LAST month's Consumer Price Index (CPI) grew 4.4 percent, but housewives probably do not need that markedly underestimated rate of increase to confirm their misery.

I was at a vegetable market on Sunday shopping for our family dinner. I bought three potatoes for over 4 yuan (60 US cents).

The garlic was priced 8 to 12 yuan - and I was persuaded that I could go without that luxury.

It may be easy to surprise an occasional shopper like me, but veteran shoppers like my wife are also getting used to shocks these days. Sometimes she can hardly believe the high price and so compares notes with a nearby customer to confirm it.

After this shopping incident, I learned to be more tolerant of our canteen chefs who have to feed so many on the highly volatile food prices without being allowed to price the dish according to its market value.

According to the Oriental Morning Post, 10 years ago, the procurement price of potatoes was 0.4 yuan/500g. It rose to 0.8 yuan three years ago, then to 1.1-1.2 yuan this May and June, and on Sunday it was 1.6-1.7 yuan.

"I have been buying vegetables for over 10 years, and had seen many previous price surges, but none of them compares to what we are seeing now," a housewife surnamed Zhang said in the newspaper report.

More significant are the soaring grain prices. Zhang's family used to buy a brand of rice priced at 43 yuan/bag last May. It soared to 60 yuan this February, and on to 75-80 yuan last week, a surge of 74 percent in 18 months.

"Since we are wage earners, when the price reached 75 we had to switch to a cheaper brand," Zhang said.

Others have to get creative to economize. Getting into group buying, for instance. And constantly being on the lookout for bargains.

At 7am in front of supermarket in Changning District there is already a 100-meter-long line, chiefly of elderly people.

Some have been shuddering from the cold since 6am, waiting for the door to be open so that they can rush to buy vegetables left over from previous days and sold at a discount. The stock is usually cleared within five minutes.

Some privileged Shenzhen residents can take advantage of their multiple-entry visas to spend weekends shopping and dining in Hong Kong, where prices are lower.

A liter of Rejoice shampoo, priced at 75 yuan in Shanghai, can be had for 51.4 yuan in Hong Kong.

Five hundred grams of apples priced at 6 yuan in Shanghai, is only 3.4 yuan in Hong Kong. Sugar in Shanghai is also about double the price in Hong Kong.

A recent survey from the National Development and Reform Commission showed 24 out of 31 food items monitored in 36 cities in October have risen from the previous month.

Investment bankers are busy revising upward their forecasts for China's annualized CPI.

Earlier in the year, we had had repeated assurances from officials and economists that it is perfectly possible to contain the annual CPI within 3 percent. They were gravely mistaken.

One bewildering fact is that few seem to be benefiting from these surges. Farmers, distributors, retailers, vendors, and customers are all groaning.

Only speculators are reaping hefty profits, as food falls prey to financial manipulations. First it was garlic, ginger, and peas, and now it is edible oil, cotton, sugar.

There is a crying need to effectively subsidize low- and middle-income families who are most severely affected by the price surges - but should the capitalists be let off easy?

China's unprecedented "moderately loose monetary policy" is turning out billionaires at an alarming rate.

According to the latest Fortune list, in Sichuan and Chongqing, there are 31,800 people with a net worth of 10 million yuan, and 2,170 people worth 100 million yuan, accounting for 3.6 and 4 percent of the national total.

Distorted society

In an article called "Rosy Prospects for Wealth Management in China," Cao Renchao wrote that the private banking business is growing rapidly. Merchants' Bank revealed the number of its private banking clients exceeds ten thousand, and is increasing at 600 a month. On average each client is worth 21 million yuan.

At this rate, billionaires can only be made by privatizing state assets, or dealing in resources like coal and rare earth.

Those with ill-gotten wealth have a natural tendency to plunder, loot, steal, or speculate.

When a product made in Chinese mainland is much cheaper in Hong Kong, or in the US, than in the mainland, that says a lot about how our economy is distorted.

As Qin Wuping commented in the Xinmin Evening News on Tuesday, the primary cause for higher prices of daily necessities in Shenzhen and Shanghai than in Hong Kong is a continuously stronger yuan against the US dollar, or the Hong Kong dollar.

China oversupplies the outside market with its cheap "Made in China" goods and for its services stows away a huge amount of paper money.

We have been doing our best to perpetuate this growth miracle, even while flirting with "economic structural readjustment."

We do not lack warnings.

Liang Congjie, a dedicated environmentalist who died October 28 at the age of 78, said at the Fortune's Forum in 1999 to enthusiastic economists: "The Global Factory you have been talking of so glowingly is essentially the Global Kitchen. We cover the global table with delicacies prepared with our resources, and are left with scraps, leftovers, and glaring pollution!"

China's resources per capita are far below the global average, but the whole nation is squandering its land, forest, water, and mineral resources to stoke its GDP.

Scholar Zi Zhongyun, who once interpreted for Mao Zedong, is similarly concerned.

A lot of Westerners appear to be fascinated by the "China model" and Zi wonders, if they are so effusive, then why not try this model themselves?

Zi discovers that it's the Western capitalists, not Western workers, who are envious.

A German once told Zi, how can we compete with you, when you can even deny your workers wages?

When The Wall Street Journal announces "China Growth Sees Jump in Q3, WSJ Poll Finds," are they cognizant of the woes of those shopping for their next meals?

But let's resist the temptation to blame our woes on others.

As a commentary on the Caijing website argues, it may be easy to condemn US's QE, but how does it compare with our dazzling "moderately loose monetary policy?"