OPEC's Food Shortage Public Relations Plan

[NJCher]

I learned this on a C2C radio show a few weeks ago. The source is credible.

Long story short, quite some time ago, OPEC asked for a public relations plan to be prepared that would make it look like food shortages were being caused by the U.S. farmers growing corn for ethanol. The plan wasn't used for its original purpose but subsequently has been used in this last year. The purpose of the plan is to shame the U.S. back into growing food for food, not energy.

In addition, very recently OPEC bought up a huge share of commodity futures. What they did was very strategic and is, according to some experts, what caused the food shortages.

People died because the food could not be distributed because it was impossible to get it to the people at the price they could afford. The food was there: just not for them.

My source is Howard Bloom, who is a writer/researcher who worked for 15 years in the public relations industry. He said he got his first inkling of what was going on when the stories about the food shortages started coming out. Noticing that they were timed in a way that is typical of a public relations campaign, he started looking into the matter. That's when he tracked down the OPEC public relations plan.

I'm posting this info because I know there is a good deal of concern about food shortages out there. Just look at some of the threads, most notably this one:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x3505585

I think this OPEC PR plan is extremely interesting information. It makes me ask a few questions, like:

a) If oil is such short supply, why does OPEC feel the need to discourage a major effort toward the U.S. being able to grow some of its own fuel? In other words, if the China and India are buying up all the oil they can get their hands on, why would OPEC feel the need to do something like this?

b) Anybody who reads DU regularly knows about the Enron clause and what the speculators are doing to the price of oil. Yet the other day, Saudi Arabia said they were increasing oil production by 200,000 barrels a day. The question is why the Saudis would feel the need to do that? In fact, I believe I heard a Saudi prince say that the price of oil here was an outrage (can anyone supply further info on that?). Also, isn't it interesting that they turned bush down but later came out and said they'd increase oil production?

I hope to listen to the program where I heard this info again and supply additional details. For example, I'd like to know the name of the PR firm who wrote the plan.

But in the meantime, I'd be interested in what you think of this situation.




Cher

[Mojorabbit]

1. I think

that Saudi Arabia royalty knows they are only useful to us in that they supply us oil. We sell them arms and give them protection. If it gets out that they may be running low, they are no longer of use to the west and I don't think they want to be left to the mercy of the region nor their populace. Just another twist that my mind thought up a few years ago.

[Fire Walk With Me]

3. A quick web search (ask.com) only comes up with 2003/4 unemployment for Arabia.

"unemployment for the 20-24 age group (the new graduates) at around 27% and 33% for Saudi males and Saudi females, respectively."

I have no idea if that is accurate or what it is like today.

[rosesaylavee]

2. Bottom line

Bad guys are manipulating the shortages - both oil and food apparently. May karma come soon and bite them hard on their backsides... preferably sooner than later and all I ask is that I get to watch.

Some of this is because of the falling value of the dollar is making our commodities like oil, food, steel etc. sell at great discounts for the rest of the world. But taking ALL THAT into consideration, according to NPR this evening, energy experts can't figure out why oil is valued any more than $90/barrel maximum. And the cost of oil is certainly effecting the cost for food.

[NJCher]

4. motivation

That's an excellent point, Mojorabbit. I should have thought of that myself but I didn't.

More on this topic: I heard this guy on another C2C program. His contention is that we are financing our own demise by doing nothing about our dependency on oil. He says that if we just passed a law stating that after a certain point, all vehicles must be flex-fueled, we would deal a devastating blow to the Saudis.

His description of how the Saudis have us in their vise grip was vivid. He said it is like the puppy whose owner buys him a collar when he is little, but as he grows, refuses to buy him a bigger collar. As the puppy grows, his collar grows tighter and tighter.

The solution, of course, is to buy the puppy a bigger collar and by analogy, the release more oil to the market.

My own spouse contends that what the Saudis are doing is treating oil like the De Beers treat their diamonds.

Link to info and speech he made on c-span:

http://www.c-spanarchives.org/library/index.php?main_page=product_video_info&products_id=200600-1

Also, he said the Saudis did not actually increase production as I said in my OP. He said they had decreased it, so when they increased it, it was not actually an increase. I wasn't aware of that decrease.



Cher

[lildreamer316]

5. Thanks, Cher. I've been watching all this with great interest.

I felt instinctively that there was no such thing as a food shortage OR an oil shortage. The problem with the truth in the oil shortage case, though, is that we probably need to believe there is an oil shortage as a general population, not to get more money, but because we need to be pushing for alternative energy sources for the good of Mother Gaia, and our own survival. It's a bit of a catch-22: the truth about the matter means that we as a group have to choose to save Mother Earth because she should be saved, not because we have to. It's a challenge to think(feel/empathize) on a higher level. It remains to be seen if we can actually do so.