From Prensa Latina:

Panama, Oct 16 (Prensa Latina) The Consumer Price Index in Panama increased 5.2 percent at the end of September, compared to the same month of 2006, according to data published on Tuesday by the Comptroller’s Office of the Republic.

Transportation, with an 8.8 percent increase, housing with 3.7, education with 3.2, and health with 2.4, are among the main causes for the new hike in the cost of life.

That’s pretty steep. Panama uses the same currency as the US and therefore suffers the same monetary consequences, which are caused by Helicopter Ben’s printing presses that have been running around the clock for quite some time.

One of these days, Panama should kick out the dollar and get its own gold-backed currency. That would probably eliminate inflation overnight because there’s only so much gold in the world, and the amount new gold mined each year is consistent with worldwide economic growth.

Panamanian Economist College President Adolfo Quintero said the upward trend in prices is due to external and internal factors.

Whoa. How about plain old inflation, caused by an oversupply of money?

Among the external factors, the price of oil and its derivatives, as well as an increase in the demand of products, due to the world economic growth, Quitero told La Prensa Daily.

Of course the price of oil and just about any other “external” product is going up. But that’s not the actual cause… just another effect of the weakening and inflationary dollar.

On the domestic front, he mentioned the existence of food hoarding and speculation in sales.

Education and health costs are not in any way affected by “food hoarders” and speculation. Housing, that’s another story and there is indeed a real estate boom going on, but was that even taken into consideration when calculating these numbers? Domestic rentals apparently aren’t affected that much because real estate prices have been increasing by much more than 3.7% per year.