High oil prices cause hard time for Mideast's middle class

AMMAN, JORDAN — Even as it enriches Arab rulers, the recent oil-price boom is helping to fuel an extraordinary rise in the cost of food and other basic goods that is squeezing this region's middle class and setting off strikes, demonstrations and occasional riots from Morocco to the Persian Gulf.

Here in Jordan, the cost of maintaining fuel subsidies amid the surge in prices forced the government to remove almost all the subsidies this month, sending the price of some fuels up 76 percent overnight. In a devastating domino effect, the cost of basic foods like eggs, potatoes and cucumbers doubled or more.

Dramatic inflation In Saudi Arabia, where inflation had been virtually zero for a decade, it recently reached an official level of 6.5 percent, though unofficial estimates put it much higher. Public protests and boycotts have followed, and 19 prominent clerics posted an unusual statement on the Internet in December warning of a crisis that would cause "theft, cheating, armed robbery and resentment between rich and poor."

The inflation has many causes, from rising global demand for commodities to the monetary constraints of currencies pegged to the weakening American dollar. But one cause is the skyrocketing price of oil itself, which has quadrupled since 2002. It is helping push many ordinary people toward poverty.

Ecclesiastes 4
1. So I returned, and considered all the oppressions that are done under the sun: and behold the tears of such as were oppressed, and they had no comforter; and on the side of their oppressors there was power; but they had no comforter.
2. Wherefore I praised the dead which are already dead more than the living which are yet alive.
3. Yea, better is he than both they, which hath not yet been, who hath not seen the evil work that is done under the sun.
4. Again, I considered all travail, and every right work, that for this a man is envied of his neighbour. This is also vanity and vexation of spirit.
5. The fool foldeth his hands together, and eateth his own flesh.
6. Better is an handful with quietness, than both the hands full with travail and vexation of spirit.
7. Then I returned, and I saw vanity under the sun.
8. There is one alone, and there is not a second; yea, he hath neither child nor brother: yet is there no end of all his labour; neither is his eye satisfied with riches; neither saith he, For whom do I labour, and bereave my soul of good? This is also vanity, yea, it is a sore travail.

"May I?....

High oil prices cause hard time for America’s middle class "

You most certainly may, and I am glad you do. Sharply rising food prices in the USA absolutely will become a prime political theme for the November elections if the trends persist.

While pollsters point to the economy as the number one issue among voters presently, that is an extremely broad area of concern. Food and water are the most fundamental of human needs, even transcending shelter and fuel. Only oxygen laden air in the atmosphere that is not an economic commodity is the equal of food and water in importance to survival.

Food is an item of immediacy. I certainly don't know how, or if this will play out in the fall elections, but if it did come into play, I do know how it would play out. Because of the immediacy of food requirements, McCain's position to make permanent the Bush tax cuts will not play well to voters that could be facing foods problems at the time of the elections. Those voters won't be thinking of what they might get to eat a year or more down the road, but what they need to eat in the present. These same voters will not be thinking of universal health care and college tuition plan packages promoted by Clinton or Obama either. People cannot consume somewhere-in-the-future tax cuts, universal health plans, or future college degrees.

The last time inflationary food prices played a role in presidential politics was 1980 when Ronald Reagan asked the question, "Are you better off today than you were four years ago?" Then inflation was hitting more broadly on all items.

The USDA is projecting a large increase in farm lands used for wheat production in the USA this year, which would in-turn drive food prices down in 2009. That would be too late to have an impact at the voting booths if inflationary food prices are an immediate issue in November.

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