Posted on 01/17/2006 3:25:10 PM PST by grundle
Venezuelan authorities are prepared to seize inventories of corn meal if producers protesting price controls hoard their supplies, an official said Tuesday.
The South American country has seen coffee disappear from the shelves in recent weeks as producers refused to sell over price controls that they said eliminated profits. Officials said a 60-percent increase in coffee prices announced Monday would make coffee plentiful again.
But some corn producers also have told Venezuelan media they are dissatisfied with current price controls.
"I don't think it's necessary to go straight to expropriation, but it's an option," Food Minister Rafael Oropeza told reporters during a tour of state-operated grain silos in the southwestern state of Barinas.
He said the government is prepared "to defend the right of access to food."
Corn meal is key to Venezuelans' daily diet of "arepas," corn cakes served steaming with chicken, meat or cheese inside. It is one of many basic food products under price controls in Venezuela, where President Hugo Chavez says he is leading a socialist revolution for the poor.
Scattered sellouts of powdered milk, corn meal and sugar have been reported recently, but officials denied there were shortages at a national level and said they would make sure state-run markets are fully stocked.
The consumer protection agency, Indecu, has seized more than 150 metric tons (165 tons) of powdered milk this month from companies hoarding the products, according to its Web site.
Authorities also have seized inventories of coffee allegedly being hoarded by producers and resold at the official price.
The higher price for coffee should help ease the shortage, Light Industries and Commerce Minister Edmee Betancourt told the state-run news agency.
(Excerpt) Read more at businessweek.com ...
LOL! You made a $10 billion claim based on zero facts. You're the waste.
Hey, I heard that saving Americans $2.5 billion on sugar will really cost the country $1 trillion. LOL!!
The combined retail value of the 1994 sugarbeet and sugarcane crop was about $5.1 billion.
Production of sugarbeets and sugarcane in 1994 was 59,220,000 tons. After refining losses, there are 235 pounds of sugar per ton of sugarbeets and 195 pounds in a ton of sugarcane. It is estimated that sugar production by source was 6,838,500,000 pounds from sugarbeets and 5,873,400,000 pounds from sugarcane.
For this report, it was assumed that the entire sugar crop was processed into refined white sugar.
According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the 1994 retail price for refined sugar was $0.40 per pound. At $0.40 per pound, the 1994 retail value of sugarbeets was $2,735,400,000 and the retail value of sugarcane was $2,349,360,000. The total sugar crop retail value was $5,084,760,000.
Retail Values of U.S. Agricultural Commodities
Awaiting your explanation of how the loss of a sugarbeet crop that sold for less than $2.74 billion can cost the sugar beet states $10 billion.
Hopefully, Liberals will remember...?
Don't hold your breath. Liberals care about doctrine, not reality.
Things like this are the result of 'feeling' and not 'thinking'.
I would love to tell all the libs I know to start paying attention to what is happening down there, as it is a perfect example of the poverty and instability socialist economic policies create. But, why waste the breath.
Welcome to FR by the way!
Textbook strawman argument. Well done.
Yet we're called crazy for refusing to support Republicans who continue to prop up this crazy crap while refusing to even get PBS off the taxpayer tit.
Out of date info.
Coming from someone who made up facts with no info, that really hurts.
Imagine how the $2.5 billion we waste on higher priced sugar could multiply.
Smart "free trader" that you are you would know the price of sugar is going up because the MARKET is dictating it.
***
Sugar Jumps to 24-Year High on Fuel Use: World's Biggest Mover
Jan. 20 (Bloomberg) -- Sugar prices in New York surged to a 24-year high as more supplies are used for fuel because of surging energy costs. Today's 6.4 percent rally was the biggest fluctuation of any commodity.
Sugar has jumped 92 percent in the past year as Brazil, the world's biggest producer and exporter, converted more of its crop into ethanol fuel to cope with record gasoline prices. Oil jumped as much as 2.3 percent today to a four-month high on concern for possible supply disruptions in Nigeria and Iran.
``Sugar is going ballistic because of the oil price,'' Sam Tilley, head of research at London-based commodities brokers Sucden (U.K.) Ltd., said in an interview today. ``As oil prices go higher and higher, the only real alternative at present to gasoline is ethanol.''
**
You sound like the "ministers" at the WTO the way you harp on the sugar industry here. Seems like your loyalties are with other countries.
I wouldn't call it "communism," but food production is a highly regulated commercial activity in the United States. And I'm not referring to the "safety" aspects of the industries.
You're gonna' have to elaborate. Are you suggesting that the expropriation of the mills was a triumph for "free-traders," and the subsequent reversal of the move by the Mexican Supreme Court one for protectionists?
I think we have veered, yet again, into an alternate universe.
Nothing of lasting good can come from the outcome of having that fat disgusting socialist pig Chavez running Venezuela and influencing S.A. His glory will go down in flames.
Excellent news!! We can eliminate all restrictions on sugar imports because prices are now high enough for our sugar farmers to make a profit without government protection.
Of course if you looked at the above links, you'd see that US sugar averaged 29.54 cents a pound for the calendar year 2005 versus World sugar at 13.19 cents a pound. Imagine the multiplier if your buddies can get Congress to raise the US price to $1 a pound. Or maybe $2. Anything for our sugar farmers. Sounds like loyalty to Americans all right.
Where Willie Green and hedgetrimmer can insist that higher sugar and steel prices are actually better for America than lower prices....because.....well, just because!!!
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