Reactions to story from CSMonitor
Grain prices soar globally
http://www.csmonitor.com/ 2008/ 0327/ p01s02-woap.html
Rice shortages are appearing across Asia. In Egypt, the Army is now baking bread to curb food riots.
Reactions / posts that link to this article
View all reactions »-
Food Price Riots Popping Up Around The World
http://www.parapundit.com/archives/005093.htmlFood Price Riots Popping Up Around The World Are rising food prices going to cause governments to go unstable and fall? Bangkok, Thailand - - Rice farmers here are staying awake in shifts at night to guard their fields from thieves. In Peru, shortages
-
Living in the Material World
http://herecomesacountry.blogspot.com/2008/07/living-in-mate...The Christian Science Monitor reported in late March that the Egyptian Army had taken up baking bread to curb food riots. The article states that the UN Food and Agriculture Organization "expects food prices to stay high for the next three to five years, presenting a challenge for governments trying to keep domestic food prices low in order to keep poor citizens properly fed and avoid mass protests and social unrest. " Now, the predictions of Marxism may have turned out to be quasi-religious social fantasy rather than science, but surely market-based economies do rely on overseas and cross-border markets. What else is globalization about? Who is most affected by food and fuel prices? That would be people in whatever country who live from hand to mouth or from paycheck to paycheck (so to speak). In other words, that would be the vast majority of people that we look to to buy our goods and services, the demand upon which our globalized jobs depend ... unless businesses are just going to sell to other businesses. This would not seem a good time for John McCain (or Barack Obama, either) to be listening too seriously to Supply Side advocates. It is not that the markets are not reacting as we expect them to; it is that, in the face of shortages, markets are acting just as we expect them to. Prices for essentials are going up. Wages are not going up nearly as fast, and why would they, given that people needing work are everywhere and given that actual labor is devalued in a world where production can be moved anywhere at anytime? We can come up with alternatives to petroleum given a concentrated effort; coming up with alternatives to food is going to take more concentration than that.
-
rice riot.
http://jpottinthailand.blogspot.com/2008/05/rice-riot.htmlYesterday, Monday, May 26 one of my students didn't come to school because the road was shut down due to rice riots. On our way to Mai Suay (about an hour south) this Sunday, there was a road that was blocked by police due to the riots. Also, one of my friends was taking a bus here and was re-routed due to the problem as well. I searched for it on the news, and there's nothing on it really, but it's real. I can't find information on it, but I'm sure it's not violent or dangerous. One news article said that people are guarding their fields at night with guns. The protests are due to the fact that the sellers are doubling the prices, while the farmers arent seeing a dime of the profit. You really have no idea how hard they work to plant, maintain and harvest the rice, for sooooo little pay. Oh, and they do it all by hand. Yeah, these huge rice fields... It's an injustice.Imagine making less than $6 a day and the inexpensive staple to your diet almost doubles in price. What do you do? here's a little article http://www.csmonitor.com/2008/0327/p01s02-woap.html Please pray for this situation to be resolved and all stomachs to have enough...and for God to be revealed as the one who will satisfy a deeper hunger...for free.
-
Message to the world's poor: "Starve! Earth's worth it."
http://pc.blogspot.com/2008/04/earth-worth-it.htmlAnother example here of how government controls lead to more government controls which lead to ... well, read on: In the last year, the price of wheat has tripled, corn doubled, and rice almost doubled. As prices soared, food riots have broken out in about 20 poor countries including Yemen, Haiti, Egypt, Pakistan, Indonesia, Ivory Coast, and Mexico. In response some countries, such as India, Pakistan Egypt and Vietnam, are banning the export of grains and imposing food price controls. Are rising food prices the result of the economic dynamism of China and India, in which newly prosperous consumers are demanding more food—especially more meat? No, they aren't, as Reason's Ronald Bailey demonstrates . They're proof that the effects of global warming are already upon us. To be specific, the effect of government overreaction to warmist nonsense is already upon us. If surging demand is not the problem, what is? In three words: stupid energy policies [from which New Zealand isn't immune, and from which we'll be paying the price directly this winter] ... Even worse is the bioethanol craze. Politicians in both the United States and the European Union are mandating that vast quantities of food be turned into fuel as they chase the chimera of "energy independence"... The result of these mandates is that about 100 million tons of grain will be transformed this year into fuel, drawing down global grain stocks to their lowest levels in decades. Keep in mind that 100 million tons of grain is enough to feed nearly 450 million people for a year. But it won't be feeding them, will it. Instead, their demand to be fed-- and in the case of third world populations the demand for grain is demand for the very stuff of life itself -- is being turned into higher and ever higher prices. [Dennis Avery from the Hudson Institute is right to conclude:] "Biofuels are purely and simply the biggest Green mistake we've ever made and we're still making it."
-
Food Fight
http://aroundthebend213.wordpress.com/2008/04/15/food-fight/The global economy is making me crazy Its not good, people. High gas prices not only trapped me in the scenic Airports of the American South for the better part of last weekend, they appear to have sparked a spate of food riots from Haiti, to many parts of Africa, the Philippines and Indonesia. *Updated to add Mexico, and a whole bunch of other places according to Democracy Now! this morning; apparently 15,000 garment workers are on strike in Bangladesh, protesting high food prices and slave wages.* The main South African federation of trade unions, COSATU, is warning that SA could be next. Food crisis happening in these countries because they already have high rates of inequality and poverty, and because they are net importers of food; increasing gas prices increase the cost of food production and the cost of food transportation. This is, of course, only the most immediate problem. For a deeper explanation, we’d have to look at the impact of fossil fuels, global warming and history of colonial and post-colonial land ownership on food production. But those are not really points best made in blog format. Instead we will talk about what the problem is NOT. The problem is not a lack of food in the world. There is enough food in the world. Brief interlude for a vignette; When I was a younger, equally smart-assed anti-capitalist, a teacher, (who closely resembled Monica Lewinsky, during a historical period in which that was a serious social detriment) once explained to me and the rest of the class that “Capitalism is the Most Efficient System” “Efficient,” I loudly wondered, “at what?” She was baffled, but a future saluditorian answered my question: “Efficient at distributing goods and resources!” Ahhh. Now it remains my turn to be baffled. This assertion, whenever I see it repeated, strikes me as egregiously illogical one. Or, at least, as a pure declaration of faith in a premise with very little evidence to support it. Many of the ideas in the human cultural cannon, ideas often considered the epitome of antilogical faith–say animism, or belief in magic–have a much longer and more successful empirical track record if all of human history is taken into account. Food riots are endemic to this crap system and they always have been. And despite the category I’ve stuck this post in, rising food prices aren’t just a problem for Africa or for island nations dominated by US military and economic imperialism; food is a global market. Price pressure at the pump is likely to hit us in the pantry, and I’m worried it might be soon. This food thing makes me even more nervous than the housing crash, especially given that they can’t be taken in isolation. See, in the earlier half of this century, in the US, food prices were substantially higher (relative to wages), but housing prices were substantially lower. Wages, in the US have been stagnating since the 1960’s or so, but this arrangement has been sustained, in part, by falling food prices. The housing crash hasn’t made rent cheaper. Its just resulted in a lot of people losing their highly-leveraged houses. So now we have a situation where we have stagnant wages, rising food and housing costs and credit markets drying up. Tasty! *updated again to add: More at Rachel’s Tavern.*
-
Easy Question: Are PA Voters Actually Offended? (updated with video)
http://www.jackandjillpolitics.com/2008/04/easy-question-are...cross-posted to goodCRIMETHINK It's a simple question. All these old, white millionaires on TV are saying Obama made a big mistake. That he chose poor words. That he offended small-town Pennsylvania. How do they know? They all live in Los Angeles and Manhattan. They eat sushi and drink mad lattes. They read the NY Times. None of these commentators owns a gun. I bet most don't go to church. I bet most don't know financial hardship because their town wasn't decimated by the end of the industrial era in this country. It's all bullshit. Almost everything you see on TV is just bullshit. These idiots have big ass microphones and cameras and soapboxes. They are in the top percentile of wage-earners. Yet somehow they know the hearts and minds of a rural voter? It's a complete farce. They waited all of 30 seconds to say his comments were wrong, but they didn't ask any of these allegedly-0ffended voters. They just made it up. They pulled political analysis right out of their buttholes. And yet, their uninformed opinions dominate the news and dominate the discussion. Just look how much time we've spent on this topic, and we're supposed to be new media. Granted, I think we serve a useful purpose in these distraction-debates when we call bullshit. When we counter with information. When we don't simply amplify or get baited (like Hillary) into a meaningless conversation. However, it's not easy. So do I have special insight? Not much, but I have family that's lived in rural PA and post-industrial Michigan. I also think I use my brain more than these TV people. And I still live in the real world. The dangerous part is that if PA voters were not offended before, they might be now because they don't hear the context of Obama's statement (a reaction to a question about what they might face as volunteers going to PA). They only hear "elite" and "out of touch" and "condescending." Thus Obama gets defined beyond his control. If it could happen to Max Cleland, of course it can happen to a half-black dude who grew up in Hawaii and Indonesia and graduated from Columbia and Harvard. It's so frightening and certainly not isolated to this candidate or this event. So, can anyone point to actual -- and I know this is crazy -- evidence that rural or post-industrial small town voters would be offended by Obama's comments? If not, then just realize we're all being bamboozled and distracted. Meanwhile, there are food riots in the developing world due. In the last year, the price of wheat has tripled, corn doubled, and rice almost doubled. As prices soared, food riots have broken out in about 20 poor countries including Yemen, Haiti, Egypt, Pakistan, Indonesia, Ivory Coast, and Mexico. In response some countries, such as India, Pakistan Egypt and Vietnam, are banning the export of grains and imposing food price controls. Are rising food prices the result of the economic dynamism of China and India, in which newly prosperous consumers are demanding more food—especially more meat? Perennial doomsters such as the Earth Policy Institute's Lester Brown predicted more than a decade ago that China's growing food demand would destabilize global markets and signal a permanent increase in grain prices. But that thesis has so far not been borne out by the facts. China is a net grain exporter. India is also largely self-sufficient in grains. At some time in the future, these countries may become net grain importers, but they are not now and so cannot be blamed to for today's higher food prices. If surging demand is not the problem, what is? In three words: stupid energy policies. I'll be writing more about energy and food policy later. Update: 6:12pm ET The first sign that small town PA isn't buying this elitism and bitterness b.s. comes from a Kos diarist who checked the local town papers in PA. They're hardly acknowledging it. Update 6:34pm ET via YouTube:
-
Easy Question: Are PA Voters Actually Offended?
http://www.jackandjillpolitics.com/2008/04/easy-question-are...cross-posted to goodCRIMETHINK It's a simple question. All these old, white millionaires on TV are saying Obama made a big mistake. That he chose poor words. That he offended small-town Pennsylvania. How do they know? They all live in Los Angeles and Manhattan. They eat sushi and drink mad lattes. They read the NY Times. None of these commentators owns a gun. I bet most don't go to church. I bet most don't know financial hardship because their town wasn't decimated by the end of the industrial era in this country. It's all bullshit. Almost everything you see on TV is just bullshit. These idiots have big ass microphones and cameras and soapboxes. They are in the top percentile of wage-earners. Yet somehow they know the hearts and minds of a rural voter? It's a complete farce. They waited all of 30 seconds to say his comments were wrong, but they didn't ask any of these allegedly-0ffended voters. They just made it up. They pulled political analysis right out of their buttholes. And yet, their uninformed opinions dominate the news and dominate the discussion. Just look how much time we've spent on this topic, and we're supposed to be new media. Granted, I think we serve a useful purpose in these distraction-debates when we call bullshit. When we counter with information. When we don't simply amplify or get baited (like Hillary) into a meaningless conversation. However, it's not easy. So do I have special insight? Not much, but I have family that's lived in rural PA and post-industrial Michigan. I also think I use my brain more than these TV people. And I still live in the real world. The dangerous part is that if PA voters were not offended before, they might be now because they don't hear the context of Obama's statement (a reaction to a question about what they might face as volunteers going to PA). They only hear "elite" and "out of touch" and "condescending." Thus Obama gets defined beyond his control. If it could happen to Max Cleland, of course it can happen to a half-black dude who grew up in Hawaii and Indonesia and graduated from Columbia and Harvard. It's so frightening and certainly not isolated to this candidate or this event. So, can anyone point to actual -- and I know this is crazy -- evidence that rural or post-industrial small town voters would be offended by Obama's comments? If not, then just realize we're all being bamboozled and distracted. Meanwhile, there are food riots in the developing world due. In the last year, the price of wheat has tripled, corn doubled, and rice almost doubled. As prices soared, food riots have broken out in about 20 poor countries including Yemen, Haiti, Egypt, Pakistan, Indonesia, Ivory Coast, and Mexico. In response some countries, such as India, Pakistan Egypt and Vietnam, are banning the export of grains and imposing food price controls. Are rising food prices the result of the economic dynamism of China and India, in which newly prosperous consumers are demanding more food—especially more meat? Perennial doomsters such as the Earth Policy Institute's Lester Brown predicted more than a decade ago that China's growing food demand would destabilize global markets and signal a permanent increase in grain prices. But that thesis has so far not been borne out by the facts. China is a net grain exporter. India is also largely self-sufficient in grains. At some time in the future, these countries may become net grain importers, but they are not now and so cannot be blamed to for today's higher food prices. If surging demand is not the problem, what is? In three words: stupid energy policies. I'll be writing more about energy and food policy later. Update: 6:12pm ET The first sign that small town PA isn't buying this elitism and bitterness b.s. comes from a Kos diarist who checked the local town papers in PA. They're hardly acknowledging it. Update 6:34pm ET via YouTube:
-
Burn Your Crops: II
http://secularapostate.net/?p=1065We discussed this last February here, and Reason has a nice commentary here. Here’s an excerpt to entice you over there: In the last year, the price of wheat has tripled, corn doubled, and rice almost doubled. As prices soared, food riots have broken out in about 20 poor countries including Yemen, Haiti, Egypt, Pakistan, Indonesia, Ivory Coast, and Mexico. In response some countries, such as India, Pakistan Egypt and Vietnam, are banning the export of grains and imposing food price controls. Are rising food prices the result of the economic dynamism of China and India, in which newly prosperous consumers are demanding more food—especially more meat? Perennial doomsters such as the Earth Policy Institute’s Lester Brown predicted more than a decade ago that China’s growing food demand would destabilize global markets and signal a permanent increase in grain prices. But that thesis has so far not been borne out by the facts. China is a net grain exporter. India is also largely self-sufficient in grains. At some time in the future, these countries may become net grain importers, but they are not now and so cannot be blamed to for today’s higher food prices. If surging demand is not the problem, what is? In three words: stupid energy policies. Sums it all up nicely, eh? Because the amount of food that will be burned by ethanol-fueled internal combustion engines this year is… 100 Million Tons $ Where’s the outrage about Big Corn? [IMG [Slashdot]] [IMG [Digg]] [IMG [Reddit]] [IMG [del.icio.us]] [IMG [Facebook]] [IMG [Technorati]] [IMG [Google]] [IMG [StumbleUpon]]
-
The Biggest Green Mistake: Biofuels and the global food crisis
http://junkscience.com/blog_js/2008/04/09/the-biggest-green-...The Biggest Green Mistake: Biofuels and the global food crisis Ronald Bailey, Reason | April 8, 2008 In the last year, the price of wheat has tripled, corn doubled, and rice almost doubled. As prices soared, food riots have broken out in about 20 poor countries including Yemen, Haiti, Egypt, Pakistan, Indonesia, Ivory Coast, and Mexico. In response some countries, such as India, Pakistan Egypt and Vietnam, are banning the export of grains and imposing food price controls. Are rising food prices the result of the economic dynamism of China and India, in which newly prosperous consumers are demanding more food—especially more meat? Perennial doomsters such as the Earth Policy Institute’s Lester Brown predicted more than a decade ago that China’s growing food demand would destabilize global markets and signal a permanent increase in grain prices. But that thesis has so far not been borne out by the facts. China is a net grain exporter. India is also largely self-sufficient in grains. At some time in the future, these countries may become net grain importers, but they are not now and so cannot be blamed to for today’s higher food prices. If surging demand is not the problem, what is? In three words: stupid energy policies. Although they are not perfect substitutes, oil and natural gas prices tend to move in tandem. So as oil prices rose above $100 per barrel, the price of gas also went up. Natural gas is the main feedstock for nitrogen fertilizer. As gas prices soared, so did fertilizer prices which rose by 200 percent. As a report from the International Center for Soil Fertility and Agricultural Development (ICSFAD) notes, applying the fertilizer derived from 1000 cubic feet of natural gas yields around 480 pounds of grain. That amount of grain would supply enough calories to feed a person for one year. Rising oil prices also contribute to higher food prices because farmers need transport fuel to run their tractors and to get food to urban markets. Even worse is the bioethanol craze. Politicians in both the United States and the European Union are mandating that vast quantities of food be turned into fuel as they chase the chimera of "energy independence." For example, Congress passed and President George W. Bush signed misbegotten legislation requiring fuel producers to use at least 36 billion gallons of biofuels by 2022-which equals about 27 percent of the gasoline Americans currently use each year and is about five times the amount being produced now. And the European Union set a goal that 10 percent of transport fuels come from biofuels by 2020. The result of these mandates is that about 100 million tons of grain will be transformed this year into fuel, drawing down global grain stocks to their lowest levels in decades. Keep in mind that 100 million tons of grain is enough to feed nearly 450 million people for a year. As Dennis Avery from the Hudson Institute’s Center for Global Food Issues points out, the higher corn prices that result from biofuels mandates mean that farmers are shifting from producing wheat and soybeans to producing corn. Less wheat and soybeans means higher prices for those grains. In the face of higher prices for wheat, corn and soybeans consumers try to shift to rice which in turns raises that grain’s price. In addition, higher grain prices encourage farmers in developing countries to chop down and plow up forests. It also hasn’t helped that some traditionally strong grain exporters such as Australia have experienced extreme weather. So what to do? In the short run, there is some good news. High prices are encouraging farmers to shift back toward wheat and soybeans which should relieve some of the pressure on grain prices. Second, the biofuels mandates must go. If biofuels are such a good idea, entrepreneurs, inventors and investors will make them into a viable energy source without any government subsidies. Thirdly, both high and low technologies are addressing high fertilizer prices. On the high tech front, Arcadia Biosciences has created biotech rice and corn varieties that need much less nitrogen fertilizer that conventional varieties require. In Bangladesh and other poor countries, farmers are embedding low tech fertilizer-infused briquettes in the soil to deliver nitrogen to rice. This boosts crop production 25 percent while cutting fertilizer use by 50 percent. Expanding acreage to grow biofuels is bad for biodiversity and may even boost the carbon dioxide emissions that contribute to man-made global warming. Avery notes that food production needs to double because there will be more people who will want to eat better by 2050, at which point world population begins to slide back downwards. Turning food into fuel makes that goal much harder to achieve. Avery is right when he argues, "Biofuels are purely and simply the biggest Green mistake we’ve ever made and we’re still making it."
Rising items in Travel
Headlines
- Scrabble 60th Anniversary
- O Say Can You Buy? - Trying to live on 100% made in USA goods
- Elecom's New Waterproof SDHC Card
- Sticks find their own alignment over time
- Vintage Buses Evoke Wheelchair-Unfriendly Era
- Hot New Couple Alert: Ed Westwick And Jessica Szohr
Destructoid interview: Sonic Unleashed
A few weeks ago, Destructoid was lucky enough to get a Q&A session with Sonic Unleashed producer Yoshihisa Hashimoto.
More rising blog posts
-
Business »
Nissan Monthly Sales Down 42.2 Percent -
Lifestyle »
UK Giving Away “Intelligent Fridges” -
Politics »
Gary Coleman Caves in Court -
Technology »
Choosing the right cyclocross tire for every course -
Entertainment »
Ripten Radio Presents: Ripcast Episode 7 -
Sports »
Report: Bellotti Quitting As Oregon Ducks Coach
More rising news stories
-
Business »
Florida Moves to Provide Relief on Foreclosures -
Lifestyle »
Republican Chambliss Wins Georgia Runoff -
Politics »
Obama's fundraising obliterates records -
Technology »
Odd comet possibly from another star system -
Entertainment »
As Dealerships Sink, Towns Suffer -
Sports »
Ball St.-Buffalo Preview
