Free Republic

Jim Rogers is sounding the alarm -- buy agricultural commodities ahead of the riots. The financial crisis has cut off investment in agriculture, with many farmers unable to get loans for fertilizer according to Mr. Rogers. Of course, this means agricultural commodities will make a killing: CNBC: "Sometimes in the next few years we're going to have very serious shortages of food everywhere in the world and prices are going to go through the roof." Cotton and coffee are good buys because they are very distressed, while sugar, despite the fact that it has gone up a lot, is still...

Haiti facing 'major food crisis' Malnutrition is widespread in Haiti, one of the poorest countries in the world Haiti faces a "major crisis" if the international community does not increase food aid to the country, the UN's food agency has warned. The World Food Programme director for the region, Pedro Medrano, said Haiti required more help to feed its poor. He appealed for $54m (£27m) in new funding to counter food prices which have risen sharply around the world. At least six people were killed in Haiti last month as protests over rising prices turned violent. The prices of wheat,...

1931 January -- Texas congressman Wright Patman introduces legislation authorizing immediate payment of "bonus" funds to veterans of World War I. The "bonus bill" had been passed in 1924. It allotted bonuses, in the form of "adjusted service certificates," equaling $1 a day for each day of service in the U.S., and $1.25 for each day overseas. President Hoover was against payment of these funds, saying it would cost the Treasury $4 billion. February -- "Food riots" begin to break out in parts of the U.S. In Minneapolis, several hundred men and women smashed the windows of a grocery market...

Bill Gates took on the Famine Lobby while addressing a forum on the world food supply in Iowa. Speaking at the World Food Prize Symposium in Des Moines, Gates took aim at the chorus of environmental leftists and organic food advocates who believe Africans should starve rather than eat genetically modified (GM) foods. “Some voices are instantly hostile to any emphasis on productivity. They act as if there is no emergency, even though in the poorest, hungriest places on earth, population is growing faster than productivity,” he said.

Biofuel refineries in the US have set fresh records for grain use every month since May. Almost a third of the US corn harvest will be diverted into ethanol for motors this year, or 12pc of the global crop. The world's grain stocks have dropped from four to 2.6 months cover since 2000, despite two bumper harvests in North America. China's inventories are at a 30-year low. Asian rice stocks are near danger level. Yet farm commodities have largely missed out on Bernanke's reflation rally in metals, oil, and everything else. Dylan Grice from Société Générale sees "bargain basement" prices....

Hungry residents in one of Argentina's poorest provinces raid government store for food. Video on site

TAMPA - After President Barack Obama won the election, people flooded gun stores because of speculation that he may limit gun ownership or raise taxes on them. Even though neither has happened, the amount of people wanting to get their hands on a gun hasn't gone down. Scott Patrick is the General Manager of the Shoot Straight gun range in Tampa. He says the number of people coming into his store is still going up. "For whatever reason, whether it's the economy or crime, people don't feel safe," he said. Patrick is having serious trouble keeping all kinds of fire...

> Celente Predicts Revolution, Food Riots, Tax Rebellions By 2012 > > > Thursday, November 13, 2008 > > > > > > > > > stock market > > > > > > > > > > Gerald Celente > > > > > > > The man who predicted the 1987 stock market crash and the fall of the Soviet Union is now forecasting revolution in America, food riots and tax rebellions - all within four years, while cautioning that putting food on the table will be a more pressing concern than buying Christmas gifts by 2012. >...

Gerald Celente, the CEO of Trends Research Institute, is renowned for his accuracy in predicting future world and economic events. What he told Fox Business about America’s future last week should send a chill down your spine. Celente says that by 2012 America will become an undeveloped nation, that there will be a revolution marked by food riots, squatter rebellions, tax revolts, job marches and that holidays will be more about obtaining food, not gifts. Video at link: Evaluation: America's Near Future... Revolution, Food Riots and Tax Rebellions

XUAN CANH, Vietnam — Truong Thi Nha stands just four and a half feet tall. Her three grown children tower over her, just as many young people in this village outside Hanoi dwarf their parents. The biggest reason the children are so robust: fertilizer. Ms. Nha, her face weathered beyond its 51 years, said her growth was stunted by a childhood of hunger and malnutrition. Just a few decades ago, crop yields here were far lower and diets much worse. Then the widespread use of inexpensive chemical fertilizer, coupled with market reforms, helped power an agricultural explosion here that had...

The Vast Left-Wing Conspiracy Upon the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, hundreds of millions of Americans rejoiced as with a voice. And a grateful world watched in awe as the Doomsday Clock was turned back. But, what, some may wonder, ever became of the Soviet apologists here in the U.S. You probably remember these types. Telling Americans how wondrous the Soviet economy was, when it wasn’t. How much smarter the Soviet scientists were, when they weren’t. How benevolent their dictators were – even while without remorse their killing fields, gulags, State-sanctioned famines and genocides eliminated over 100 million...

The current food shortage is going to get worse before it gets better – at least that’s the way the founder of CNN sees it. Ted Turner was interviewed by CNBC’s Bob Pisani on the April 25 “Closing Bell.” He addressed the recent food shortages causing rationing and riots all over the globe and said it’s just a sign of things to come. “There are a lot of different problems being caused by an ever-increasing number of people in a finite-sized world,” Turner said. “The resources of the planet just can’t keep up with the demand and I’m afraid this...

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...

Will Media Remember Gore's 1994 Tie-breaking Vote Mandating Ethanol? By Noel Sheppard | April 22, 2008 As the international disaster of ethanol begins taking its toll across the planet -- and, maybe more important, as press outlet after press outlet finally begins recognizing it -- will media remember that Vice President Al Gore cast the tie-breaking vote in the Senate requiring this oxygenate be added to gasoline? After all, regardless of recent reports blaming ethanol for world hunger problems, rising food costs, and increased greenhouse gases, it seems highly unlikely green media will want to tie any of these problems...

ABC’s April 11 “World News with Charles Gibson” is showing they finally get it – ethanol production and high energy costs are causing food shortages worldwide. “[P]rices are rising across Africa, pushed up by the cost of oil and demand for biofuels,” ABC correspondent Jim Sciutto said. “Those biofuels are in fact a large part of the equation,” ABC correspondent David Muir added. “Many farmers around the world, who once grew wheat and rice, now grow corn and sugar cane instead, to produce ethanol a more lucrative market.”