Posted on 04/23/2008 5:18:10 PM PDT by 2ndDivisionVet
Farmers and food executives appealed fruitlessly to federal officials yesterday for regulatory steps to limit speculative buying that is helping to drive food prices higher. Meanwhile, some Americans are stocking up on staples such as rice, flour and oil in anticipation of high prices and shortages spreading from overseas.
Their pleas did not find a sympathetic audience at the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC), where regulators said high prices are mostly the result of soaring world demand for grains combined with high fuel prices and drought-induced shortages in many countries.
The regulatory clash came amid evidence that a rash of headlines in recent weeks about food riots around the world has prompted some in the United States to stock up on staples.
Costco and other grocery stores in California reported a run on rice, which has forced them to set limits on how many sacks of rice each customer can buy. Filipinos in Canada are scooping up all the rice they can find and shipping it to relatives in the Philippines, which is suffering a severe shortage that is leaving many people hungry.
While farmers here and abroad generally are benefiting from the high prices, even they have been burned by a tidal wave of investors and speculators pouring into the futures markets for corn, wheat, rice and other commodities and who are driving up prices in a way that makes it difficult for farmers to run their businesses.
"Something is wrong," said National Farmers Union President Tom Buis, adding that the CFTC's refusal to rein in speculators will force farmers and consumers to take their case to Congress.
"It may warrant congressional intervention," he said. "The public is all too aware of the recent credit crisis on Wall Street.
(Excerpt) Read more at washingtontimes.com ...
More trouble thanks to the government.
Always Americans fault.
Maybe if we stopped thinking it was our responsibility to feed the rest of the damn world shortages would not occur. As far as I am concerned we don’t need to be eradicating disease and/or treating the rest of the damn world either. Let them sink or swim on their own.
When times get hard there is always a tendency to stock up on food and fuel.
Speculators are scumbags profiting on rumors and excuses they probably start.
I agree. Hoarders and speculators are driving the prices up.
“As far as I am concerned we don’t need to be eradicating disease and/or treating the rest of the damn world either. Let them sink or swim on their own.”
Amen to that!
sure does. just like oil. except i can live without rice, oil and sugar without too much trouble.
Let me help out here:
1. Crops are for food.
2. Drill for oil.
This really is not a laughing matter. I think the gov’t is trying to keep it under wraps or else there will be a major panic. Think about it.
Why would the poor countries be complaining about the price of food when we have been literally giving them everything at taxpayer expense!
I hope those ungrateful ingrates starve.
Hungry?????? Get a job! Grow your own!
Oil for food!!
As I mentioned on another thread this afternoon, back in the 70’s there was a toilet paper shortage because of a rumor started by Johnny Carson. People thought the rumor was true, and you absolutely couldn’t find toilet paper in the stores for a few weeks because people were hoarding it.
Hard to believe but true.
http://thelongestlistofthelongeststuffatthelongestdomainnameatlonglast.com/trivia74.html
Seriously,
Has anyone witnessed this?
Is the Washington Times on to my secret donut hiding place?
I just filled my tactical Diesel reserve so as to not have to be bothered going to the “gas” station until after hurricane season.
W and his minions have inflated the currency. In times of inflation, buying ahead is a wise thing. Tell W and Bernake to stop the inflation.
Paying farmers not to farm ain’t gonna help matters either.
Supply manipulation always drives up prices.
Just look at what a Nintendo Wii listed for and what people stood in line, purchased, and then resold for double money!
I know that isn’t food. But speculators like to hoard supply. A penny rise in soybeans per bushel netted a friend several thousand dollars. He was buying on margins so little money was tied up. of course, the broker made a big fat commission.
On he other hand, a penny per bushel lower could call in his margin and he would have to cough up several thousand dollars to make up the loss.
At some point, every bubble bursts. Commodities are better than cash right now. They are keeping up with this rampant inflation our government is trying to hide.
I bought a 20 lbs bag of rice at the market during lunch....no shortage in Socal....
I did notice they were out of refried beans however.
I'm hoarding Double Cheese Whoppers® and Big Macs®, large fries and kegs of Rolling Rock Draught®!
Someone else old enough to remember the infamous toilet paper “shortage” of the 70’s! Seems to me we had a beef “shortage” too. With a few media articles (and these days an Internet whispering campaign) you can create a shortage of just about anything.
Hmm - beer is made from grain - have you heard about the terrible beer shortage?
Inflation Blues by B.B. King
Hey Mr. President
All your congressmen, too
You got me frustrated
And I don’t know what to do
I’m trying to make a living
I can’t save a cent
It takes all of my money
Just to eat and pay my rent
I got the blues
Got those inflation blues
You know, I’m not one
Of those high brows
I’m average Joe to you
I came up eating cornbread
Candied yams and chicken stew
Now you take that paper dollar
It’s only that in name
The way that buck has shrunk
It’s a lowdown dirty shame
That’s why I got the blues
Got those inflation blues
Mr. President
Please cut the price of sugar
I wanna make my coffee sweet
I wanna smear some
butter on my bread
And I just got to have my meat
When you start rationing
You really played the game
And things are going up
And up and up and up
And my check remains the same
That’s why I got the blues
Got those inflation blues
And who can forget the shortage of sugar at that time! LOL.
or the Jimmah-Kart-DUH gas shortages.
JUST IN CASE, I'll plant some barley this weekend.
Hoarding? Sounds like good preps to me.
I remember when the price of coffee went up. Thankfully I drink tea. ;^)
CBS Radio mentioned it early in the day today, it was missing from later newscasts.
I predict that in the not to distant future food unrest will ignite into full blown violence in LA, Chicago or some other similar city. It will burn out in relatively short order but will make the Rodney King riots look tame.
It is common sense to stock up when it appears times are getting hard. Hardly anyone today has decent personal food reserves. 100 years ago people kept really well stocked pantries and root cellars. Uncle Sugar wasn’t going to bail them out if they were starving.
I should say now, however, that we not only have to be concerned about others coming after your supply, but also the government may want to confiscate your stuff too.
But that type of thinking may end up being part of the problem. My understanding, admittedly from the MSM, is that Thailand and India are thinking exactly the same way and have chosen to heavily restrict the export of rice. They are supposed to be doing this in order to insure lower price and adequate supplies for their populations. The supply and demand situation can be tough enough just dealing with related supply and demand, such as fuel costs, but with governments getting involved, all bets are off.
Did someone say "Hoarding"?
Along w/global warming, real estate, money, food - all pounded daily by the liberal media. They are creating fear in all and it’s working.
Thank you Algor.
It probably is, but people stocking up and cause shortages and drive prices up.
This world food shortage has as much credibility as global warming. I just read a thread that was saying the India had a bumper crop of wheat (I believe), and didn’t need to import any this year.
Counties looking out for their own people? What a novel concept. Could we try that?
We do play an important role in the export markets, but when it comes to rice Thailand is ten times our size in terms of normal annual exports.
Now you recall that drought last summer? Right? That had an effect here. It also had an effect in China. In the meanwhile, cooler, drier (and therefore droughtlike) weather in the Southern hemisphere had a big effect.
The normal production levels also haven't kept pace with growing populations.
Unless all the babies start being born in humanity's Mod II (Primal Dwarfism) we are going to have food problems into the foreseeable future.
If it were warming up this problem would not exist.
This is exactly what happens when people quit being self sufficient.
We don’t produce enough domestic oil. OPEC sticks us.
We don’t grow our own garden and preserve food for winter, the grocery store and speculators stick us.
I love my small garden. helps out a lot. We buy beef right from the farm and with processing the whole thing costs just slightly over $2.00 a lb. for everything.
I smile when walking past the meat counter cuz I know I won’t be stopping for anything that costs $8.00 a lb.
Wanna beat high grocery prices, plant a garden, buy a small freezer, and buy meat direct from the farm. A few dollars worth of canning jars will last for years. All you have to replace is the lids. Invest a little time makes it all worth while.
It's actually quite a large country with different climate zones. Their food export sector is quite small ~ mostly specialty fruits shipped to non-tropical countries. The idea is it's worth growing a surplus of these products to earn foreign currency to buy more basic foods elsewhere for import.
We reached the maximum tipping point just before the next big glaciation. From here on out the world's climate is going to get dryer and colder. Good chance we'll see the ice fields return and our GGrandchildren will undoubtedly watch Chicago bulldozed off to Champaign-Urbana by a mile high glacier!
It's actually quite a large country with different climate zones. Their food export sector is quite small ~ mostly specialty fruits shipped to non-tropical countries. The idea is it's worth growing a surplus of these products to earn foreign currency to buy more basic foods elsewhere for import.
We reached the maximum tipping point just before the next big glaciation. From here on out the world's climate is going to get dryer and colder. Good chance we'll see the ice fields return and our GGrandchildren will undoubtedly watch Chicago bulldozed off to Champaign-Urbana by a mile high glacier!
Run out of what?
Birth control in those starving overpopulated countries would go a long way towards alleviating the food shortage.
And America has been feeding most of the turd world for years, as a taxpayer subsidy. Grain prices were kept low. Farmers barely broke even. Government propped up the farmers. And then government took the cheap food they hoarded from the farmers, and shipped it overseas to those perpetually starving enclaves of uncivilized behavior.
So the food give aways were taxpayer subsidized.
Now that farm prices are up government is no longer subsidizing production because prices are above parady (the cost of production). Farmers are finally making a profit and a profit is evil because people have to eat and want to eat cheap.
The free ride is over. The world can pay as they go just like the rest of the civilized world.
How true. I've found it a great time saver to have food reserves. Recently we cleaned up our 1963-era fallout shelter into a terrific food storage area. It's nice and cool, clean, and shelved. We've kept extra food on hand for years, but this makes it easier to store it conveniently and to rotate the stores. It has saved me many trips to the market for forgotten items, and we no longer worry about being socked in for a few days of bad weather.
I think part of what we've been seeing is that people don't cook like they used to. Our grandmothers cooked from scratch, canned, gardened, and substituted for what was missing or too expensive. Many cooks now simply don't have the skills, knowledge, or time to do this. For them, extra food on hand is a freezer full of ready-made food for the microwave.
What I will never understand is all the wheat we send to Russia. They have far more farmable land mass than we have and yet we are sending them food.
I was at Sam's an hour ago. Oh the screaming and shouting as 100 people fought over the last bag of rice! It was worse then the riots in the 80's over Cabbage Patch dolls....
:
:Pause:
:
Ok so I am lying through my teeth. Half full pallet on the floor. Two full unwrapped pallets that I could see in the racks.
We bought a bag along with some other staples and left. The store was almost empty of people, not of food. If this is shortages and hording it is the strangest one I have ever seen.
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