I'll talk about food prices in general and the Fed's policies. When you talk about food prices or other commodity prices, you need to talk about supply and demand. And in some cases, in food for example, there are some constraints on supply. There have been weather issues and so on. But the most important development globally is the fact that the world economy is growing more quickly, particularly in the emerging markets.

We have essentially a two-speed recovery where industrial economies like the United States are growing relatively slowly, and in fact the industrial economies are just now coming back to the level of output and demand that we were in before the crisis three years ago. So the industrial countries are growing slowly. The emerging market are growing much more quickly.
Now, the Federal Reserve's monetary policy is aimed at stabilizing the United States economy. And in the United States, I don't think anybody can argue that our economy is overheated, that it's growing too quickly, that it's short of resources. We are using our policy to -- to address stability in the United States.

So then the question is, you know, where's that demand coming from. As I said, it's mostly coming from emerging markets. Emerging markets are growing very quickly for a couple of reasons. One is just the fact that there has been a long-term trend now for emerging markets to develop very quickly, and that on the whole is a very positive development because it means that millions of people who were in poverty are moving closer and closer to a more middle-class standard of living, which is of course a very good thing.
But, as people's diets become more sophisticated, as they eat more beef and less grains and so on, the demand for food and energy and the like grows. And that's -- that's the primary long-term factor affecting the real price of -- of -- of commodities and food.

The other factor is that in some cases some of the emerging markets have -- are -- are facing inflationary pressures because their own economies are growing perhaps even faster than their capacity. That is, their policies have not been such to keep growth and capacity balanced, which means that inflationary pressures are rising from those emerging markets.
But I think it's entirely unfair to attribute excess demand pressures in emerging markets to U.S. monetary policy, because emerging markets have all the tools they need to address excess demand in those countries. They can, for example, use monetary policy of their own. They can adjust their exchange rates, which is something that they've been reluctant to do in some cases.

So it really is up to the emerging markets to find the appropriate tools to balance their own growth.  That being said, even ignoring the inflationary pressures in emerging markets, their continued growth is going to continue to put pressure on the -- on the prices of commodities, including food, around the world.

But just one final comment on why Federal Reserve policy cannot be primarily responsible is just that -- you asked about -- about Middle East. Food in Egypt is priced in Egyptian pounds, not in dollars. The -- if the dollar is weaker, the Egyptian pound is stronger.  So, clearly, what's happening is not a -- a dollar effect. What's happening is a growth effect, primarily in emerging markets, which is creating this tremendous demand for commodities, which is driving up the relative prices of those commodities.

In response to a question about Fed policy and food prices