Like the illusion of Wall Street, with its vast and powerful investment banks, now shuttered, China too is an illusion perpetuated by the Globalists that gave us the 15,000 mile Caesar salad, poisoned cat food and lead based paint on babies' pacifiers. Like the illusion that money would come from thin air to always push housing prices higher, China has spent a generation pursuing its illusion. Pursuing an unattainable dream to be like the West, while 6000 years of its carefully shepherded top soil blows into the sea.
I don't want to alarm anybody, but maybe it's time for Americans to start stockpiling food.
No, this is not a drill.
You've seen the TV footage of food riots in parts of the developing world. Yes, they're a long way away from the U.S. But most foodstuffs operate in a global market. When the cost of wheat soars in Asia, it will do the same here.
Reality: Food prices are already rising here much faster than the returns you are likely to get from keeping your money in a bank or money-market fund. And there are very good reasons to believe prices on the shelves are about to start rising a lot faster.
Last month Mr Wen even revealed what had been a state secret: that China had grain reserves of 150m-200m tonnes, equal to 30-40% of annual production. Officials note that China's ratio of reserves to consumption is much higher than the 17-18% level regarded by the United Nations' Food and Agriculture Organisation as a safe minimum for global stocks.
But not everyone is convinced. Reports in the state-controlled press say that some people in Guangdong province, next to Hong Kong, have been stockpiling grain. In March a senior agriculturalist, Yuan Longping, accused officials in some areas of exaggerating the size of grain reserves in order to get more subsidies for storing them.
BOHOL, Philippines - Gantallan Plorensio's farm is a paradox at the heart of Asia's growing rice crisis. The fields that get enough water have never been more productive, contributing to a 5 percent annual increase in rice production over the past two years.
"We have a lot of rice fields, but no irrigation," he says. "They're just sitting there."
As a regional rice crisis looms, threatening political instability and social unrest, the idle fields in Mr. Plorensio's village underscore a failure of policy and foresight repeated across the region: For decades, governments have been encouraging a boom in services and skyscrapers, but not the capacity to grow more rice. Financing in agriculture has stagnated, and fewer farmers are expected to produce more rice for exploding populations.
_________________ “It does not do to leave a live dragon out of your calculations, if you live near him.”
J.R.R. Tolkien
"The time has come for men to act like men; and for women, well, to act a lot more like men."
-Ma Cur
Joined: Jan 16, 2005 Posts: 322 Location: Delft, Netherlands
Posted: Wed Apr 23, 2008 5:21 am Post subject: Re: Food Rationing across NYC!
IanC wrote:
Are they rationing because people are hording or because the stores just have low inventories?
This is freaking me out. Is anyone else contemplating buying a bunch of staples tomorrow?
-Ian
Not me. Prices will most certainly come down form the current highs. There is only one, very practical reason some shops are rationing. They don't want to sell "no" to customers just because some customers are hoarding.
Supply management in the retail sector cannot usually anticipate hoarding by customers creating an artificial demand spike, which means when people start hoarding the risk is that the shelves are emptied. The only rational way to combat this irrational behaviour is to ration supplies at the counter. This is certainly no portent of any so-called structural food shortage in NYC, if that's what your afraid of. In fact, you should be more concerned about the 100 million people worldwide who are facing a real, immediate food shortage. Those people have a reason to fear hunger, not the people of NYC any time soon.
Posted: Wed Apr 23, 2008 5:44 am Post subject: Re: Food Rationing across NYC!
The thing that's pissing me off about this whole thing is I wanted to add rice to my diet, and now it's farking MIA. I'm down to 100 pounds of rice at most, and I was going to throw a couple more sacks in there.
Great. Now I'm going to have to drive to ten different stores and buy up my quota.
Joined: Nov 15, 2007 Posts: 341 Location: US East Coast
Posted: Wed Apr 23, 2008 6:27 am Post subject: Re: The Spreading Food Crisis Thread
snip from a BBC article on the World Food Program
"She used the example of Kenya's Rift Valley where farmers even now are planting a third less of the land than last year.
This is because fertiliser has more than doubled in price."
This comment spurred the following thought:
In the end simple economics will rule the day, if Mother Nature doesn't step in first.
Taken from a statistical view, human life is cheap, when ever there is a sufficient population we treated humans like a commodity.
I suspect that the value of a pair of hands attached to a mouth to feed will lessen. We will simply stop feeding the excess population. _________________ When going through hell, keep going! Churchill
Nothing is ever lost by courtesy. It is the the cheapest of pleasures, costs nothing, and conveys much. E Wiman
I know there’s no solution, so I just enjoy what’s here and I enjoy the journey G Carlin
Joined: Mar 05, 2006 Posts: 420 Location: East edge of the Milky Way
Posted: Wed Apr 23, 2008 6:28 am Post subject: Re: Food Riots Break Out Across the Globe
'Now - here's where it gets interesting. For the first time in the memory of almost all of us, we will have mass global hunger. And don't think the hungry masses won't be thinking of Europe and the U.S. That means attempts at mass migration'~ Very adroit Jack. I'd argue that this migration is well underway in the US and in Europe.
Alex
Posted: Wed Apr 23, 2008 7:26 am Post subject: Re: The Spreading Food Crisis Thread
Ludi, yes, I'll get the straight run chicks, grow 'em to fryer size, then fill the freezer with the roosters and culled pullets. Done that before. Haven't decided what I want for breed yet. Probably
Reds, or white Rocks. Tried to post last night, but lost it somehow. Busy time for us, 'cause the farmers are in the fields here, and breaking things that they bring to us for fixing, so long hours in the shop.
Too many coyotes, dogs, and coy-dogs here for rabbits. Even in a building, rabbits will go nuts if they sense a predator, and kill their young. Had that happen before. _________________ Local fix-it guy..
Posted: Wed Apr 23, 2008 7:32 am Post subject: Re: The Spreading Food Crisis Thread
OilFinder, dont count a harvest till its in the bins. Crops are fickle and so is thw weather. We've had many years where things started off looking really good and then something took a turn for the worse and you end up with a half ass harvest. _________________ "Battle not with monsters, lest ye become a monster, and if you gaze into the
Abyss, the Abyss gazes also into you."
Ammo at a gunfight is like bubblegum in grade school: If you havent brought enough for everyone, you're in trouble
Joined: May 18, 2006 Posts: 4838 Location: Minneapolis, MN
Posted: Wed Apr 23, 2008 7:40 am Post subject: Re: Food Rationing across NYC!
Ayoob wrote:
The thing that's pissing me off about this whole thing is I wanted to add rice to my diet, and now it's farking MIA. I'm down to 100 pounds of rice at most, and I was going to throw a couple more sacks in there.
Great. Now I'm going to have to drive to ten different stores and buy up my quota.
Posted: Wed Apr 23, 2008 8:02 am Post subject: Re: The Spreading Food Crisis Thread
Pretorian wrote:
PS By the way your avatar really looks like an ejaculating penis. You really should check it up with your psychiatrist.
That speaks more of you then him. I think most will agree its clearly an oil rig.
I think you should see the psychiatrist perhaps...... _________________ "Battle not with monsters, lest ye become a monster, and if you gaze into the
Abyss, the Abyss gazes also into you."
Ammo at a gunfight is like bubblegum in grade school: If you havent brought enough for everyone, you're in trouble
Joined: Oct 15, 2004 Posts: 2256 Location: Arkansas
Posted: Wed Apr 23, 2008 8:04 am Post subject: Re: The Spreading Food Crisis Thread
Costco is apparently saying everthing's going to be okay, that they are just limiting some unusual purchases. Hmmm. Reminiscent of the "all okay" we got from the banks just before the subprime crisis, that later turned into "it will be contained" to absolute route. Let's hope, then, that our food supply chain doesn't have any subprime bombs in it.
As for oilfinder, he thinks that 100klbpd will make up for the declines in Cantarell and Russia, and that plenty of cashews in Mozambique will make up for lack of butter in Japan and lack of rice in Haiti. BTW, maybe Costco should just direct its customers to the cashews instead of the rice, flour and oil.
Posted: Wed Apr 23, 2008 8:14 am Post subject: Re: Food Rationing across NYC!
Nano wrote:
The only rational way to combat this irrational behaviour is to ration supplies at the counter. This is certainly no portent of any so-called structural food shortage in NYC, if that's what your afraid of. In fact, you should be more concerned about the 100 million people worldwide who are facing a real, immediate food shortage. Those people have a reason to fear hunger, not the people of NYC any time soon.
Oh look, an armchair economist! The rational way to deal with an increase in demand is to raise prices or ship from other stores to meet the demand. Rationing is only the best solution when markets have broken down. Let's hope they don't put you in charge of supply chain anywhere anytime soon.
Joined: Jul 04, 2007 Posts: 2332 Location: The U.S.S.A
Posted: Wed Apr 23, 2008 8:15 am Post subject: Re: Food rationing in America
Everything is going to be all right.
All you need is a good community, working towards common goals. You just need to know how to utilize people in their best capacity, appeal to peoples vanity, make them feel good about themselves. Make friends with those that pose the biggest threat, and you can survive anything.
Just realize that you can't trust anyone, but let people think you do trust them. If people feel like they have your respect and your confidence you can control them to whatever ends you desire.
Just remember, if you want to survive you need to make them your bitches, and not the other way around. Also, don't set yourself out to be the main target, you want one of your main bitches to look to be the one in charge, and not yourself. That way should a power struggle ever in fact break out, it is not your head on the chopping block.
Joined: Dec 27, 2004 Posts: 13148 Location: naive idiot fantasy world
Posted: Wed Apr 23, 2008 8:27 am Post subject: Re: Food rationing in America
Do you have a "good community"?
I don't.
I have some decent neighbors, but I expect most of them to move back to town when times get tough. The remainder will be so spread out, we'll have to make a real effort to even cross paths, and people might be too suspicious for that.... _________________ "...powerdown so soft and fluffy you'll think you're living in a pillow." - jboogy
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