@jolyon🇮🇷🇺🇸 The World Bank says 2026 is shaping up to be a very expensive year. Prices of oil, food and metals are on course to finish the year 23% higher than 2025, driven by the Iran war’s hit on energy and shipping, Black Sea grain trouble from the Ukraine war, and a rush into gold. Energy is up 32%, as the world gets 5.2% less oil, the biggest drop in 40 years outside COVID. Gold and other precious metals are climbing even faster, around 40%, as people look for safe places to park their money. But food is the scary part, going up about 10% this year and 7% more next year, so nearly 18% in just 2 years. And if a record El Niño lands on top of a bigger war, food could get 12% pricier than that. That could set off a food crisis like the early 2010s, when over 40 million more people ended up in extreme poverty. Overall, prices should cool off about 7% next year, as long as nothing else goes wrong. And given how 2026 is going, that’s a pretty big if. Source: Reuters / Writer: Daniyal

@jolyon🇮🇷🇺🇸 The World Bank says 2026 is shaping up to be a very expensive year. Prices of oil, food and metals are on course to finish the year 23% higher than 2025, driven by the Iran war’s hit on energy and shipping, Black Sea grain trouble from the Ukraine war, and a rush into gold. Energy is up 32%, as the world gets 5.2% less oil, the biggest drop in 40 years outside COVID. Gold and other precious metals are climbing even faster, around 40%, as people look for safe places to park their money. But food is the scary part, going up about 10% this year and 7% more next year, so nearly 18% in just 2 years. And if a record El Niño lands on top of a bigger war, food could get 12% pricier than that. That could set off a food crisis like the early 2010s, when over 40 million more people ended up in extreme poverty. Overall, prices should cool off about 7% next year, as long as nothing else goes wrong. And given how 2026 is going, that’s a pretty big if. Source: Reuters / Writer: Daniyal