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Posted by: mesodude 1 year, 7 months ago

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mesodude1 year, 7 months ago

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It's funny you should say that because I'm warily assessing this rising chorus of Chicken Little stories in the media about escalating food prices and mass starvation--especially the ones that suggest that ethanol production is entirely to blame. It's amazing that this all apparently happened overnight and came with no warning (unlike Hurricane Katrina). And it also seems a little too convenient that gas prices continue to soar at the same time there is this sudden overnight food shortage.

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  nostalgia1 year, 7 months ago
  
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  It hasn't happened overnight
  We are just starting to hear about it. Our press has been too busy chasing politicians all over the country
  
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    mesodude1 year, 7 months ago
    
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    "We are just starting to hear about it. Our press has been too busy chasing politicians all over the country"
    ---I don't see how that's changed.
    
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      nostalgia1 year, 7 months ago
      
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      Our press tends to ignore what is happening overseas to a large extent
      Have you heard about the rice shortage in the Philippines?
      How about the drought in Australia and how it has impacted food supplies?
      Or Zimbabwe where commercial agriculture which was the backbone of the economy lies in ruins. From being a food exporter, Zimbabwe now would starve without UN famine relief
      The riots in Egypt where thousands of people have resorted to violence due to shortages of basic food commodities and rising food prices?
      Our press did report on Haiti but the rest has been largely ignored
      
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        Jaydee401 year, 7 months ago
        
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        Another point hidden from Americans is that the standards of living have jumped in almost every country but the US which means more competition for world stores of food.
        
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        blowback1 year, 7 months ago
        
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        During the Industrial Revolution, standards
        of living increased by 50% over the course of
        a lifetime.
        In China today, the increase is 10,000%.
        But it's not food production's inability to
        keep up with increased demand that's the
        problem.
        It's food prices.
        Cargill, our largest agricultural company,
        during this crisis, has achieved an 86% profit
        increase.
        http://www.twincities.com/allheadlines/ci_8919283
        Regardless of such greed, contributing factors
        would include the price of oil and the devaluing
        dollar.
        It's not only households that are stockpiling.
        It's nations too.
        But there's something very suspect about one of
        the world's largest food producers reaping an
        increased profit of 86% during a global food
        crisis where some prices have gone up,
        coincidentally, by as much as approx. 86%.
        
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  PainGoddess1 year, 7 months ago
  
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  The new Clorox GREEN products are primarily Ethanol...HMMM How much of corn is going into other things that were thought up during the glut of the nineties? Maybe we should NOT have HF CORN SYRUP in everything and quit making throwaway dishes out of corn. Its not all going into the tank. Same for oil...there was a glut and now there are literally thousands of items that we could do without that are made of crude. Plastic bags and bottles being a couple.The morons bidding on the oil FUTURES need to calm down every time somebody sneezes in the middle east. Besides we get ours primarily from Canada and Mexico. So why the high prices??
  
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