How Hunger Could Topple Regimes

[JimH52]

http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,1730107,00.html

How Hunger Could Topple Regimes

“When all that stands between hungry people and a warehouse full of rice and beans is a couple of padlocks and a riot policeman (who may be the neighbor of those who're trying to get past him, and whose own family may be hungry too), the invisible barricade of private-property laws can be easily ignored. Doing whatever it takes to feed oneself and a hungry child, after all, is a primal human instinct. So, with prices of basic foods skyrocketing to the point that even the global aid agencies - whose function is to provide emergency food supplies to those in need - are unable, for financial reasons, to sustain their current commitments to the growing army of the hungry, brittle regimes around the world have plenty of reason for anxiety.” (excerpt)

This is scary stuff!

 

[Toro]

Yes, it is. Many are dead already from rioting. In the poor countries, people often spend as much as 75% of their incomes on food, so when a staple doubles, there are serious problems.

 

[RetiredGySgt]

The end is coming. I am ready, are you?

 

[Swamp Fox]

Maybe we should stop trying to make gas from corn and give the corn to people so they can eat. Then we should get the oil from the ANWR and use it to drive down the price of oil on the market.

 

[Swamp Fox]

The end is coming. I am ready, are you?

You bet your ass!

 

[Larkinn]

Maybe we should stop trying to make gas from corn and give the corn to people so they can eat. Then we should get the oil from the ANWR and use it to drive down the price of oil on the market.

Or we could just stop paying farmers not to grow.

 

[Gunny]

http://www.compactlaw.co.uk/free_documents/compactlaw_will1m.doc

How Hunger Could Topple Regimes

“When all that stands between hungry people and a warehouse full of rice and beans is a couple of padlocks and a riot policeman (who may be the neighbor of those who're trying to get past him, and whose own family may be hungry too), the invisible barricade of private-property laws can be easily ignored. Doing whatever it takes to feed oneself and a hungry child, after all, is a primal human instinct. So, with prices of basic foods skyrocketing to the point that even the global aid agencies - whose function is to provide emergency food supplies to those in need - are unable, for financial reasons, to sustain their current commitments to the growing army of the hungry, brittle regimes around the world have plenty of reason for anxiety.” (excerpt)

This is scary stuff!

WTF? The link is to a will. Got one to go with the story?

 

[midcan5]

Link.

http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,1730107,00.html

 

[doeton]

" Originally Posted by RetiredGySgt View Post
The end is coming. I am ready, are you?
You bet your ass!"

hey, i'm not ready and i am curious what i need?

MRE's? duct tape?

a gun?

a grand piano to prop up my mortal remains?

 

[RetiredGySgt]

" Originally Posted by RetiredGySgt View Post
The end is coming. I am ready, are you?
You bet your ass!"

hey, i'm not ready and i am curious what i need?

MRE's? duct tape?

a gun?

a grand piano to prop up my mortal remains?

Depends on what you want to accomplish when society breaks down.

I suggest the following..

A years supply of foodstuffs ( canned/boxed, flour/salt/sugar /wheat, etc) for every person you intend to keep alive.

As much water as you can stock, a gallon a day is a good amount for planning on drinking alone.

A rifle, a shotgun and a pistol per adult in your group. With at least 500 rounds for the rifle, 200 rounds for the shotgun and around 100 rounds for the pistol. More is better though. Further 2 rifles is better, one heavy caliber long range and one assault weapon type rifle.

A generator or 3 with fuel stockpiled. Building materials and tools, lightbulbs and batteries, flashlights and other emergency items. A portable radio. Walkie talkies for everyone in your group.

Vehicles and extra fuel. A location outside a large urban environment. Reloading gear for the weapons with lots of powder, shells, bullets, primers and tools would be a good thing.

MRE's are a good thing if you have to move around, but food is expensive and MRE's are even more costly.

Ensure you have heavy duty silverware and cooking gear with plates and bowls and cups. You need pots and pans and skillets. A barbaque grill is a good idea as well or grill work to make open air cooking possible.

Stocking this stuff is expensive and most people will not have the money, space or were with all to do it. Weapons then become your friend.

This is a short list, there are many other things you should have if you have a place to keep it and stay away from large urban areas.

 

[ReillyT]

Depends on what you want to accomplish when society breaks down.

I suggest the following..

A years supply of foodstuffs ( canned/boxed, flour/salt/sugar /wheat, etc) for every person you intend to keep alive.

As much water as you can stock, a gallon a day is a good amount for planning on drinking alone.

A rifle, a shotgun and a pistol per adult in your group. With at least 500 rounds for the rifle, 200 rounds for the shotgun and around 100 rounds for the pistol. More is better though. Further 2 rifles is better, one heavy caliber long range and one assault weapon type rifle.

A generator or 3 with fuel stockpiled. Building materials and tools, lightbulbs and batteries, flashlights and other emergency items. A portable radio. Walkie talkies for everyone in your group.

Vehicles and extra fuel. A location outside a large urban environment. Reloading gear for the weapons with lots of powder, shells, bullets, primers and tools would be a good thing.

MRE's are a good thing if you have to move around, but food is expensive and MRE's are even more costly.

Ensure you have heavy duty silverware and cooking gear with plates and bowls and cups. You need pots and pans and skillets. A barbaque grill is a good idea as well or grill work to make open air cooking possible.

Stocking this stuff is expensive and most people will not have the money, space or were with all to do it. Weapons then become your friend.

This is a short list, there are many other things you should have if you have a place to keep it and stay away from large urban areas.

These and many other useful suggestions can be found in the NY Times bestselling self-help guide "The Zombie Survival Guide: Complete Protection from the Living Dead."

The Zombie Survival Guide is your key to survival against the hordes of undead who may be stalking you right now. Fully illustrated and exhaustively comprehensive, this book covers everything you need to know, including how to understand zombie physiology and behavior, the most effective defense tactics and weaponry, ways to outfit your home for a long siege, and how to survive and adapt in any territory or terrain.

[ame="http://www.amazon.com/Zombie-Survival-Guide-Complete-Protection/dp/1400049628"]http://www.amazon.com/Zombie-Survival-Guide-Complete-Protection/dp/1400049628[/ame]

 

[RetiredGySgt]

These and many other useful suggestions can be found in the NY Times bestselling self-help guide "The Zombie Survival Guide: Complete Protection from the Living Dead."


http://www.amazon.com/Zombie-Survival-Guide-Complete-Protection/dp/1400049628

I really do not mind if you are not prepared, will make those that are a little better able to scavange what they need later.

 

[ReillyT]

I really do not mind if you are not prepared, will make those that are a little better able to scavange what they need later.

Fair enough, but the book is a good read. It was written by Mel Brooks' son.

 

[AllieBaba]

Farm subsidies are not the cause of global hunger, nor are they to blame for the recent explosion of food cost.

I don't know why it's preferable to let people starve and allow the price of oil to sky rocket, when we have oil in our own back yards. There are some who would rather people die, and who idiotically blame farmers and politicians for the fact that oil costs are high. They blindly refuse to acknowledge that if we accessed our own oil, the price would drop, we would no longer have to hold hands with third world countries, hunger would lessen.

The same people who blame farmers for the food crunch think it's a good idea to use our limited food supply to fuel our cars INSTEAD of using the oil we have.

That's it! Let's do the things absolutely calculated to increase the price of food, while blaming others for the mess we've created and at the same time, frivolously piss away our food supply!

I say anyone who thinks it's a good idea to use grain for fuel and who thinks we shouldn't access the energy we already have under our feet should try to feed their families on about $7/day.

And that's being generous.

 

[AllieBaba]

"Ethanol is the one thing we can do something about."
"According to the World Bank, global food prices have increased by 83 percent in the last three years."

It's not farm subsidies that are responsible for this. It's irresponsible lefties who force suicidal policies down everybody's throats.



http://www.nytimes.com/2008/04/15/b...&ex=1208923200&partner=MYWAY&pagewanted=print

News Analysis
Fuel Choices, Food Crises and Finger-Pointing
By ANDREW MARTIN
The idea of turning farms into fuel plants seemed, for a time, like one of the answers to high global oil prices and supply worries. That strategy seemed to reach a high point last year when Congress mandated a fivefold increase in the use of biofuels.

But now a reaction is building against policies in the United States and Europe to promote ethanol and similar fuels, with political leaders from poor countries contending that these fuels are driving up food prices and starving poor people. Biofuels are fast becoming a new flash point in global diplomacy, putting pressure on Western politicians to reconsider their policies, even as they argue that biofuels are only one factor in the seemingly inexorable rise in food prices.

In some countries, the higher prices are leading to riots, political instability and growing worries about feeding the poorest people. Food riots contributed to the dismissal of Haiti’s prime minister last week, and leaders in some other countries are nervously trying to calm anxious consumers.

At a weekend conference in Washington, finance ministers and central bankers of seven leading industrial nations called for urgent action to deal with the price spikes, and several of them demanded a reconsideration of biofuel policies adopted recently in the West.

Many specialists in food policy consider government mandates for biofuels to be ill advised, agreeing that the diversion of crops like corn into fuel production has contributed to the higher prices. But other factors have played big roles, including droughts that have limited output and rapid global economic growth that has created higher demand for food.

That growth, much faster over the last four years than the historical norm, is lifting millions of people out of destitution and giving them access to better diets. But farmers are having trouble keeping up with the surge in demand.

While there is agreement that the growth of biofuels has contributed to higher food prices, the amount is disputed.

Work by the International Food Policy Research Institute in Washington suggests that biofuel production accounts for a quarter to a third of the recent increase in global commodity prices. The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations predicted late last year that biofuel production, assuming that current mandates continue, would increase food costs by 10 to 15 percent.

Ethanol supporters maintain that any increase caused by biofuels is relatively small and that energy costs and soaring demand for meat in developing countries have had a greater impact. “There’s no question that they are a factor, but they are really a smaller factor than other things that are driving up prices,” said Ron Litterer, an Iowa farmer who is president of the National Corn Growers Association.

He said biofuels were an “easy culprit to blame” because their popularity had grown so rapidly in the last two or three years.

Senator Charles E. Grassley, Republican of Iowa, called the recent criticism of ethanol by foreign officials “a big joke.” He questioned why they were not also blaming a drought in Australia that reduced the wheat crop and the growing demand for meat in China and India.

“You make ethanol out of corn,” he said. “I bet if I set a bushel of corn in front of any of those delegates, not one of them would eat it.”

The senator’s comments reflect a political reality in Washington that despite the criticism from abroad, support for ethanol remains solid.

Representative Jim McGovern, Democrat of Massachusetts, said he had come to realize that Congress made a mistake in backing biofuels, not anticipating the impact on food costs. He said Congress needed to reconsider its policy, though he acknowledged that would be difficult.

“If there was a secret vote, there is a pretty large number of people who would like to reassess what we are doing,” he said.

According to the World Bank, global food prices have increased by 83 percent in the last three years. Rice, a staple food for nearly half the world’s population, has been a particular focus of concern in recent weeks, with spiraling prices prompting several countries to impose drastic limits on exports as they try to protect domestic consumers.

While grocery prices in the United States increased about 5 percent over all in the last year, some essential items like eggs and milk have jumped far more. The federal government is expected to release new data on domestic food prices Wednesday, with notable increases expected.

On Monday, President Bush ordered that $200 million in emergency food aid be made available to “meet unanticipated food aid needs in Africa and elsewhere,” a White House statement said.

His spokeswoman, Dana M. Perino, said the president had urged officials to look for additional ways to help poor nations combat food insecurity and to come up with a long-term plan “that helps take care of the world’s poor and hungry.”

Skeptics have long questioned the value of diverting food crops for fuel, and the grocery and live- stock industries vehemently opposed an energy bill last fall, arguing it was driving up costs.

A fifth of the nation’s corn crop is now used to brew ethanol for motor fuel, and as farmers have planted more corn, they have cut acreage of other crops, particularly soybeans. That, in turn, has contributed to a global shortfall of cooking oil.

Spreading global dissatisfaction in recent months has intensified the food-versus-fuel debate. Last Friday, a European environment advisory panel urged the European Union to suspend its goal of having 10 percent of transportation fuel made from biofuels by 2020. Europe’s well-meaning rush to biofuels, the scientists concluded, had created a variety of harmful ripple effects, including deforestation in Southeast Asia and higher prices for grain.

Even if biofuels are not the primary reason for the increase in food costs, some experts say it is one area where a reversal of government policy could help take pressure off food prices.

C. Ford Runge, an economist at the University of Minnesota, said it is “extremely difficult to disentangle” the effect of biofuels on food costs. Nevertheless, he said there was little that could be done to mitigate the effect of droughts and the growing appetite for protein in developing countries.

“Ethanol is the one thing we can do something about,” he said. “It’s about the only lever we have to pull, but none of the politicians have the courage to pull the lever.”

But August Schumacher, a former under secretary of agriculture who is a consultant for the Kellogg Foundation, said the criticism of biofuels might be misdirected. Development agencies like the World Bank and many governments did little to support agricultural development in the last two decades, he said.

He noted that many of the upheavals over food prices abroad have concerned rice and wheat, neither of which is used as a biofuel. For both those crops, global demand has soared at the same time that droughts suppressed the output from farms.

Elisabeth Rosenthal and Steven R. Weisman contributed reporting.

 

[ReillyT]

"Ethanol is the one thing we can do something about."
"According to the World Bank, global food prices have increased by 83 percent in the last three years."

It's not farm subsidies that are responsible for this. It's irresponsible lefties who force suicidal policies down everybody's throats.

Biofuels are part of the problem, but so are food subsidies and a growing and wealthier population (especially China).

 

[AllieBaba]

Actually, let's put this in perspective.

The major cause of the increase in food prices is FUEL COST. You can't blame it on subsidies when it's an 85 percent leap in the last 3 years and we've had subsidies for 40 years.

So, knowing our food prices are leaping because of fuel costs and refinery expenses (as in, we have to pay foreigners to refine our fuel for us, before trotting it around the world to reach us)...what do we do? We start depleting our food stores in order to make it into fuel.

Stupid? Why yes, it IS stupid, considering the fact that we HAVE OIL available to us. Why on earth do the easy, smart thing, when we can add to the problem, instead? Why reduce the cost of food and create jobs when we can hobnob with our enemies, starve the poor, and at the same time make everyone feel like they're doing the right thing when they do it?

 

[ReillyT]

Actually, let's put this in perspective.

The major cause of the increase in food prices is FUEL COST. You can't blame it on subsidies when it's an 85 percent leap in the last 3 years and we've had subsidies for 40 years.

So, knowing our food prices are leaping because of fuel costs and refinery expenses (as in, we have to pay foreigners to refine our fuel for us, before trotting it around the world to reach us)...what do we do? We start depleting our food stores in order to make it into fuel.

Stupid? Why yes, it IS stupid, considering the fact that we HAVE OIL available to us. Why on earth do the easy, smart thing, when we can add to the problem, instead? Why reduce the cost of food and create jobs when we can hobnob with our enemies, starve the poor, and at the same time make everyone feel like they're doing the right thing when they do it?

I agree that attempting to lower fuel costs by turning food into fuel doesn't seem like the smartest approach. I do think that there are problems associated with more drilling that you are neglecting. Greater fuel efficiency seems like the only obvious answer to me.

 

[AllieBaba]

The problems (the ones which really exist, that is) are minute and manageable, compared to global starvation.

Keep in mind that the biofuel craze not only depletes our food stores, it also adds to the subsidy issue. The government is currently paying all sorts of subsidies to farmers...not to "not" farm, but to farm crops for fuel instead of for food.

More lunacy.

 

[TopGunna]

Yeah, you have to wonder when the biofuel experiment will finally be accepted as a complete and utter failure.

A failure in its main objective, with plenty of negative externalities along the way (as many on this thread have point out).

I'm ready to drill in "fly-over" country.