Food Rationing comes to America?

[Zorro]

http://nysun.com/news/food-rationing-confronts-breadbasket-world

Will the Bush years be condsidered the begining of the US as a third world country?

[Ritalin]

Let's face it, we could all stand to skip a meal.

Know what I mean?

[IMSlacker]

An anonymous high-tech professional writing on an investment Web site, Seeking Alpha, said he recently bought 10 50-pound bags of rice at Costco. “I am concerned that when the news of rice shortage spreads, there will be panic buying and the shelves will be empty in no time. I do not intend to cause a panic, and I am not speculating on rice to make profit. I am just hoarding some for my own consumption,” he wrote.

500 lbs of rice? What an idiot. You know there are other things you can eat?

[K.C.]

Let's face it, we could all stand to skip a meal.

Know what I mean?

I'd be down with it...it's solve the problem being addressed in the fat thread in this forum.

[Knowledged_one]

http://nysun.com/news/food-rationing-confronts-breadbasket-world

Will the Bush years be condsidered the begining of the US as a third world country?

or considered as the US stop being regarded as fat and lazy

I know i have started growing my own veggies and such. Its not bush's fault that the tree huggers got pissed about car emissions and pushed for ethanol causing the price of corn to skyrocket

[A.J.]

http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/21In8b5HfRL.jpg

EDIT = that was weird the pic I originally posted got radically altered.

[Recyclerz]

The NY Sun's use of the word "rationing" is misleading in that we'll probably only have spot shortages (albeit with much higher prices) in the US but this could be the start of big trouble. Paul Krugman's column in today's NY Times explains part of the problem.

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/04/21/opinion/21krugman.html?hp


What he doesn't cover in that column is the prospect of a rising inflation rate, although I've been reading more news stories recently quoting smart people who follow this stuff going public with their concerns. With commodity prices pushing up hard, the Fed cutting rates and throwing $ at things like the Bear Stearns bailout, the dollar at all time lows vs. all major currencies and especially with the Chinese inching up the relative value of the Yuan against the $ to recover some of their increased costs, we have all the gasoline soaked rags and sparking wires we need to have a nice inflationary spiral. Having already lived through one in the '70's, let me just say if you're a fan of "Bad Times" you'll be in for a treat if that gets going. :glurps:

[Mike Teacher]

Will the Bush years be condsidered the begining of the US as a third world country?

ANyone else remember Bob Grant saying this [not about Bush, about the USofA]? Man I'm old.

[Knowledged_one]

I blame Joe Torre

[Earlshog]

ANyone else remember Bob Grant saying this [not about Bush, about the USofA]? Man I'm old.

Hey Bob Grant is back!


Michael Savage has been talking about this for quite some time as well.

[Earlshog]

I blame Joe Torre

I blame the whites!

[Zorro]

Hey Bob Grant is back!




From the grave... he's gotta be like 100

[LaBoob]

I do believe that 500# of uncooked rice would last a family of four for 5 years.

[JPMNICK]

I do believe that 500# of uncooked rice would last a family of four for 5 years.

well once a month they colon cleanse, and eat no carbs.

[Devo37]

From the grave... he's gotta be like 100

"Get off my phone, you creep!!!"

[LaBoob]

well once a month they colon cleanse, and eat no carbs.

I stand corrected... Make that 5 years and 6 months.
:smile:




Wait... somebody is going to correct my math: If a family of 4 can make a 500# bag of rice last 5 years, how much longer could they make it last if they skipped it altogether once a day?

[spoon]

or considered as the US stop being regarded as fat and lazy

I know i have started growing my own veggies and such. Its not bush's fault that the tree huggers got pissed about car emissions and pushed for ethanol causing the price of corn to skyrocket

Yeah, bc it was the "tree huggers" who were all about ethanol vs overall alternatives. In fact (as much as I get annoyed by Boss/Phish type hippies), these "tree huggers" actually warned of the issues with ethanol and it was/is the oil industry with a clear directive to make ethanol the next choice since they're vested in it. You're right, Bush has nothing to do with our energy/economy crisis! Think man, think! Do it for Taylor!

[pennington]

Hey Bob Grant is back!

He's on from 6 to 8 PM on WABC.

For years he used to say we're slipping and sliding towards third world-ism.

[Ritalin]

Let's face it, we could all stand to skip a meal.

Know what I mean?

I stand corrected... Make that 5 years and 6 months.
:smile:

Wait... somebody is going to correct my math: If a family of 4 can make a 500# bag of rice last 5 years, how much longer could they make it last if they skipped it altogether once a day?

...and we've come full circle.

[Bulldogcakes]

All I know is my local Chinese place used to charge 4.50 for chicken chow mein lunch special, and now they charge $5. A fifty cent increase. FIFTY FUCKING CENTS!?!? ARE THESE PEOPLE NUTS!?!?! CALL THE NYTIMES!! THIS IS AN OUTRAGE!!!

. . . .or not.

[Bulldogcakes]

The NY Sun's use of the word "rationing" is misleading in that we'll probably only have spot shortages (albeit with much higher prices) in the US but this could be the start of big trouble. Paul Krugman's column in today's NY Times explains part of the problem.

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/04/21/opinion/21krugman.html?hp


What he doesn't cover in that column is the prospect of a rising inflation rate, although I've been reading more news stories recently quoting smart people who follow this stuff going public with their concerns. With commodity prices pushing up hard, the Fed cutting rates and throwing $ at things like the Bear Stearns bailout, the dollar at all time lows vs. all major currencies and especially with the Chinese inching up the relative value of the Yuan against the $ to recover some of their increased costs, we have all the gasoline soaked rags and sparking wires we need to have a nice inflationary spiral. Having already lived through one in the '70's, let me just say if you're a fan of "Bad Times" you'll be in for a treat if that gets going. :glurps:

The dollar is effectively (though not officially) linked to the Haun. They buy our T-Bills, we buy their anti freeze laden toothpaste and dog food. Both currencies have to match up to make this tidy lil deal work out for both sides. But with the dollar so weak on the world market and us unwilling/unable to do anything to do anything about it, we are now more prone to commodity spikes like were having now. If the dollar was strong, we could simply import to make up for domestic shortages, that's how Globalization is supposed to work. Although in the case of rice this still would have happened since there's a lot of bad weather and bad politics involved. The flour price spike was self created, but with prices as high as they are now farmers have already taken notice and it should improve some within a few months.

People blaming Wall St speculators are blaming the effect, not the cause. Wall St types show up after the prices have already risen, looking to ride the wave and make a quick buck. They might add some fuel to the fire, but their effect is minor and after the fact. You don't see hedge fund managers plunging billions into other commodities like beef, sugar, or dairy products because prices there are relatively stable. Also, commodity speculation is VERY risky (unless your name is Hillary Clinton :wink: had to slip that in) any drop in price and they will get killed and will soon be nowhere to be found.

Count all of this on the long list of things GW Bush has completely fucked up.

[K.C.]

All I know is my local Chinese place used to charge 4.50 for chicken chow mein lunch special, and now they charge $5. A fifty cent increase. FIFTY FUCKING CENTS!?!? ARE THESE PEOPLE NUTS!?!?! CALL THE NYTIMES!! THIS IS AN OUTRAGE!!!

. . . .or not.

Just think...for every nine chow meins you eat, you're paying for an extra one that you never see! Oh, the humanity!

[Zorro]

He's on from 6 to 8 PM on WABC.

For years he used to say we're slipping and sliding towards third world-ism.

Yeah, but that was part of his hacky racist diatribe.

I was thinking of the third world food riots and stuff...

[HBox]

It's amusing to see when little meaningless things are denied to people how they blow it up out of proportion. I can't buy 500 pounds of rice. RATIONING! Our kids can't play tag in school. THE NEXT GENERATION IS DOOMED! People have to smoke outside. OUR RIGHTS ARE BEING TAKEN AWAY!

[Mike Teacher]

The dollar is effectively (though not officially) linked to the Haun.


Haun is the lonliest number...

[sailor]

http://nysun.com/news/food-rationing-confronts-breadbasket-world

Will the Bush years be condsidered the begining of the US as a third world country?

wouldn't we be a third world country if everyone ate rice with every meal? and $30 for a 25 pound bag is expensive? i just don't understand this issue at all.

[PapaBear]

and $30 for a 25 pound bag is expensive? i just don't understand this issue at all.
If I remember right, a 5 pound bag is only about 3 bucks, so yeah. $30 for a 25 pound bag is pretty high.

[sailor]

If I remember right, a 5 pound bag is only about 3 bucks, so yeah. $30 for a 25 pound bag is pretty high.

but, it's still comparatively dirt cheap, especially if you're using it as a staple.

[PapaBear]

but, it's still comparatively dirt cheap, especially if you're using it as a staple.
Yes it's cheap. I haven't read the article at all, but I think the point is the percentage of increase of the rice. If it's going up that much, everything else will, too. At work, they had to stock up on flour, because it's about 4x higher than it was a few months ago. Something about a bad crop in Australia.

[sailor]

Yes it's cheap. I haven't read the article at all, but I think the point is the percentage of increase of the rice. If it's going up that much, everything else will, too. At work, they had to stock up on flour, because it's about 4x higher than it was a few months ago. Something about a bad crop in Australia.

yeah, all the pizzerias around here have numerous articles posted on the price of flour and it's effect on pizza costs. so far only one has raised prices tho'.

fuckin' australians.

[PapaBear]

yeah, all the pizzerias around here have numerous articles posted on the price of flour and it's effect on pizza costs. so far only one has raised prices tho'.

fuckin' australians.
They're dumb for raising their prices. Pizza sales have plummeted around here, but we beat the system. They all either raised price or started using lower quality ingredients.

Our shop reworked our whole menu to be more upscale with all fresh ingredients. We raised the prices, but then started handing out 25% off cards like candy. Our sales have shot through the roof, and everyone else is losing money.

[scottinnj]

Remember?

http://www.itulip.com/images/DepressionFoodLine30.gif

[Yerdaddy]

http://nysun.com/news/food-rationing-confronts-breadbasket-world

Will the Bush years be condsidered the begining of the US as a third world country?

I drove a forklift at a Costco just across the SF Bay from that Mountain View store the "journalist" visited for the article for seven years in the late 90s. Being the only driver during opening hours, a big part of my job was simply re-stocking the rice aisle. We'd start the day with over 5 tons of rice on the floor - 2 pallets each of 50lb and 25lb sacks of jasmine rice, a pallet of basmati and a pallet of some other brand. On a Saturday I'd replace the jasmine pallets 3 or 4 times and the others once or twice. That's 10 to 15 tons of rice sold in a single day at a single Costco, and we'd often sell completely out of stock by the end of the day. The buyers did a brilliant job of keeping us in just about the exact stock we sold in a day every day.

A couple of things going on that the article's writer misses to make that sensational point about "rationing":

The SF Bay Area has the largest population of Asians outside of Asia. Naturally it's the largest market for rice in America - when I drove at Costcos in Chicago and Virginia I never had to restock rice during the day. Being originally designed to supply the wholesale needs of small businesses, a large portion of Asian families, restaurants and stores buy their rice at Costco. It may be the biggest seller of rice in America.

Costco attempts to fill it's entire stock space with merchandise each night, so there's no room for overstock of low-price commodities like rice.

With increasing prices on the world market, including in the States, some buyers, (especially small restaurants that work on a slim margin to begin with), will buy extra stock in the hopes of saving money in case the price continues to rise.

In this situation, Costco will sell out of rice in their West Coast stores, denying some of it's longest-standing and best customers - small business owners - a staple commodity critical to thier businesses. So, like they and other stores have done many times over the years with other items, they've put limits on the amount that can be purchased, based on the buying history of the shopper.

No rationing, just a little bit of hoarding which slightly disprupts the tight supply chain of a major supplier of a commodity to a particularly large demand area of the country.

The idea that he chose to rely entirely on a "survivalist" rather than an economist for analysis for the article is hysterical. He should have tagged the piece with "exclusive reporting from a heavily-fortified bunker in 'Parts Unknown' in the 'Democratic Republic of the Free White and Heavily-Armed States of America..."

Point is, America is a rich country, (one that heavily subsidizes its agricultural industries and still pays farmers not to grow crops). There will never be food rationing in America, however high food prices get. There's no story.

The real story is that poor countries, like Cambodia, where large portions of the population spend over half their income on food, are fucked by the global food crisis. The bio-fuel "scam" (as the Wall Street Journal Editorial Board called it yeterday) pushed on countries by western business interests and their political cronies, the theft and conversion of large tracts of agricultural land for industrial and commercial development, American and European farm subsidies and tarrifs, global warming, and predatory "capitalism" by large, politically- and military-connected farming interests have all created a long-term food crisis that threatens to send millions of people back into poverty and hunger. That's the real story here.

[Bulldogcakes]

Just think...for every nine chow meins you eat, you're paying for an extra one that you never see! Oh, the humanity!

To be honest, you just put a lot more thought into it than I did.

[Bulldogcakes]

The real story is that poor countries, like Cambodia, where large portions of the population spend over half their income on food, are fucked by the global food crisis. The bio-fuel "scam" (as the Wall Street Journal Editorial Board called it yeterday) pushed on countries by western business interests and their political cronies, the theft and conversion of large tracts of agricultural land for industrial and commercial development, American and European farm subsidies and tarrifs, global warming, and predatory "capitalism" by large, politically- and military-connected farming interests have all created a long-term food crisis that threatens to send millions of people back into poverty and hunger. That's the real story here.

The bio fuel scam related to US wheat prices. Farmers were planting corn instead of wheat and got caught with their pants down after a few years of less than expected crops. That, and a dollar so weak they can't supplement with imports at a reasonable price.

Everybody has tariffs, I don't know where you're going there. Most of the rest of this is simply bad weather in Australia and elsewhere.

[Bulldogcakes]

I'm not sure people understand how most commodities are priced. Its not complicated.

Lets say you run a farm, and have expenses of $950,000 per year. To make a 5% return on your business, you need $1,000,000 in sales. Your farm produces wheat that sells for $500 a bushel and produces 2000 bushels a year. There's your million bucks.

But then one year he has a bad crop, and only produces half of what he usually does. He still has to come up with 1 mil, so he has to charge double for the same wheat in order to cover his bills and make his money. So the farmer makes the same money on $500 bushel wheat as he does on $1,000 a bushel.

Thats basically how it works with most commodities (Gas, Rice, etc). Of course its more complicated than that, there are farm subsidies from the Government, tariffs, worldwide commodity markets set prices, etc. But that's the basic idea.

[Knowledged_one]

All I know is my local Chinese place used to charge 4.50 for chicken chow mein lunch special, and now they charge $5. A fifty cent increase. FIFTY FUCKING CENTS!?!? ARE THESE PEOPLE NUTS!?!?! CALL THE NYTIMES!! THIS IS AN OUTRAGE!!!

. . . .or not.

you know things are bad when the price of cat goes up by $.50 per low mein

[LaBoob]

Before I start to panic, I would like to know if this is white rice we're speaking about or brown rice. I happen to LOOOOOOVE brown rice (with a little bit of cheese, a tiny bit of vidalia onion salad dressing for flavor, and some flax or hemp oil for the good fats... YUM) and I also happen to DESPISE white rice (very high on the glycemic index and it can constipate you).

[topless_mike]

and I also happen to DESPISE white rice (very high on the glycemic index and it can constipate you).

this would be good if you marketed and packaged your colon cleansing product....

[topless_mike]

you know things are bad when the price of cat goes up by $.50 per low mein

when ramen noodles goes up in price, it will be time to storm the govt with burning pitchforks...

[Yerdaddy]

The bio fuel scam related to US wheat prices. Farmers were planting corn instead of wheat and got caught with their pants down after a few years of less than expected crops. That, and a dollar so weak they can't supplement with imports at a reasonable price.

Everybody has tariffs, I don't know where you're going there. Most of the rest of this is simply bad weather in Australia and elsewhere.

I think you're refering to some specific scandal while the WSJ was characterizing the whole biofuel industry as a "special-interest scam". The WSJ editorial I have doesn't appear to be available online, but I read it in a print edition of a local english newspaper so I'll have to transcribe the key points:

The prices of wheat and rice this year will have doubled since 2004, according to World Bank projections. Soybeans, sugar, soybean oil and corn are expected to be 56 percent to 79 percent costlier than in 2004. The bulk of the increases have come in the past year and can be attributed to the West's push to turn these crops into fossil-fuel replacements like ethanol. Food prices are likely to remain over-inflated until at least 2015, the Bank says.

It is no coincidence that the US and the European Union, which are leading the biofuel charge, both have poweful ag lobbies that see this latest eco-craze as a new way to milk tax-payers. US and EU promotion of biofuels represent a trifecta of bad regulation: artibtrary production targets to juice demand, subsidies that encourage inefficient use of crops as fuel rather than food and tariffs that stifle foreign competition. If only Third World consumers had the same influence as rich-world farmers.

The link between buifuel mandates and food shortages has become so clear that the European Environment Agency this month recommended that Brussels drop its target of getting 10 percent of its fuel for road transportation from crops and biomass by 2020.

Admitting that buifuels are a special-interest scam would risk denting the enviro-industrial complex that is driving so much other policy these days....

[Recyclerz]

The link to the WSJ editorial Yerdaddy is talking about (if it works)

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB120872360532329375.html

The right-wing nuts there are right about this one.

[TheMojoPin]

"Food rationing" in America = we might not be able to get disgustingly fat, only just sloppily fat.

[topless_mike]

"Food rationing" in America = we might not be able to get disgustingly fat, only just sloppily fat.

doesnt bother me, since im tying to get sexy skinny....

[Zorro]

http://i109.photobucket.com/albums/n67/Chas4604/McFatKids01.jpg

[Bulldogcakes]

The link to the WSJ editorial Yerdaddy is talking about (if it works)

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB120872360532329375.html

The right-wing nuts there are right about this one.

My favorite part

The U.S. isn't any better. As these columns noted in February, the White House and Congress had scarcely mandated 36 billion gallons of biofuel production by 2022 – five times 2006 levels – when scientific studies debunking the environmental benefits of ethanol, et al. began piling up. So far, there's no sign of any serious rethink going on in Washington.

Gotta love Washington.

BTW-I didn't see the debate, but apparently Obama and Hillary were falling over each other trying to out-blame NAFTA (http://www.iht.com/articles/2008/04/21/business/nafta.php)for all of this. So much so, that the President of Mexico felt the need to respond today (http://www.washingtontimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080422/NATION/280052079/1002/NATION). It's an economic reworking of what Bush did with Iraq. Osama from Afghanistan attacked us, so GWB turns around and punches Saddam from Iraq in the nose. Now crops fail in Austrailia and ADM sells a biofuels scam to Congress, so the Dems blame Mexico. Brilliant.

[Zorro]

http://www.nbc11.com/news/15953044/detail.html

[IMSlacker]

Rationing was #2 in the ThreatDown. Just behind bears! This is officially a serious problem.

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[Zorro]

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/24316114/

[scottinnj]

No money ever needs to be donated by Americans to feed the hungry. If we all went on a diet, the world would never starve again.