Not-so-quiet food riots

[ensho]

http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Global_Economy/JD12Dj01.html


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This "inability to buy food" is one of the problems with inflation, and that ugliness is now here, as we read from Bloomberg.com, "The World Bank in Washington says 33 nations from Mexico to Yemen may face 'social unrest' after food and energy costs increased for six straight years." Hahaha! No kidding?

World Bank chief Robert Zoellick says, "Thirty-three countries around the world face potential social unrest because of the acute hike in food and energy prices," and that since 2005, "the prices of staples have jumped 80%".

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And worse yet for us alcohol-besotted worthless lushes out here, heroically keeping bartenders and comely barmaids gainfully employed year around, the price of hops, an integral ingredient in beer making, has soared from $4 a pound to $40.

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And food prices, and the resultant anger, are rising around the world, as we glean from a reader of George Ure's Urbansurvival.com who has been using the Google search engine for references to "food riots." He has submitted these returns:


278 on March 22

289 on March 23

330 on March 24

380 on March 26

970 on April 2

1,330 on April 5

1,698 on April 7

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sigh

I've said americans wouldn't get riled until beer prices went out of bounds. did you note that hops prices have gone up? get ready for some riling.

[notesdev]

1. Thank biofuel

Corn and sugar and other crops going directly into SUV gas tanks instead of hungry bellies.

Tax dollars going from your pocket through the government subsidy program directly into the pockets of Archer Daniels Midland and other agribusinesses.

Meat prices are stable right now because of the culling of herds that are too expensive to feed. But just wait 'til next year, when meat prices go through the same rise that crop prices went through this year and last.

All of this should warn against the dangers of a citizenry that is too ill-educated in basic economics to make sound policy decisions.

The place to stop this nonsense is to start teaching ADULTS how to count above 10 without pulling their socks off and how to deal with basic economics. We need to teach kids too, but we have many times the number of adults who need this information to make wise, educated decisions NOW.

[Warpy]

3. Thank global warming and crop failure throughout

Asia and Australia. Thank also food hoarding by those rich enough to do it.

Prices here will go up as more US food is exported to a hungry world where prices have risen so far that US food is attractively priced.

Biofuel really hasn't gotten started in this country. Gasohol formulas have been the same for about 10 years. There hasn't been a sudden demand on food crops to be converted into fuel.

[notesdev]

4. Crop demand

> There hasn't been a sudden demand on food crops to be converted into fuel.

There has in fact been such demand, generated from thin air by an act of Congress.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/05/25/AR2005052502048.html

What happened is that due to this legislation, the price of corn went up; in addition to also raising the price of all corn-based products, fewer other crops were planted. Thus wheat, which is not used as a biofuel, has risen in price by 350% because there is so much less planted than there was previously.

Brazil is also a good example. Of biofuels, sugar is probably the best one to use. Even there, thanks to their use of sugar as fuel, the price of sugar has gone up 60% in the past year.

The pattern is clear. When we burn food to make fuel, prices rise, and those who had just enough to survive before then slip into starvation, which in turn leads to the food riots that are increasingly evident.

[evlbstrd]

2. Malted barley is going up, too.

Even homebrewers are feeling it.