanke, we thought a reflection on the soaring costs of ‘the most important meal of the day’ were in order. As the following chart illustrates in words and pictures even a PhD Fed economist or CNBC pretend-economist could understand – food-flation is here from breakfast through dinner (no matter how many iPads we try and eat).

foodflation

U.S. Food Prices Rising 367% Faster Than Inflation; Chemical Agriculture Headed For Catastrophic Failure

200 years ago our farmland had 50 cm of topsoil, now there are only 15 cm left.

And we are are losing about every 16 years another 2,5 cm.

The Hunzas needed to try our soil killing fertilizer only once to figure out that the promises they’ve been given about our chemical fertilizers were BS and that chemical fertilizers are in fact harmful for the soil.

(As a side note the Hunzas do NOT know hypertension, cancer arthritis, diabetes, tuberculosis, asthma, karies, presbyopia etc.)

We will have to (re-)learn to grow our food biologically or there will be no food at all.

Soil erosion also played probably an important role in the decline and collapse of the Egyptian and Greek empires.


U.S. food prices rising 367% faster than inflation; chemical agriculture headed for catastrophic failure (Natural News, June 17, 2014):

Food prices are now skyrocketing across the USA, says the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS). Their most recent report (1) reveals that prices of meat, poultry, fish and eggs leaped 7.7 percent over the last year. That’s nearly 367% higher than the official 2.1% inflation rate claimed by the federal government. (2)

Prices on these food items have risen 664% in the last five decades, according to the BLS, but much of the price acceleration has happened in just the last few years… and there’s no end in sight.

Read moreU.S. Food Prices Rising 367% Faster Than Inflation; Chemical Agriculture Headed For Catastrophic Failure

Inflation? Only If You Look At Food, Water, Gas, Electricity And Everything Else

Quantitative easing =  printing money = creating money out of thin air = increasing the money supply = inflation = hidden tax on monetary assets = theft!

“When a country embarks on deficit financing (Obamanomics) and inflationism (Quantitative easing) you wipe out the middle class and wealth is transferred from the middle class and the poor to the rich.”
– Ron Paul

“Deficits mean future tax increases, pure and simple. Deficit spending should be viewed as a tax on future generations, and politicians who create deficits should be exposed as tax hikers.”
– Ron Paul


weimar-hyperinflation

Inflation? Only If You Look At Food, Water, Gas, Electricity And Everything Else (Economic Collapse, June 19, 2014):

Have you noticed that prices are going up rapidly?  If so, you are certainly not alone.  But Federal Reserve chair Janet Yellen, the Obama administration and the mainstream media would have us believe that inflation is completely under control and exactly where it should be.  Perhaps if the highly manipulated numbers that they quote us were real, everything would be fine.  But of course the way that the inflation rate is calculated has been changed more than 20 times since the 1970s, and at this point it bears so little relation to reality that it is essentially meaningless.  Anyone that has to regularly pay for food, water, gas, electricity or anything else knows that inflation is too high.  In fact, if inflation was calculated the same way that it was back in 1980, the inflation rate would be close to 10 percent right now.

But you would never know that listening to Federal Reserve chair Janet Yellen.  In the video posted below, you can listen to her telling the media that there is absolutely nothing to be concerned about…

And it is really hard to get too upset with Janet Yellen.

Read moreInflation? Only If You Look At Food, Water, Gas, Electricity And Everything Else

U.S. Food Inflation Now Running At 22% And Rising

hundred-dollar-bills

U.S. Food Inflation Running at 22% (Breitbart, May 26, 2014):

After five years of the federal government telling the public that despite a $3.5 trillion increase in monetary expansion, the inflation rate is below +2%, the Department of Agriculture (DOA) just warned the American public that the consumer price index for food is up by 10% this year.

The DOA tried to blame food inflation on the drought conditions in California, but last year’s drought was worse and food prices fell by -6%. The real problem is Federal Reserve monetary stimulus is stimulating inflation. I reported in “Food Price Inflation Scares the Fed” two months ago that commodity food costs were exploding on the upside. Given the lag in commodity costs impacting prices on grocery store shelves, annual U.S. food inflation is now running at +22% and rising.

Read moreU.S. Food Inflation Now Running At 22% And Rising

The Meat Crisis Is Here: Price Of Shrimp Up 61% – 7 Million Pigs Dead – Beef At All-Time High

California-Drought-2014

The Meat Crisis Is Here: Price Of Shrimp Up 61% – 7 Million Pigs Dead – Beef At All-Time High (The Economic Collapse, May 15, 2014):

As the price of meat continues to skyrocket, will it soon be considered a “luxury item” for most American families?  This week we learned that the price of meat in the United States rose at the fastest pace in more than 10 years last month.  Leading the way is the price of shrimp.  According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, the price of shrimp has jumped an astounding 61 percent compared to a year ago.  The price of pork is also moving upward aggressively thanks to a disease which has already killed about 10 percent of all of the pigs in the entire country.  And the endless drought in the western half of the country has caused the size of the U.S. cattle herd to shrink to a 63 year low and has pushed the price of beef to an all-time high.  This is really bad news if you like to eat meat.  The truth is that the coming “meat crisis” is already here, and it looks like it is going to get a lot worse in the months ahead.

Read moreThe Meat Crisis Is Here: Price Of Shrimp Up 61% – 7 Million Pigs Dead – Beef At All-Time High

Food Prices Skyrocket: ‘We’re Going To Have A Major Problem Coming Into The Fall’

Related info:

The Beginning Of The End Of Precious Metals Manipulation: The London Silver Fix Is Officially Dead:

The London Silver Market Fixing Limited (the ‘Company’) announces that it will cease to administer the London Silver Fixing with effect from close of business on 14 August 2014.


Report: Food Prices Skyrocket: “We’re Going to Have a Major Problem Coming Into the Fall” (SHFTplan, May 15, 2014):

While government statisticians claim robust growth, recent data points suggest otherwise. Consumers are quickly running out of money, home sales have collapsed and hit their biggest drop in three years, there are more Americans out of the labor force than ever before, and one third of adults under the age of 35 are living with their parents because they can no longer afford to pay their own mortgage.

By all accounts, the reality is that we are now factually in a recession, a point further emphasized by the recent revelation that American companies are experiencing near zero percent earnings growth.

Read moreFood Prices Skyrocket: ‘We’re Going To Have A Major Problem Coming Into The Fall’

Are You Ready For The Price Of Food To MORE Than Double By The End Of This Decade?

Are You Ready For The Price Of Food To More Than Double By The End Of This Decade?  (Economic Collapse, April 18, 2014):

Do you think that the price of food is high now?  Just wait.  If current trends continue, many of the most common food items that Americans buy will cost more than twice as much by the end of this decade.  Global demand for food continues to rise steadily as crippling droughts ravage key agricultural regions all over the planet.  You see, it isn’t just the multi-year California drought that is affecting food prices.  Down in Brazil (one of the leading exporters of food in the world), the drought has gotten so bad that 142 cities were rationing water at one point earlier this year.  And outbreaks of disease are also having a significant impact on our food supply.  A devastating pig virus that has never been seen in the U.S. before has already killed up to 6 million pigs.  Even if nothing else bad happens (and that is a very questionable assumption to make), our food prices are going to be moving aggressively upward for the foreseeable future.  But what if something does happen?  In recent years, global food reserves have dipped to extremely low levels, and a single major global event (war, pandemic, terror attack, planetary natural disaster, etc.) could create an unprecedented global food crisis very rapidly.

Read moreAre You Ready For The Price Of Food To MORE Than Double By The End Of This Decade?

US Food Prices Are Up 19% In 2014

The Real Inflation Fear – US Food Prices Are Up 19% In 2014 (ZeroHedge, March 26, 2014):

We are sure the weather is to blame but what happens when pent-up demand (from a frosty east coast emerging from its hibernation) bumps up against a drought-stricken west coast unable to plant to meet that demand? The spot price (not futures speculation-driven) of US Foodstuffs is the best performing asset in 2014 – up a staggering 19%

food-inflation

h/t Bloomberg’s Chase van der Rhoer


And it will only get much, much worse.

And 2008 will seem like a walk in the park.

Flashback:

Quantitative easing =  printing money = creating money out of thin air = increasing the money supply = inflation = hidden tax on monetary assets = theft!

When a country embarks on deficit financing (Obamanomics) and inflationism (Quantitative easing) you wipe out the middle class and wealth is transferred from the middle class and the poor to the rich.
– Ron Paul

“Deficits mean future tax increases, pure and simple. Deficit spending should be viewed as a tax on future generations, and politicians who create deficits should be exposed as tax hikers.”
– Ron Paul

California Water Shortage: The Game Changer That Will Trigger The Food Crisis

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California Water Shortage – The Game Changer That Will Trigger the Food Crisis (Waking Times, Feb 26, 2014):

For What It’s Worth… 

(I live in the North Counties of Northern California and manage a small Biodynamic farm forgoing a previous existence as a research analyst on Wall Street and owner of a small investment boutique firm for over two decades.)

Farmers throughout California are dramatically cutting way back on how much food they will grow this year. We know this because initial bulk seed orders are way down as the seed ordering season hits it peak. Just released news about severe water cuts by the Federal government to California farmlands will mean further cuts to their planting schedules.

Read moreCalifornia Water Shortage: The Game Changer That Will Trigger The Food Crisis

U.S. Government Says ‘No Inflation’ As Food Prices Soar (Video)

The Consumer Price Index does (intentionally) not include food and energy.



YouTube

Food prices soar as incomes stand still (CBS News, Feb 16, 2014):

NEW YORK – Writer Jen Singer, the mother of two teenage boys, wrestles with her grocery list every week to keep the household budget from getting away from her.

“I’d like the government to stop by my house, come food shopping with me and see where the real costs are,” she said.

The adage “An apple a day keeps the doctor away” is impossible thanks to apple prices, she said.

Read moreU.S. Government Says ‘No Inflation’ As Food Prices Soar (Video)

15 Reasons Why Your Food Bill Is Going To Start SOARING

U.S.-Drought-Monitor-California-February-11-2014

15 Reasons Why Your Food Bill Is Going To Start SOARING (Economic Collapse, Feb 16, 2014):

Did you know that the U.S. state that produces the most vegetables is going through the worst drought it has ever experienced and that the size of the total U.S. cattle herd is now the smallest that it has been since 1951?  Just the other day, a CBS News article boldly declared that “food prices soar as incomes stand still“, but the truth is that this is only just the beginning.  If the drought that has been devastating farmers and ranchers out west continues, we are going to see prices for meat, fruits and vegetables soar into the stratosphere.  Already, the federal government has declared portions of 11 states to be “disaster areas”, and California farmers are going to leave half a million acres sitting idle this year because of the extremely dry conditions.  Sadly, experts are telling us that things are probably going to get worse before they get better (if they ever do).  As you will read about below, one expert recently told National Geographic that throughout history it has been quite common for that region of North America to experience severe droughts that last for decades.  In fact, one drought actually lasted for about 200 years.  So there is the possibility that the drought that has begun in the state of California may not end during your entire lifetime.

Read more15 Reasons Why Your Food Bill Is Going To Start SOARING

Don’t Worry: The U.S. Government Says That The Inflation You See Is Just Your Imagination

Don’t Worry – The Government Says That The Inflation You See Is Just Your Imagination (Economic Collapse, Oct 29, 2013):

If you believe that there is high inflation in the United States, you are just imagining things.  That is the message that the U.S. government and the Federal Reserve would have us to believe.  You might have noticed that the government announced on Wednesday that the cost of living increase for Social Security beneficiaries will only be 1.5 percent next year.  This is one of the smallest cost of living increases that we have ever seen.  The federal government is able to get away with this because the official numbers say that there is hardly any inflation in the U.S. right now.  Of course anyone that shops for groceries or that pays bills regularly knows what a load of nonsense the official inflation rate is.  The U.S. government has changed the way that inflation is calculated numerous times since 1978, and each time it has been changed the goal has been to make inflation appear to be even lower.  According to John Williams of shadowstats.com, if the inflation rate was still calculated the same way that it was back when Jimmy Carter was president, the official rate of inflation would be somewhere between 8 and 10 percent today.  But if the mainstream news actually reported such a number, everyone would be screaming and yelling about getting inflation under control.  Instead, the super low number that gets put out to the public makes it look like the Federal Reserve has plenty of room to do even more reckless money printing.  It is a giant scam, but most Americans are falling for it.

Meanwhile, the prices of the things that most Americans buy on a regular basis just keep going up.  The following are just a few examples of price inflation that we have seen lately:

Read moreDon’t Worry: The U.S. Government Says That The Inflation You See Is Just Your Imagination

Reality Check: The Dow Jones Industrial Average vs. Bananas

Reality Check: The Dow Jones Industrial Average vs. Bananas (Sovereign Man, March 8, 2013):

Reporting from Santiago, Chile

The Dow Jones Industrial Average, one of the key benchmarks of the US stock market, has soundly surpassed its all-time high. And most of the investing world is toasting their collective success and celebrating the recovery.

It’s a funny thing, really. Most investors only think in terms of ‘nominal’ numbers, i.e. Dow 14,000+ is 40% higher than Dow 10,000 (back in November 2009). But few think in terms of ‘real’ numbers… inflation-adjusted averages.

Everyone knows that inflation exists. We can all look back on prices from the past and realize instantly how much more expensive things have become. Conversely, though, most people don’t think about the stock market like this.

The reality is, though, that when you adjust for inflation, the Dow is well below its highs from over a decade ago.

Read moreReality Check: The Dow Jones Industrial Average vs. Bananas

The Reflation Party Is Ending As China Withdraws Market Liquidity For First Time In Eight Months

The Reflation Party Is Ending As China Withdraws Market Liquidity For First Time In Eight Months (ZeroHedge, Feb 19, 2013):

Since institutional memories are short, it is time to remind readers that it was the threat, and subsequent reality, of China overheating in the spring and summer of 2011 (when record high food prices sent the entire North African region in a state of coordinated revolt and gradually moved far east), when even the Great firewall of China could not block news of frequent break outs of localized violence from hungry and angry mobs, that halted and broke the spine of the great reflation trade then (and yes, 2013 has so far been a carbon copy replica of 2011 as we summarized in “It’s Deja Vu, All Over Again: This Time Is… Completely The Same“).

Furthermore, as only Zero Hedge forecast back in mid-2012, when ever other commentator was shouting over the rooftops that an RRR or interest rate cut out of Beijing was imminent, the PBOC would be the last to stimulate the market with monetary easing as it was well-aware that an entire developed world reflating at the same time would hit none other than China the fastest as the hot money flew straight into Shanghai. Just as it did in 2011. So instead China proceeded to engage in a series of daily reverse repos, or ultra-short term liquidity injections that prevented the advent of wholesale inflation: after all the Fed, the BOJ, the ECB and soon, the BOE, were doing it for them. And the last thing the country with the highest allotment of CPI, or book inflation, to food and energy can afford, is to let foreign central banks dictate its price level. After all, it has more than enough of its own.

Well, the Chinese New Year celebration is now over, the Year of the Snake is here, and those following the Shanghai Composite have lots to hiss about, as two out of two trading days have printed in the red. But a far bigger concern to not only those long the SHCOMP, but the “Great Reflation Trade – ver. 2013″, is that just as two years ago, China appears set to pull out first, as once again inflation rears its ugly head. And where the PBOC goes, everyone else grudgingly has to follow: after all without China there is no marginal growth driver to the world economy.

End result: China’s reverse repos, or liquidity providing operations, have ended after month of daily injections, and the first outright repo, or liquidity draining operation, just took place after eight months of dormancy.

From the WSJ:

Chinese authorities took a step to ease potential inflationary pressures Tuesday by using a key mechanism for the first time in eight months.

The move by the central bank to withdraw cash from the banking system is a reversal after months of pumping cash in. That cash flood was meant to reduce borrowing costs for businesses as the economy slowed last year—but recent data has shown growth picking up, along with the main determinants of inflation: housing and food prices.

Read moreThe Reflation Party Is Ending As China Withdraws Market Liquidity For First Time In Eight Months

Louisiana Grocery Store Forced To Raise Milk Prices By State Regulators

A Louisiana Grocery Store is Forced to Raise Milk Prices by State Regulators (Liberty Blitzkrieg, Jan 27, 2013):

You might have to read this post twice to make sure your eyes didn’t deceive you.  This article is actually completely different from my recent pieces on stealth inflation, but is even more infuriating.  In this case, a grocery store called Fresh Markets decided to sell milk at a bargain basement price as part of a promotion, yet the state has deemed the price “too low.” As a result, the chain is being forced to raise the price.  Yep, at a time when millions are struggling every day to make ends meet, this is what the state of Louisiana has decided it a priority that the cost of milk is higher for consumers in the state.  This is exactly what happens when bureaucrats exert to much influence in our daily lives.

From the Daily Caller:

Read moreLouisiana Grocery Store Forced To Raise Milk Prices By State Regulators