FOOD RATIONING has finally come to America. NY, New England, West Coast affected.

[Selatius]

MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif. — Many parts of America, long considered the breadbasket of the world, are now confronting a once unthinkable phenomenon: food rationing.

Major retailers in New York, in areas of New England, and on the West Coast are limiting purchases of flour, rice, and cooking oil as demand outstrips supply. There are also anecdotal reports that some consumers are hoarding grain stocks.

...

An employee at the Costco store in Queens said there were no restrictions on rice buying, but limits were being imposed on purchases of oil and flour. Internet postings attributed some of the shortage at the retail level to bakery owners who flocked to warehouse stores when the price of flour from commercial suppliers doubled.

...

Mr. Rawles said the spot shortages seemed to be most frequent in the Northeast and all the way along the West Coast. He said he had heard reports of buying limits at Sam’s Club warehouses, which are owned by Wal-Mart Stores, but a spokesman for the company, Kory Lundberg, said he was not aware of any shortages or limits.

An anonymous high-tech professional writing on an investment Web site, Seeking Alpha, said he recently bought 10 50-pound bags of rice at Costco. “I am concerned that when the news of rice shortage spreads, there will be panic buying and the shelves will be empty in no time. I do not intend to cause a panic, and I am not speculating on rice to make profit. I am just hoarding some for my own consumption,” he wrote.

http://nysun.com/news/food-rationing-confronts-breadbasket-world

This in the United States of America. This in the 21st century. I can't imagine how bad it is in the developing world right now. I've been hearing of food riots. What happened to all the farmland? Did we convert too much farmland for ethanol and strip malls and office buildings?

[DJ13]

1. Too many greedy fucks all looking for the easy money at one time

Welcome to the free market economy.

Enjoy your stay.

[LakeSamish706]

2. Gee hasn't that George W Bush been good for this country? I hate to think...

how much more devastation he can manage to bring by January 20, 2009!

:sarcasm:

[Xenotime]

57. You are more right than you know...minus the sarcasm tag.

[OmmmSweetOmmm]

3. I went to my local grocery yesterday in NY yesterday and it was fully stocked.

I could have bought what appeared to be a 10lb bag of rice for a little over $4.00.

I will say though, that the prices have soared in the last couple of months.

[kestrel91316]

4. Dupe. This same story has already been posted a couple of dozen times.

There is NO rationing - rationing is an official government program.

There ARE some shortages of rice, probably due to the rice crop failures that are widespread in Asia.

[Hannah Bell]

16. There are no widespread paddy failures in asia. n/t

[Gman]

5. Hoarding 500 lbs. of rice?

Why rice and not potatoes or something else? He denies it but if he probably thinks he'll get $10/lb. in the not too distant future. Silly him, he'll get paid with dollars that are crashing in value.

[dixiegrrrrl]

20. "Why rice and not potatoes or something else? "

You can freeze uncooked rice they say.
Anything you can freeze...flour, salt, butter, even milk, you can stock up on.
Potatoes rot fast.Cooked potatoes really do not freeze well.

[Donnachaidh]

21. potatoes don't keep very well at all

They go to seed or rot fast. Rice stores much better than potatoes. :shrug:

[Breeze54]

34. They do in my cool basement.

;)

[Donnachaidh]

54. apartment dwellers don't have cool basements. n/t

[NuttyFluffers]

51. potatoes are easily stored in dehydrated form. lasts pretty much forever

Peru has had its native people storing "sun dried" potatoes since 'forever'. they keep just as well as any other dehydrated product.

note: the flour, rice, millet, etc. we buy is often just dehydrated storable forms of the product. we just are used to buying potatoes fresh here. it's like the difference between dried corn and fresh corn. in USA we are used to seeing either fresh, canned, or frozen corn, and occasionally popcorn. we are not used to seeing dried corn, but it very much exists.

[Quantess]

52. Thank you for helping, really.

Edit: sorry that was rude, I guess you haven't read the rest of the thread yet!

[NuttyFluffers]

59. no, i did read the whole thing first. i was just replying in the most appropriate area.

replying at the bottom of the message would not have been that productive.

also, if you do a "Find" search of the post (here's the captain obvious part, but useful to those who've never done it -- control+F or command+F) you'll find that the comments on potatoes is tightly localized right here.

but thank you for the apology, though. with all the frayed nerves around here lately it takes a strong sense of humility to undue one's defensiveness.

:hi:

[Quantess]

60. You can get me back for that one!

I deserve it! :hide: :hi:

[NashVegas]

63. Hey, It's For Personal Consumption! Lay Off!

I wonder if he even knows how to cook?


:rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl:

[huskerlaw]

6. I live in Los Angeles

I've seen nothing of the sort.

Yes, food prices are higher. They're higher everywhere.

But the shelves are fully stocked and I've not heard of any buying limits.

Then again, I don't have any need or want for 500 freakin' pounds of rice. :wtf:

[Journeyman]

7. Bullshit . . .

Find me one other article than this New York Sun piece that supports this and I might believe it. But no where else on the internet is there anything but this one article.

Too many Henny Pennys on the Internets, willing to react to any Chicken Little crap that comes around.

Just one other article.

[Javaman]

23. nt

[gatorboy]

8. There is no actual shortage. It's market manipulation.

[Selatius]

9. Actually, I could believe that. Large firms have been doing that in Latin America for ages.

They either hoard food or intentionally underutilize farmland to drive up prices per unit of crop.

[gatorboy]

11. It was discussed on NPR yesterday.

LINK TO THE AUDIO:

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=89808295

Investors have manipulated the prices of these goods. It's the Enron California power shortage grab all over again. This time on a massive dangerous level.

[earth mom]

13. That's what I was thinking too.

:grr:

[apocalypsehow]

10. Part of what adds to this troubling phenomenon is the ubiquity of "Just In Time" delivery practices.

Originally used only by big manufacturers like Ford Motor Company, this practice was brought to the grocery business in order to squeeze every last extra buck out of the grocery pipeline. It has led to a situation where, at any given time, the United States has *on hand* only a twenty day supply of food. That's right: if the deliveries stop, food to the feed the populace is gone within a month.

Guess who first pioneered and applied the use of "Just In Time" to the grocery business? A man named Sam Walton, which makes perfect, ironic sense.

[alittlelark]

12. We had a problem at the Mtn View Costco a few days ago

It's the one I go to. I heard about the rice'riot' on Thom Hartman's show yesterday.

I found an ad from one of the 'hoarders' on Craigslist today - http://sfbay.craigslist.org/sby/grd/652068721.html

[Hannah Bell]

49. What exactly was the problem? n/t

[Mimosa]

14. Subsidies for Ethanol have led to food shortages

The current grain shortages have come about because people in biofuels, agriculture and even environmentalists bought into the idea that diverting farmland into growing grains for ethanol production was a really good idea. American and Canadian farmers were and are paid subsidies to grow corn for ethanol. This higher price for corn has driven up the prices of many foods. In Mexico corn tortillas are being replaced by flour tortillas which are not preferred. Higher priced corn syrup sweetener drives up the prices of many products. As it has turned out this biofuel thing is NOT a good idea at all. (Electric cars would be far better.)

Yes, in various places such as Haiti, people are STARVING. Another side effect of diverting farmland for food crops will be that South American forests will be burned down for agriculture.That's bad for the environment too.

Here's an informative article from The International Herald Tribune:

http://www.iht.com/articles/2008/04/17/news/Haiti.php

[Ilsa]

37. I've read that

the ethanol problem hasn't caused the food shortages issue, as it is yellow feed corn that is being used, not corn that is made into the foods we eat. Tortillas are made with food grade corn.

I am worried about South American rainforests being burned down for crop or ethanol. That's alot of CO2 that won't be absorbed.

Let's face it: we have too many people in the world.

[Hannah Bell]

15. Garbage reporting from a right-wing source.

Evidence given in the article:

1 california costco limits buyers to 1 survival-sized bag of rice.

1 nyc costco doesn't limit rice, but limits unspecified flour/oil purchases.

1 "anonymous hi-tech professional" is buying survival-sized bags of rice.

This is spun into shortages affecting the east & west coasts.


Christ on a cracker. Someone wants to move rice. Perhaps one of the large speculators who drove the price up, & now finds it difficult to unload his contracts?

[RB TexLa]

17. Food shortages is not food rationing. The corner gas station was out of Coors Light last night,

does not mean we now have beer rationing.




Britannica Concise Encyclopedia: rationing

Government allocation of scarce resources and consumer goods, usually adopted during wars, famines, or other national emergencies. Rationing according to use prohibits the less important uses of a commodity (e.g., the use of gasoline for pleasure trips as opposed to work-related travel). Rationing by quantity limits the amounts of a commodity available to each claimant (e.g., a pound of butter per month). Rationing by value limits the amount of money consumers can spend on commodities that are difficult to standardize (e.g., clothing). Point rationing assigns a point value to each commodity and allocates a certain number of points to each consumer. These can be tracked through coupons, which are issued to consumers and must be exchanged for the approved amounts of rationed goods. Consumers in a rationed economy are usually encouraged to save their money or invest in government bonds so that unspent money will not be used for unrationed items or purchases on the black market.

http://www.answers.com/topic/rationing?cat=biz-fin

[ColbertWatcher]

61. WHAT! We're running out of beer!? n/t

[hootinholler]

18. THIS IS NOT RATIONING!

It is the man fucking over the little guy to maximize profits. It used to be illegal.

-Hoot

[1monster]

19. Okay, I admit that I have been buying one small bag of rice each time I go to the

grocery store and store it in my freezer. (In Florida's climate, we get bugs in the rice in a very short time if it is not kept refrigerated.) I have about eight one-pound bags now. And I'm adding canned beans, tomatoes, and fruits. I haven't added flour to the list at this time.

I am probably going to add tinned meats next.

I'm not exactly hoarding, and I usually stock up on (easily prepared) non perishable foods for hurricane season every year, but I want to have enough to feed my family the basics if times get really bad or the food gets really expensive.

[Matariki]

22. This is the FOURTH time this Rupert Murdoch 'news' article has been posted here

I know many people at DU delight in indulging in schadenfreude, but come on - a little research and rational thinking.

As Hannah Bell has pointed out in every thread, The New York Sun is owned by Rupert Murdoch.

The only place food shortages and rationing in the US is being mentioned is in this paper - and coincidently the only 'news' quoting the article is Fox News.

Look at this Fox News headline - it's essentially Fox News quoting itself: http://www.kptm.com/Global/story.asp?S=8202003&nav=menu606_24_8_1">NY Paper Reports Food Rationing Appearing In US

NY Paper indeed.

I am willing to BET that Murdoch and his friends just bought a bunch of food commodities and are trying to drive up prices by creating a panic induced shortage. And folks here are playing right into their hands.

[Hannah Bell]

24. Sorry, my error. I confused the Sun & the Post. The Sun is run

by a different right-wing-nut.

"According to Scott Sherman, writing in the left-wing magazine The Nation (4/30/07), the Sun is "a broadsheet that injects conservative ideology into the country's most influential philnthropic, intellectual and media hub; a paper whose day-to-day coverage of New York City emphasizes lower taxes, school vouchers and free-market solutions to urban problems; a paper whose elegant culture pages hold their own against the Times in quality and sophistication; a paper that breaks news and crusades on a single issue; a paper that functions as a journalistic SWAT team against individuals and institutions seen as hostile to Israel and Jews; and a paper that unapologetically displays the scalps of its victims."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_York_Sun

The point you make stands, though. The paper is pushing rice shortage: do its owners/editors have some interest in getting people to stock up on rice?

[Matariki]

26. I guess I should take my own advice about 'a little research' before I rant

;-)

But yeah. I think my point still stands.

[Hannah Bell]

36. well, i led you astray. there's a report on "gawker" though, that

murdoch's interested in the sun. also that he's going to bring some sun people into his new acquisition, the wsj.

the sub seems to be pretty much in the murdoch mold, let's say.

[Quantess]

25. Glenn Beck was discussing it yesterday,

if that tells you anything.

[Matariki]

27. It's a ripple effect

First one newspaper prints an article, which although it's a New York paper is mostly focused on a rice shortage at ONE Costco in Mountainview California.

When someone first posted the article here at DU, I looked it up in google news to see if there was any substance to it. Apart from the Sun article the only other reference was Fox News quoting the article. Now if you look today - a lot more news sources are quoting it.

Perhaps in a few days time we'll have a 'National Crisis'. One which I seriously suspect will benefit certain people's pocketbooks.

[Hannah Bell]

38. Crap. That tells me that the powers behind the freaking wingnut faction

are coordinating the creation of panic. Is Limbaugh purveying this too?

Jesus H. Christ. They'll make shortage where there is none. I hate these SOBs, never hated anyone the way I hate them.

[Quantess]

41. Glenn Beck is babbling about it AGAIN, right now!

On CNN "Headline News".

[Hannah Bell]

47. what's he saying. & what are other commentators saying?n/t

[Quantess]

48. Hi, Hannah Bell. Sorry, all I noticed was that Glenn Beck yammered about it again, today.

When I walked past the TV at first I thought it was a rerun of yesterday, but no, today he dug deeper into the looming threat of food shortages and food riots.
He said "I'm no Chicken Little, but..." PANIC IN THE STREETS!!!1

The only time I see him on TV is when I don't have control of the remote (most of the time, LOL).

[Matariki]

42. I think this deserves its own thread. Right-wing factions manufacturing a food crisis

It's worthy of some research and people should be aware of what they appear to be trying to do.

[Hannah Bell]

50. I made a thread in GD. "manufacturing crisis". This is starting to

worry me - media-induced panic.

[Rosemary2205]

28. There's still time to delete this POS. - and people - 10 recs??

At least 10 dupes on DU.

[RB TexLa]

32. The doom and gloomers are getting their hopes up over it. Ironic huh?

[vickitulsa]

29. This article may be crap, BUT--

I live in the poorer part of Tulsa because it's the only place I can afford to live, and there is basically only ONE store in this part of town where folks can shop for foodstuffs, as well as many other products: a WalMart "Superstore." It has been here for many years -- in fact, I recall when it opened with a lot of hoopla, as I happened to live in this same area in the mid-1980's when that happened.

So ... back then, there were plenty of other grocery stores in the area, notably a couple of Warehouse Markets, which had prices comparable with the WalMart grocery section. At this time, one Warehouse Market has closed, and the remaining one is on its last legs. Another large grocery store not too far away has also closed, after years of having almost no customers. There's one other grocery store a little further into Tulsa proper that is still open, but the prices there are not affordable to most of the poor who live in these parts.

There are plenty of the big, nice stores all over town, of course, but I haven't been able to shop in those for years now.

Anyway, over the years since that huge WalMart store near me opened, it seems virtually everyone in this area has come to depend on it for their grocery needs as well as most other things. (It's always jam packed, with long lines at the checkouts, and I call it "the Zoo.") We really don't HAVE much choice, period.

During the past year and especially the last few months, prices at that WalMart have jumped repeatedly and dramatically. I go through the place these days and start to pick up things I usually buy, but often have to put them back or reduce the size or number of packages I can purchase, solely due to the increased prices.

But I said "BUT--" above in my subject line because that's just one part of the story. What has been truly shocking me as much as the price increases for the last few months is the fact that the shelves in this store, which always had them fully stocked before, now often are half bare! I'm not kidding or exaggerating, either. And I've never in my life been an alarmist -- I'm just telling you all what is going on in my part of Tulsa.

Quite a few products that I used to get are simply not there now, and I have to go back later and hope they've come in. This problem runs the full range of food products and isn't limited to rice or corn. I have NOT seen any limits posted on how many packages customers can purchase, but when the shelves don't have certain items on them, you definitely have a "limit" on what you can get!

A few weeks ago, I saw an employee in the produce section just at the time another customer and I were talking about the price hikes, so I asked the employee if she knew why the prices had gone up so much lately. Turned out she was a supervisor and had worked for WalMart for many years, and she knew more than most of their employees seem to. She gave me some definite reasons for the price increases, notably the shipping (gas) costs that have increased for them. She also mentioned several other things, but they didn't seem that significant or even logical to me ... I felt it all really boiled down to blaming the fuel costs and/or plain old gouging on the part of WalMart, which of course she would not have mentioned.

Then just last week I was so shocked at the high number of empty shelves that I stopped another WalMart employee and asked her why they weren't stocked. I'd never seen anything like this ongoing situation, ever. This employee also seemed to have some answers ready for me, and she listed them -- starting, again, with shipping and fuel costs.

The strange thing about both these encounters was that both employees seemed almost to have been prepared to answer questions management must have known they would get from customers, but then the answers were not really satisfying or didn't make much sense to me. Honestly, I can hardly even remember anything they offered by way of reasons except for the fuel/shipping issue, largely because those "reasons" did NOT make sense! I think I just dismissed them as ridiculous after considering them at the time.

So ... this article may be BS from a BS paper, but I'm reporting firsthand on what I'm experiencing in my own locale, and it's fairly disturbing, I'll tell ya! It's not like there isn't anything at all to buy or that I have no food to eat, but the drastic changes in having the one store in this area's shelves not stocked normally has really gotten my attention -- and that of other customers too. Sometimes I find myself standing there at my cart, staring at half-empty shelves where some product I wanted used to be, looking at other options I don't really want or can't afford, and another customer will come up and have the same puzzled, frustrated look on her face. Sometimes we talk about it, but lately it seems we've all given up asking what the deal is.

So what IS the deal here?? I sure do wonder....


I did hear the topic of food shortages worldwide discussed on NPR about a week ago, too, and it was quite disturbing. And I've heard several reports on "water wars" that are getting very serious in some areas, between nations or states, or parts of states. I think we're in for some very turbulent times of privation in the near future, due mostly to the manipulation of world markets by the very rich who are always greedy for MORE. And of course it's the poorest people who are already feeling this, the soonest and the hardest.

[Hannah Bell]

39. You say there are "big, nice" stores all over town. Do you mean

food stores, or some other kind of store?

I don't know what's going on in your area, but here's something to think on:

There's a similar phenomenon that I can remember as far back as the 60s, when you'd read how groceries in ghetto areas had poor selection, rotting produce, etc. I can also remember when I was in college & the one national chain grocery within walking distance of campus (most students didn't have cars in those days) had the same thing - less selection, understocked shelves, & bad produce, left on the shelves til it was half-rotten.

I think the phenomenon is captive market - they know their customers don't have options, so they can do stuff like this: reduce their deliveries to save fuel, while maintaining more or less similar sales volume. If it's not on the shelf this trip, they know the customer will use their own gas $ to come back next week & try again - or do without.

I'd bet something like this is operating in low income areas with little competition.

[BigDaddy44]

30. I went to Kroger yesterday....

It was empty!!! EMPTY I tell ya!! Nothing left but feminine hygiene products and greeting cards. Just a few wayward souls wandering up and down the aisles with empty carts looking to see if anything was left.

[theboss]

31. Did you buy any MaxiPads for kindling?

I would have.

[gatorboy]

33. He's wearing them as headbands.

It's warm this month!

[northzax]

58. you sure that wasn't a CVS?

i told you, hoss, don't buy acid from a guy named Maltripper, sheesh.

[Breeze54]

35. There's plenty of rice, flour and pasta at my local stores in MA.

I call bullshit on that article.

[ThatsMyBarack]

40. Why bother trying to eat healthy, then?

From now on, I'll just grab whatever shit I can get my grimy little hands on and die happy! :sarcasm:

[dysfunctional press]

45. rice and flour are NOT "healthy" foods for the human body...

we are hunter-gatherers by nature.

[ThomWV]

55. Much of the world would be very suprised to hear that rice is bad for you.

[dysfunctional press]

56. i didn't say that it was bad for you- i said that it isn't a healthy food.

and it definitely isn't a natural part of the human diet.

[MountainLaurel]

43. Very interesting

We feed our dogs a lamb-and-rice formula kibble for large breed dogs (which has glucosamine and chondroitin for the joints) and haven't been able to find it the past couple visits to the large, national chain where we normally buy it. Last time, Mr. L was talking to someone at the store about it, and the person noted that the company was having problems getting rice and so was cutting back on some of their formulas.

[dysfunctional press]

44. big-money investors need a place to make money since the housing market tanked...

COMMODITIES is where the big big speculation money is going- and they need to make PROFITS- BIG BIG PROFITS for their investors...

THAT'S WHY the prices of staple foods are high and going higher- it has NOTHING to do with actual shortages- yet.

[OKthatsIT]

46. Massachusetts? Nah. Nothing happening here.

[Maine-ah]

53. 17 months ago, at the foodservice I worked at

a 50lb bag of flour was 16 bucks (about) it is now closer to 50.

the price should go down with the next crop. But this is the first time I have heard of any "rationing" going on. I do the weekly shopping for our house, and I have not seen anything like you are describing at the grocery stores.

[judasdisney]

62. What does this have to do with Flag Pins?

And John Edwards' haircut? I ask again.