Posted on 02/16/2011 2:52:29 AM PST by Scanian
Forget Egypt for a moment. If you want to see how extreme the effects of surging food prices are becoming, look to wealthy Japan.
So big are the increases that economists are buzzing about them pushing deflationary Japan toward inflation. Yes, rising costs for commodities such as wheat, corn and coffee might do what trillions of dollars of central-bank liquidity couldn't.
Yet the economic consequences of food prices pale in comparison with the social ones. Nowhere could the fallout be greater than Asia, where a critical mass of those living on less than $2 a day reside. It might have major implications for Asia's debt outlook. It may have even bigger ones for leaders hoping to keep the peace and avoid mass protests.
New York University economist Nouriel Roubini, who predicted the US financial crisis, says surging food and energy costs are stoking emerging-market inflation that's serious enough to topple governments. Hosni Mubarak can attest to that.
The United Nations reckons countries spent at least $1 trillion on food imports in 2010, with the poorest paying as much as 20 percent more than in 2009. These increases are just getting started. In January, world food prices rose to another record on higher dairy, sugar and grain costs.
Events in Egypt are a graphic example of how people living close to the edge can get motivated in a hurry to demand change. Keeping that rage bottled in the age of Twitter, YouTube and Facebook won't be easy. Hence Roubini's concerns about geopolitical crises.
(Excerpt) Read more at nypost.com ...
I could up end far more than just Asia, it could up end the whole world.
“I could up end far more than just Asia, it could up end the whole world.”
People around the world are starving and rioting over food prices...and yet we continue to turn corn into ethanol...and for only ONE REASON. Iowa, the first presidential caucus.
Isn’t there a single Republican candidate that could point this out, or am I expecting too much of them?
Glenn Beck touched on this last night...saying the gov. of Wisconsin had made plans to get national guard troops trained to control ‘civil unrest’.
America should use FOOD as a WEAPON.
I think the Chinese already have a solution for the food shortages: plastic rice! /sarc
Think of the advantages of plastic rice! The first that comes to mind is that you can wash and reuse it.
But will they recycle?
There ain't no Ex-lax made that could handle that jam-up.
“Let ‘em starve” has been their traditional solution.
There you go. There was a time when we were known as the breadbasket of the world. I recall one astounding record year for a single county in Iowa that produced enough corn to provide every man, woman, and child in the U.S. with 3 bushels. One county. Full bellies make lousy insurgents, but we’ve chosen to “burn” our food rather than drill our own oil.
Typical. Conclusions about inflation based on arm waving and not on well, prices. Somehow this talk about Japan's food prices would be a bit more believable if they'd mentioned rice.
Like the high end coffee: "Kopi Luwak or Civet coffee is coffee made from coffee cherries which have been eaten by and passed through the digestive tract of the Asian Palm Civet (Paradoxurus hermaphroditus). "
Back to my morning (first pass) coffee.
uh huh
*****Glenn Beck touched on this last night...saying the gov. of Wisconsin had made plans to get national guard troops trained to control ‘civil unrest’.****
He probably meant Public Workers UNION unrest.
Teachers unions, I believe.
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