Re: OT...Got Garden? Daily Food Crisis in the News

In article <k4e214h785f6j93jpefnugnteo8vjarrcn@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
>, Charlie wrote:

> On Thu, 24 Apr 2008 13:33:26 -0400, Bill <b2forewagner@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> wrote:
> 
> >In article <iqc11452dctnbhnslfa75p8904hkb7q7ra@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
>, Charlie wrote:
> >
> >> Eff me, gonna be a run food.  Followed by runs on what else, I
wonder.
> >
> >Awhile back I sort of remember that this is common type of event.  What

> >is interesting is that three different world views interprets the real 
> >world differently. 
> >
> >Here in the USA we raise prices.
> >In USSR the product never hit the shelf.
> >In China there was another way of dealing with the same issue. Forgot
it.
> 
> Step Aside Dollar, Is Rice the New Global Currency?
> 
> http://alternet.org/audits/83345/
> 
> Excerpt:
> 
> Never before in history has hunger become a global threat in a period
> of plentiful harvests. Global rice production will hit a record of 423
> million tons in the 2007-2008 crop year, enough to satisfy global
> demand. The trouble is that only 7% of the world's rice supply is
> ex****ted, because local demand is met by local production. Any
> significant increase in rice stockpiles cuts deeply into available
> supply for ex****t, leading to a spike in prices. Because such a small
> pro****tion of the global rice supply trades, the monetary shock from
> the weak dollar was sufficient to more than double its price.
> 
> It is not only rice, of course, that the cash-rich countries of the
> world are buying as a store of value; the price of wheat, soy and other
> grains has risen almost as fast. This might deal the death-blow to
> America's hapless efforts to stabilize the Middle East, where a higher
> pro****tion of impoverished people eat off state subsidies than in any
> other part of the world. Egypt has been the anchor for American
> diplomacy in the Arab world since the Jimmy Carter administration (1977
> to 1981), and is most susceptible to hunger. Food prices have risen by
> 145% in Lebanon and by 20% in Syria this year. Iraqis depend on food
> subsidies financed by American aid.
> 
> 
> 
> >
> >Source for this lost in time.  But I find the USA rice shortage 
> >interesting as it deals with price and the USSR solution.
> >
> >......................
> >
> >Ps Someone sent me this
> 
> "We're a little disorganized."  ;-)
> 
> Charlie

<snork> Indeed...
-- 
--

Peace! Om

"My mother never saw the irony in calling me a Son of a *****."
                                               -- Jack Nicholson