Prices on the rise?

Yes - those tonsils at Bear Stearns artificially depressed the exchange rate of the renminbi, making Chinese products cheaper and more competitive and thereby stimulating OECD consumption which led to massive investment in additional Chinese production which led to increasing demand for raw materials which we didn't notice at first because the US economy was in a recession in 2001-02 but which rapidly became apparent when the prices of said materials, starting with oil, rose rapidly from 2003-04 onwards.

Yep, it has everything to do with some i-bankers investing in dodgy mortgage derivatives.

Yeah! What he said!

It could also be explained by this simply phrase.

Shit... It happens.