That all sounds good, but the world's default currencey, the dollar, is falling due to our mismangement of it. That hurts everyone.
Posted on 04/13/2008 3:43:57 PM PDT by bjs1779
Dubai: The food price and supply situation is turning worse, and in some places is uglier than expected and could lead to domestic turmoil, including the "risk of war", a top official said.
The food price situation has already claimed its first victim - the Haitian Prime Minister Jacques Edouard Alexis - who was forced to quit, and food ration lines in Bangladesh are becoming longer everyday with sporadic incidents, reflecting a near explosive situation due to hunger.
"Food prices, if they go on like they are doing today... the consequences will be terrible," International Monetary Fund (IMF) managing director Dominque Strauss-Kahn at a press conference ahead of the IMF-World Bank Spring Meetings in Washington.
Possible impact
Gulf News has been highlighting the global food price crisis and its possible impact on the Gulf countries. "Hundreds of thousands of people will be starving... [eading] to disruption of the economic environment," Strauss-Kahn told a news conference.
Development gains made in the past five or 10 years could be "totally destroyed," he said, warning that social unrest could even lead to war.
"As we know, learning from the past, those kind of questions sometimes end in war," he said. If the world wanted to avoid "these terrible consequences," then rising prices had to be tackled.
Skyrocketing prices on rice, wheat, corn and other staple foods like milk particularly hurt developing nations, where the bulk of income is spent on the bare necessities for survival.
Rising food prices have also encouraged the UAE government to intervene, when the Ministry of Economy allowed the retail chains to directly import food items by cutting the middlemen to keep prices of essentials at a decent level.
As a result, Union Cooperative Society and Emke Group have already signed a deal with the UAE Ministry of Economy to supply essential food items at 2007 base prices to help the consumers.
Seriously, aren't there lots of farmers in third-world countries? While 2% of Americans are farmers, well over 50% of the population of many countries are poor. This should be a boon to them.
Only in leftie land is it bad to have the price of the only thing you produce go through the roof.
Terri Schiavo’s death was a total clusterfark of family law and created a political movement that has canonized her. I don’t share that political concern and don’t give a rat’s ass about your feelings on the subject, other than to say your post was moral speculation and stupid as hell in context to the thread topic.
Keep it on the Terri’s Dailies threads and I won’t comment about it.
Seriously, aren't there lots of farmers in third-world countries? While 2% of Americans are farmers, well over 50% of the population of many countries are farmers. This should be a boon to them.
Only in leftie land is it bad to have the price of the only thing you produce go through the roof.
I’m afraid that the food shortage is going to get very bad and very expensive for the rest of us. The greenies are going to get exactly what they wanted, a cleaner world with less people they just didn’t want to tell anyone a head of time what the plan was. Unfortuantely there will be no one sending food to save them because all of the wheat fields have been planted with corn and that is for animal feed and bio fuels. From what I’ve been reading the price of wheat and rice is about to get very expensive. I just dropped 25# of flour into the freezer now while it is still affordable.
We have food, they have oil. Hmmm... how about an exchange? We can call it Oil for Food II
It drives up prices that they can't afford. There are rumblings in this country about food prices, but not life or death, yet. For the mayority that is. I am sure some are really going to hurt though.
Using food for biofuel is one thing..but we kinda need to have food for animals to eat, since we eat the animals. It’s food for food.
Thanks for the link. I bookmarked it.
The flux is up to 69.
It’s the start of a new solar cycle, I hope.
In other words, you still wanted to starve her to death. Thanks for your response.
When it promises to sell for as much as corn, farmers will plant more of it. We'll end up with all food prices being higher and subsidized ethanol which, counting production, produces more emissions than gasoline and delivers less energy. Oh yes, there's the issue of ethanol production utilizing scarce water resources.
If Gore were a Republican the MSM would be all over him on this.
Month Click for chart Session Pr.Day Options Open High Low Last Time Sett Chg Vol Sett OpInt May 08 595 595 583 6/8 584 2/8 Apr 11, 16:40 584 2/8 -10 156007 594 2/8 287717 Call Put Jul 08 607 4/8 608 596 6/8 597 4/8 Apr 11, 16:40 597 4/8 -10 97828 607 4/8 443087 Call Put Sep 08 613 613 604 605 4/8 Apr 11, 16:40 605 4/8 -8 6/8 13955 614 2/8 103671 Call Put Dec 08 612 4/8 612 4/8 601 604 Apr 11, 16:40 604 -7 2/8 62582 611 2/8 431493 Call Put Mar 09 616 2/8 618 611 4/8 614 6/8 Apr 11, 16:40 614 6/8 -4 4/8 3506 619 2/8 47254 Call Put May 09 620 4/8 620 4/8 616 617 6/8 Apr 11, 16:40 617 6/8 -4 4/8 278 622 2/8 5024 Call Put Jul 09 624 4/8 624 4/8 620 621 Apr 11, 16:40 621 -7 2759 628 17157 Call Put Sep 09 581 588 576 576 Apr 11, 16:40 576 -4 60 580 407 Call Put Dec 09 568 568 563 4/8 565 Apr 11, 16:40 565 -5 6312 570 81065 Call Put Mar 10 571 571 4/8 571 571 4/8 Apr 11, 16:40 571 4/8 -4 4/8 27 576 1225 Call Put May 10 575 575 574 574 Apr 11, 16:40 574 -3 4/8 0 577 4/8 0 Call Put Jul 10 576 4/8 577 4/8 575 2/8 575 2/8 Apr 11, 16:40 575 2/8 -3 6/8 3 579 770 Call Put Dec 10 575 576 4/8 575 576 Apr 11, 16:40 576 -4 314 580 22183 Call Put
Part of our rising food prices are because of fuel costs making transport and storage higher and higher.
I remember the US having food surpluses back in the day, giving away cheese, etc. And this was happening while third world nations were experiencing hunger (due to many reasons ranging from drought to greedy, evil warlords).
We may just have to do a food for fuel deal for those countries that can trade it. That would theoretically allow us to then re-route our usage and help those less fortunate world-wide from ever-increasing food prices.
Too bad the Constitution prohibits export tariffs. I would increase by a factor of 100 any food exports to the middle east.
but the solor cycle normally reverses itself and it has not..it’s noticably overdue and if it does foreshadow an extended down cycle (Maunder minimum /) then it gets a bit more serious.
That all sounds good, but the world's default currencey, the dollar, is falling due to our mismangement of it. That hurts everyone.
Turning food into fuel is about the dumbest thing this country has ever done.
Now we should charge oil countries a fortune for any grains we ship them.
Go find another witch to burn.
Well, it is nice to know that you are getting a little sensitive about starving people.
The citizens are not, the imported slave labor is another story
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