Posted on 01/30/2011 5:46:15 PM PST by RC one
Political risk has returned with a vengeance. The first food revolutions of our Malthusian era have exposed the weak grip of authoritarian regimes in poor countries that import grain, whether in North Africa today or parts of Asia tomorrow.
If you insist on joining the emerging market party at this stage of the agflation blow-off, avoid countries with an accelerating gap between rich and poor. Cairo’s EGX stock index has dropped 20pc in nine trading sessions.
Events have moved briskly since a Tunisian fruit vendor with a handcart set fire to himself six weeks ago, and in doing so lit the fuse that has detonated Egypt and threatens to topple the political order of the Maghreb, Yemen, and beyond
As we sit glued to Al-Jazeera watching authority crumble in the cultural and political capital of the Arab world, exhilaration can turn quickly to foreboding.
This is nothing like the fall of the Berlin Wall. The triumph of secular democracy was hardly in doubt in central Europe. Whatever the mix of aspirations of those on the streets of Cairo, such uprisings are easy prey for tight-knit organizations – known in the revolutionary lexicon as Leninist vanguard parties.
In Egypt this means the Muslim Brotherhood, whether or not Nobel laureate Mohammed El Baradei ever served as figleaf. The Brotherhood is of course a different kettle of fish from Iran’s Ayatollahs; and Turkey shows that an ‘Islamic leaning’ government can be part of the liberal world – though Turkish premier Recep Tayyip Erdogan once let slip that democracy was a tram “you ride until you arrive at your destination, then you step off."
It does not take a febrile imagination to guess what the Brotherhood’s ascendancy might mean for Israel, and for strategic stability in the Mid-East.
(Excerpt) Read more at telegraph.co.uk ...
“Events have moved briskly since a Tunisian fruit vendor with a handcart set fire to himself six weeks ago”
To those who wonder what nuts expect to achieve by stupid pointless self-destructive actions, there is your answer.
If I blame Helicopter Ben Bernanke for the food riots and deaths, is that a “Blood Libel”, or just truth?
Actually, there's good farmland throughout North America which is not producing aggressively. 10s of thousands of gentleman "farms" and vast acreages doing little.
Farmland is still relatively cheap too.
Depends on who you ask Uncle Miltie the World Bank and the CIA the UN have been warning this would happen Sarkozy even met with obama to discuss it but timmy said no way.
“Inflation on a global level is “not high on the list of concerns,” even though emerging markets across the world are certainly “feeling some pressure,” U.S. Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner said Friday.”
http://blogs.wsj.com/davos/2011/01/28/geithner-global-inflation-not-high-on-list-of-concerns/
Sarkozy and Obama met to discuss soaring food prices
http://www.france24.com/en/20110109-france-usa-sarkozy-washington-food-prices-currency-barack-obama
World food prices enter ‘danger territory’ to reach record high
UN food price index rises for sixth month in a row to highest since records began in 1990
http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2011/jan/05/world-food-prices-danger-record-high-un
But if it’s not rising prices it must be shortages right?
“Now, we have bumper crops: the past three years have produced the biggest harvests ever.”
Oh well all’s well that ends well obama’s muslim brothers get to take over those countries, banana ben’s monetization allows obama to keep on spending. (sarc)
Food Riots: Is Bernanke Partially to Blame?
http://www.cnbc.com/id/41317486
I don’t think farmland is cheap at all, quite the opposite in fact. I think government subsidies have allowed farm land to remain overpriced for a long time. We don’t want our farmers going bankrupt but, at the saem time, it sucks that because they are deemed “too big to fail”, the price of land is allowed to remain artificially inflated. And then you have the megafarms taking full advantage of this which further diminishes the ability of smaller scale farmers to buy land and compete.
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