"Global food prices have hit "dangerous levels" that could contribute to political instability, push millions of people into poverty and raise the cost of groceries, according to a new report from the World Bank.
The bank released a report Tuesday that said global food prices have jumped 29 percent in the past year, and are just 3 percent below the all-time peak hit in 2008. Bank President Robert Zoellick said the rising prices have hit people hardest in the developing world because they spend as much as half their income on food.
"Food prices are the key and major challenge facing many developing countries today," Zoellick said. The World Bank estimates higher prices for corn, wheat and oil have pushed 44 million people into extreme poverty since last June.
The report comes a day before Finance ministers and central bank chiefs from the Group of 20 leading economies meet in Paris. Zoellick said he's worried some countries might react to food inflation by banning exports or implementing price controls, which would just aggravate the problem.
The World Bank's food price index rose by 15 percent between October and January alone. The increase has been driven by volatile global trading in wheat, corn and soybeans. Global corn futures more than doubled since this summer, from $3.50 to $7 a bushel, in part because of higher demand from developing countries and a growing biofuels industry."
AP News
Have you done anything to protect yourself yet? Bought seeds, prepared gardens, stored up on some food, bought a few chickens...anything? Report after report, warning after warning are in most every news vehicle I see. The food we need to live is getting expensive quickly and the supply is short. And the developing world is developing quickly, creating more mouths to feed. And, because of a combination of factors, some political, some technical, most of these developing countries have never developed an agricultural system much more efficient than the family farm. They've never learned to feed vast numbers of workers living in urban areas without anyplace to grow their own food. We eased into the situation here in America and innovated and mechanized our agricultural practices to support our industrialization. Places like China are trying to compress hundreds of years of societal evolution into a decade.
They can't do it.
But they don't care. The desire for profit will outweigh the protection of human rights and just plain decency. In most Third World countries people are just a means to an end, cogs in a machine designed to create massive wealth for those in power at the expense of the people. People are disposable. Use 'em 'til they can't be used anymore and throw 'em out, there's always more right behind 'em.
And that's always worked in these countries, especially China, the most closed country on the planet. China has always kept the world at bay and the people ignorant of the advances of the rest of the planet. Well, the internet and rising wealth have changed all that. And the politicians haven't adjusted for it.
The coming shortage (hell, it's not coming, it's here) of food and the rising cost of what is available will be the trigger and the internet will be the gun. Watch for riots like the one in Cairo to begin springing up all over the world, including here in America. Chaos works for the Marxists and the Islamists and they'll use it to their advantage. Instead of working to find rational solutions we'll see both groups using the food problems as the reason to foment unrest and the internet will be the tool used to organize the riots. Organized chaos, now there's an oxymoron for you. But that's also the hallmark of a riot that's been designed and orchestrated, not one that springs organically from the moment.
We're going to see the rise of violent flash mobs being used in a coordinated way by the forces of evil. This will cause greater and greater restriction on the internet and speech in general, all around the world, even in America, which will cause even more rioting and unrest. This thing is going to feed on itself, building to a crescendo of confusion, disorder and violence which will lead the people to cry out for a savior, any savior that can restore peace and return the world to a state of calm. And I'd be willing to bet that there's more than one savior in the wings just waiting for the moment.
Hello New World Order.
So what are you doing to prepare, to ready yourself for the coming collapse?
Posts
For the first time in my life, I'm listening to rhetoric that I would have considered 'extremist right-wing nut talk' a few years ago. This time it's not "nut talk", it's the real deal. I'm going to look into buying some emergency food in a few days, and alternative energy sources. I hope I'll never have to use them.
ReplyDeleteIt does feel as though we've crossed to the other side of the looking glass, doesn't it? I expect to see a rather large rabbit any time now.
ReplyDeleteThe way I look at it is it's better to have and not need than to need and not have. We've been buying canned goods on the cheap, always looking for sales, for a couple years now. Sure, we've got food if the collapse happens. But if it doesn't we've discovered a really good way to save money on groceries. Our food bills have been cut by at least a third since we started storing canned goods.
A generator is cheap and we do lose power, sometimes for extended periods so it's a good thing to have, collapse or not.
We've put in a good size garden along with our neighbors. In exchange for a bit of work we get really good and fresh veggies at rock bottom cost. And now we can and dehydrate so we have them all year long.
Chickens are fun to watch and nothing like fresh eggs.
In the end I just don't see a down side to being prepared.
And like you say, things that seemed crazy a couple years ago seem perfectly rational today.