'Global Starvation - Coming Soon To Europe And North America, Too?=92 -
'Americans Hoard Food As Industry Seeks Regulations' - 'Rice Price
Rises As U.S. Curbs Imposed' - 'Shops Ration Sales Of Rice As U.S.
Buyers Panic' - 'Food Price Rises Are "Mass Murder": UN Envoy' -
'Bolivia's President Says Biofuels Hurting Food Prices' - 'Chavez Says
Food Prices "Massacre" Of World's Poor' - 'Latin American Food Fund
Started' - 'Load Up the Pantry' - 'Crisis in Food Prices Threatens
Worldwide Starvation: Is it Genocide?=92 (read these stories in full
below)
- o O o -
Americans Hoard Food As Industry Seeks Regulations
By Patrice Hill,
Wa****ngton Times,
April 23, 2008.
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 re****ted 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 ****pping 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. We don't
want a lack of oversight and regulation to lead to a similar crisis in
rural America."
Food economists testifying at a daylong hearing of the commission said
the doubling of rice and wheat prices in the past year is a result of
strong income growth in China, India and other Asian countries, where
people entering the middle class are buying more food and eating more
meat. Farm animals consume a substantial share of the world's grain.
U.S. wheat stocks are at the lowest levels in 60 years because
worldwide consumption of wheat has exceeded production in six of the
past eight years, said U.S. Agriculture Department chief economist
Gerald Bange. Adding to tight supplies was the back-to-back failure of
two years of wheat crops caused by drought in Australia, a major wheat
ex****ter, he said.
In addition, the diversion of one-third of the U.S. corn crop into
making ethanol for vehicles has increased prices for corn and other
staples such as soybeans and cotton as more acreage is set aside for
ethanol production.
Farmers also have raised prices because they have been hard hit by
spiraling energy costs, which not only raised the price of diesel fuel
to records of over $4 a gallon but drove up the cost of nitrogen
fertilizer, which is made from natural gas.
"Commodity prices across the board are at levels not experienced in
many of our lifetimes," said CFTC Chairman Walter Lukken. "These price
levels, along with record energy costs, have put a strain on consumers
as well as many producers and commercial participants that utilize the
futures markets to manage risks."
The upswing in prices has been exaggerated by the massive influx of
investors and speculators seeking to profit from rising prices for
corn, wheat, oil, gold and other commodities. Big Wall Street firms
and hedge funds have taken huge positions in futures markets that once
were dominated by relatively small operators such as farmers and grain-
elevator owners.
Small investors, who see fast-rising commodities as good hedges
against inflation and a falling dollar, also are getting a piece of
the action by investing in index funds that are tied to commodity
prices.
"During such turbulent times, it is tempting to shoot first and ask
questions later," Mr. Lukken said, but he contended the commission
should be "cautious" about doing anything to curb speculation. He and
other regulators argued that speculators add volume and liquidity to
the markets, which makes them operate more efficiently and helps
farmers and other players.
Commissioner Michael V. Dunn said the soaring demand for food and fuel
worldwide might be leading to permanently higher food prices, both
domestically and abroad.
"We may already be working under or fast approaching a new paradigm of
higher agricultural prices," he said. "There is not a silver bullet or
single solution to address the problems we are currently facing."
FARM TRADE
Federal market regulators say the soaring price of most commodities
over the past year reflects increased demand rather than investor
speculation.
Rice 122%
Wheat* 95
Soybeans 83
Crude oil 82
Corn 66
Gasoline 41
Gold 37
Sugar 30
Coffee 24
Milk 5
Live cattle -7
Lumber -14
* On the Chicago Board of Trade
Source: Commodity Futures Trading Commission
- o O o -
Rice Price Rises As U.S. Curbs Imposed
from Agencies,
Irish Times,
24 April, 2008.
US rice prices advanced above $25 for the first time today as Wal-
Mart's Sam's Club warehouse unit restricted purchases of some types of
rice in the US.
The price of rice globally has now nearly trebled since the start of
the year, sparking food riots in African countries and Haiti and
adding to growing fears that millions of the world's poor may soon
struggle to feed themselves.
China, Vietnam and India have curbed rice ex****ts to safeguard
domestic supplies. Thailand, which ****ps one third of the world's
ex****ts, may also restrict sales, a World Bank official said this
week.
Benchmark Thai rice prices leapt more than 5 per cent to a record high
above $1,000 a tonne today.
Consumers have started hoarding rice as supplies shrink. In the US,
Sam's Club limited customers to four bags of jasmine, basmati and long-
grain white rice per visit in all US stores where allowed by law, a
company spokeswoman said.
Rice rose as much as 0.9 per cent to $25.01 per 100 pounds in Chicago
and has climbed 26 per cent this month, heading for its biggest
monthly gain since October 1993.
Wheat, corn and soybeans also gained to records this year, spurring
social unrest across the globe. The World Bank has forecast that 33
nations from Mexico to Yemen may face social unrest because of higher
food and energy costs
UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon said this week rising food costs may
hurt economic growth and threaten political security.
- o O o -
Shops Ration Sales Of Rice As U.S. Buyers Panic
=B7 Restaurants stockpile to guard against soaring cost
=B7 Call to maintain ex****ts as world food crisis grows
Andrew Clark in New York,
Rory Carroll in Caracas, and Julian Borger
The Guardian, UK,
Thursday April 24, 2008.
The global food crisis reached the United States yesterday as big
retailers began to ration sales of rice in response to bulk purchases
by customers alarmed by rocketing prices of staples.
Wal-Mart's cash and carry division, Sam's Club, announced it would
sell a maximum of four bags of rice per person to prevent supplies
from running short. Its decision followed s****adic caps placed on
purchases of rice and flour by some store managers at a rival bulk
chain, Costco, in parts of California.
The world price of rice has risen 68% since the start of 2008, but in
some US shops the price has doubled in weeks.
Retail experts said there was little evidence of panic hoarding by the
public but that restaurants and smaller retailers were buying up
stocks at wholesalers in the expectation that the cost would go even
higher. Shops said Filipino residents in the US were also making large
purchases to send to relatives in the Philippines, where a shortage of
supplies is causing concern.
"What you're seeing is people who buy in larger quantities, who have a
restaurant or a corner store, stocking up because of media re****ts
that prices could go higher," said Dave Heylen, a spokesman for the
California Grocers Association.
The price of staple foods has been rising at an accelerating rate
across the world, driven by what the United Nations has called a
"perfect storm" of rising demand from developing countries such as
China and India, the impact of climate change and policy responses by
governments.
Since the beginning of the year, rice-producing countries including
China, India, Vietnam and Egypt have imposed limits on ex****ts to keep
domestic prices down. This week, a top World Bank official predicted
that Thailand, the world's largest rice ex****ter, might follow in
restricting ****pments.
The EU trade commissioner, Peter Mandelson, yesterday called on the
World Trade Organisation to put pressure on food-producing countries
to maintain ex****ts. "If we restrict trade, we're simply going to add
food scarcity to the already large problems of food shortages that
exist in different countries," he told Reuters news agency.
The director of the UN's Food and Agriculture Organisation, Jacques
Diouf, said the crisis had been building for decades. "The situation
we are in is the result of inappropriate policies over the past 20
years," Diouf told journalists in Paris, pointing to a halving of aid
to agriculture in developing countries between 1990 and 2000, while
the industrialised world maintained generous farm subsidies.
British officials say they hope the food price shock will provide
impetus for a long-delayed deal on liberalising world trade, known as
the Doha round. They predict a possible breakthrough in the next few
weeks. They also point out that the price rise could bring much-needed
income to rural areas in Africa and elsewhere in the developing world
if farmers are given enough sup****t to respond.
Diouf said: "This is not Greek tragedy where fate is decided by the
gods and humans can do nothing about it. No, we have the ability to
influence our futures."
In Venezuela, President Hugo Ch=E1vez yesterday announced a $100m "food
security fund", at a regional summit to agree policy as the crisis
spreads instability across Latin America and the Caribbean.
Looting and riots in Haiti left at least six dead and forced the
resignation of the prime minister this month, leaving the hemisphere's
poorest country tense and edgy. In Guyana an 80% rise in the price of
rice and 50% in the cost of chicken triggered protests and a strike by
sugarcane workers. The government promised to issue seeds and urged
people to cultivate idle land. Surinam set up an emergency cabinet
committee to seek ways to dampen food prices.
- o O o -
Food Price Rises Are "Mass Murder" - UN Envoy
Reuters,
20 April, 2008.
VIENNA, April 20 (Reuters) - Global food price rises are leading to
"silent mass murder" and commodities markets have brought "horror" to
the world, the United Nations' food envoy told an Austrian newspaper
on Sunday.
Jean Ziegler, UN special rap****teur on the right to food, told Kurier
am Sonntag that growth in biofuels, speculation on commodities markets
and European Union ex****t subsidies mean the West is responsible for
mass starvation in poorer countries.
Ziegler said he was bound to highlight the "madness" of people who
think that hunger is down to fate.
"Hunger has not been down to fate for a long time -- just as (Karl)
Marx thought. It is rather that a murder is behind every victim. This
is silent mass murder," he said in an interview.
Ziegler blamed globalisation for "monopolising the riches of the
earth" and said multinationals were responsible for a type of
"structural violence".
"And we have a herd of market traders, speculators and financial
bandits who have turned wild and constructed a world of inequality and
horror. We have to put a stop to this," he said.
Ziegler said he believed that one day starving people could rise up
against their persecutors. "It's just as possible as the French
Revolution was," he said. (Re****ting by Sylvia Westall; Editing by
Giles Elgood)
- o O o -
Bolivia's President Says Biofuels Hurting Food Prices
Associated Press,
April 23, 2008.
PROVIDENCE, R.I. (AP) - Bolivian President Evo Morales says biofuels
are causing higher food prices in his country and could cause serious
problems around the world.
Speaking at Brown University yesterday, Morales' comments echoed
similar sentiments he expressed when he earlier addressed a United
Nations forum on indigenous issues.
Speaking on Earth Day, Morales also called for moderation and better
care of the environment.
When asked by an audience member for his opinion on the U.S.
presidential race, Morales declined to state an opinion about the
candidates. But he asked that the United States stay out of the
internal problems of his own country.
- o O o -
Chavez Says Food Prices "Massacre" Of World's Poor
Reuters, Africa,
Wednesday, 23 April, 2008.
CARACAS (Reuters) - Soaring food prices are a "massacre" of the
world's poor and are creating a global nutritional crisis, Venezuelan
President Hugo Chavez said on Tuesday, calling it a sign that
capitalism is in decline.
His comments came only hours after the United Nations' World Food
Program called more expensive food a "silent tsunami" that threatens
to plunge more than 100 million people on every continent into
hunger.
"It is a true massacre what is happening in the world," Chavez said in
a televised speech, citing U.N. statistics about deaths caused by
hunger and malnourishment.
"The problem is not the production of food ... it is the economic,
social and political model of the world. The capitalist model is in
crisis."
The self-styled revolutionary and Cuba ally has won popular sup****t by
subsidizing food for the OPEC nation's poor majority, although his
administration struggled last year to keep products such as milk and
sugar on store shelves.
Cuban Vice President Carlos Lage, visiting Caracas to meet with Chavez
and other allied leaders on Wednesday, accused developed countries of
spurring food prices through biofuels.
"Developed countries want to feed the cars of the rich with food --
this is the irrational world we live in today," Lage said, echoing
Chavez's frequent accusations that Wa****ngton's promotion of biofuel
is boosting prices of staples like corn.
U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon warned earlier this week that high
food prices could wipe out progress in reducing poverty and hurt
global economic growth.
Riots in poor Asian and African countries have followed steep rises in
food prices caused by a range of factors including pricier fuel, bad
weather and the conversion of land to grow crops for biofuel.
(Re****ting by Brian Ellsworth; Editing by Peter Cooney)
- o O o -
Latin American Food Fund Started
Aljazeera Net,
23 April, 2008.
Leaders from four Latin American countries have set up a $100m food
security fund for staples such as rice, beans and corn in a bid to
offset rising food prices that have sparked global protests.
The presidents of Bolivia, Nicaragua and Venezuela as well as Cuba's
vice-president also promised joint agricultural programmes.
"This issue is really crucial for the future of our people, most of
all to the people of the poorest countries," Daniel Ortega,
Nicaragua's president, said at the meeting in Venezuela on Thursday.
Hugo Chavez, the Venezuelan president, said the fund was an "urgent
geopolitical issue".
"This food crisis is the biggest demonstration of the historic failure
of the capitalist model," he said at the Alternative for the People of
Our America (ALBA) summit in Caracas.
Also at the summit, leaders pledged their sup****t to Bolivia ahead of
a referendum vote in May in which the nation's more prosperous eastern
provinces are seeking greater autonomy from the capital, La Paz, and
its socialist policies.
'Silent tsunami'
Chavez said a regional food distribution system was needed to cut out
the so-called "middle-men" who were increasing prices.
"We have to create a regional trade network to stop us falling into
the hands of speculators," he said.
Cuba, Venezuela and Bolivia all im****t much of their foodstuff, with
Bolivia forced to grant small farmers who grow corn, rice, wheat and
soya beans interest-free loans as incentives for production.
The group's food security plan includes projects to help boost output
of grains, especially corn and rice and vegetables, as well as milk
and water, and improve irrigation, the Venezuelan leader said.
Global food prices, affected by rising fuel prices, environmental
changes and increased demand from India and China, have sparked often
violent protests this year in more than 35 countries in the Caribbean,
Africa and Asia.
The leaders' announcement comes after the head of the United Nations
World Food Programme (WFP) warned that a "silent tsunami" of hunger is
sweeping across the globe, with an additional 100 million people
facing poverty.
"This is the new face of hunger - the millions of people who were not
in the urgent hunger category six months ago, but now are," Josette
Sheeran said in a speech during a UK summit on the global food
crisis.
- o O o -
Load Up the Pantry
By Brett Arends,
Wall Street Journal,
April 21, 2008.
I don't want to alarm anybody, but maybe it's time for Americans to
start stockpiling food.
No, this is not a drill.
You've seen the TV footage of food riots in parts of the developing
world. Yes, they're a long way away from the U.S. But most foodstuffs
operate in a global market. When the cost of wheat soars in Asia, it
will do the same here.
Reality: Food prices are already rising here much faster than the
returns you are likely to get from keeping your money in a bank or
money-market fund. And there are very good reasons to believe prices
on the shelves are about to start rising a lot faster.
"Load up the pantry," says Manu Daftary, one of Wall Street's top
investors and the manager of the Quaker Strategic Growth mutual fund.
"I think prices are going higher. People are too complacent. They
think it isn't going to happen here. But I don't know how the food
companies can absorb higher costs." (Full disclosure: I am an investor
in Quaker Strategic)
Stocking up on food may not replace your long-term investments, but it
may make a sensible home for some of your shorter-term cash. Do the
math. If you keep your standby cash in a money-market fund you'll be
lucky to get a 2.5% interest rate. Even the best one-year certificate
of deposit you can find is only going to pay you about 4.1%, according
to Bankrate.com. And those yields are before tax.
Meanwhile the most recent government data shows food inflation for the
average American household is now running at 4.5% a year.
And some prices are rising even more quickly. The latest data show
cereal prices rising by more than 8% a year. Both flour and rice are
up more than 13%. Milk, cheese, bananas and even peanut butter:
They're all up by more than 10%. Eggs have rocketed up 30% in a year.
Ground beef prices are up 4.8% and chicken by 5.4%.
These are trends that have been in place for some time.
And if you are hoping they will pass, here's the bad news: They may
actually accelerate.
The reason? The prices of many underlying raw materials have risen
much more quickly still. Wheat prices, for example, have roughly
tripled in the past three years.
Sooner or later, the food companies are going to have to pass those
costs on. Kraft saw its raw material costs soar by about $1.25 billion
last year, squeezing profit margins. The company recently warned that
higher prices are here to stay. Last month the chief executive of
General Mills, Kendall Powell, made a similar point.
The main reason for rising prices, of course, is the surge in demand
from China and India.
Hundreds of millions of people are joining the middle class each year,
and that means they want to eat more and better food.
A secondary reason has been the growing demand for ethanol as a fuel
additive. That's soaking up some of the corn supply.
You can't easily stock up on perishables like eggs or milk. But other
products will keep. Among them: Dried pasta, rice, cereals, and cans
of everything from tuna fish to fruit and vegetables. The kicker: You
should also save money by buying them in bulk.
If this seems a stretch, ponder this: The emerging bull market in
agricultural products is following in the footsteps of oil. A few
years ago, many Americans hoped $2 gas was a tem****ary spike. Now it's
the rosy memory of a bygone age.
The good news is that it's easier to store Cap'n Crunch or cans of
Starkist in your home than it is to store lots of gasoline. Safer,
too.
Write to Brett Arends at brett.arends@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
o O o -
Crisis in Food Prices Threatens Worldwide Starvation - Is it Genocide?
By Richard C. Cook,
GlobalResearch,
24 April, 2008.
Rising worldwide food prices are resulting in shortages, riots and
protests, promises by governments to expand food aid, expressions of
concern by international bodies like the World Bank, and stress on
household budgets even in developed countries like the U.S. Did this
just "happen" or is there a plan?
Plenty of commentators think they have it figured out and blame such
factors as greater demand for high-end protein menus by the
increasingly upscale populations of China and India , weather factors
relating to global warming such as drought in Australia, and the
diversion of animal feed crops such as corn and soybeans to ethanol
production. L.H. Teslik of the Council on Foreign Relations speaks of
"bubbling inflation and rising oil prices."
There is also the question of whether a role is being played by
commodity speculation. The idea is that faced with the global
financial crisis and the collapse of mortgage-based securities,
investors are flocking to resource-based tangibles as a hedge against
recession and the decline of the U.S. dollar. Hence gold is at record
levels with oil keeping the same pace. How else to explain, for
instance, the doubling of the price of rice in Asian markets in less
than two months?
Standard Chartered Bank food commodities analyst Abah Ofon says, "Fund
money flowing into agriculture has boosted prices. It's fa****onable.
This is the year of agricultural commodities."
But the idea that speculation is at fault is disputed by no less than
New York Times columnist Paul Krugman, one of the world's leading
monetary economists, who writes:
"My problem with the speculative stories is that they all depend on
something that holds production - or at least potential production -
off the market. The key point is that the spot price equalizes the
demand and supply of a commodity; speculation can drive up the futures
price, but the spot price will only follow if the higher futures
prices somehow reduce the quantity available for final consumers. The
usual channel for this is an increase in inventories, as investors
hoard the stuff in expectation of a higher price down the road. If
this doesn't happen - if the spot price doesn't follow the futures
price - then futures will presumably come down, as it turns out that
buying futures produces losses."
Solid data in this area is hard to come by. Probably the chief common
denominator among commentators, especially those advocating a supply
and demand or global warming perspective, is that they have so little
solid information. Thus it is refre****ng to find a study that contains
meaningful statistics such as one appearing on the Executive
Intelligence Re****t website entitled, "To Defeat Famine: Kill the WTO"
by Marcia Merry Baker. One particularly telling item is that after
global food supplies were boosted through the Green Revolution and
related programs lasting into the 1970s, more recently, world food
production has actually declined.
Baker writes, "World per-capita output of grains of all kinds (rice,
wheat, corn, and others) has been falling for twenty years. Whereas in
1986 it was 338 kilograms per person, it went down to 303 by 2006.
This decline in no way has been made up for by increasing amounts of
other staple foodstuffs-tubers, legumes, or oil crops, which likewise
are in insufficient supply."
Further, "In twelve of the last twenty years, less grain has been
produced than utilized that year (for all purposes-direct human
consumption, livestock feed, industrial and energy uses, and
reserves). Accordingly, the amount of carryover stocks of grain from
year to year has been declining to extreme danger levels. The
diversion of food crops into biofuels is the nail in the coffin. The
latest estimate is that worldwide stockpiles of cereal crops of all
kinds are expected to fall to a twenty-five-year low of 405 million
tons in 2008. That is down twenty-one million tons, or five percent,
from their already reduced level in 2007."
Further, an increasing pro****tion of food crops is being produced by
large multinational cor****ations whose power and reach has ballooned
under the World Trade Organization and spin-offs like NAFTA even as
small family-run farms have lost the protection of parity pricing and
been priced out of business. But the data suggest that a) the output
of agribusiness has failed to match the older, more diversified
systems of farming; and b) as nations lose their ability to feed
themselves, agricultural pricing becomes more subject to
monopolization.
The loss of agricultural self-sufficiency has been exacerbated in much
of the developing world by International Monetary Fund lending
policies. Under the " Wa****ngton consensus," entire nations have been
forced to give up agricultural self-sufficiency and convert farmland
to ex****t commodities while displaced rural populations migrate to the
slums of large cities such as Lagos , Nigeria . Today those
populations are the ones most grievously threatened with starvation.
Then what is really going on?
First of all, let's get rid of the idea that we are seeing "impersonal
market forces" at work. "Supply and demand" is not a "law"-it's a
policy. If a seller has an article in demand it's a matter of choice
whether he charges a premium when he offers it for sale. If he's a
decent, honest soul, maybe he won't necessarily charge all the market
will bear, particularly if the item is a necessity of life, such as
food. Or maybe there will be a responsible public authority around
that will prohibit price gouging or else subsidize the purchaser, as
often happens in credit markets. Of course public spirited action like
this is itself a declining commodity in a world afflicted with the
kind of market fundamentalism and rampant privatization that has been
the rage since the 1980s Reagan Revolution.
Second, let's ask the question which any competent investigator should
pose when starting out on the trail of a possible crime: "Who
benefits?" Indeed we may be speaking of a crime on the scale of
genocide if the events in question are a) avoidable; in which case the
crime is one of negligent homicide; or b) planned, where we obviously
have a conspiracy among the contributing parties.
Those who benefit are obviously the ones who finance agricultural
operations, those who are charging monopoly prices for the commodities
in demand, the various middlemen who bring the products to market
after they leave the farm, and the owners or mortgagees of the land,
retail space, and other assets required to conduct the production/
consumption cycle.
In other words, it's the financial elite of the world who have gained
complete control of the most basic necessity of life. This includes
not only the international financiers who provide capitalization,
including the leveraging of trading in commodity futures up to the 97
percent level, but even organized crime groups which the U.S.
Department of Justice says have penetrated world materials markets.
And is all this part of a long-term strategy by international finance
to starve much of the world's population in order to seize their land,
control their natural resources, and enslave the rest who fear a
similar fate? Already millions of people are losing their homes to
housing inflation and foreclosure. Is actual or threatened physical
starvation the next part of the scenario?
And where are the governmental authorities whose job it is to protect
the public welfare both at the national and international levels?
These authorities long ago allowed a situation to develop, including
in developed nations like the U.S. , where people in localities no
longer have the simple ability to feed themselves, even in
emergencies. And not one of the candidates remaining in the U.S.
presidential election-John McCain, Hillary Clinton, nor Barack Obama-
has addressed the food pricing issue. Indeed, all three are part of a
government that has gone so far as to exclude much of the rising cost
of food from measurements of inflation, an innovation that took place
on Bill Clinton's watch.
It is now April. Already food has run out in some parts of the world.
In a few months winter will come, at least in the Northern Hemisphere.
What will happen then? Are you certain food will be on your table?
And suppose you wanted to make a contribution to your own well-being
and to that of your family and community by going into farming. In
most parts of North America you can look around and see plenty of
underutilized land.
But could you do it? Could you buy or lease land and pay taxes on it
after the galloping inflation of the real estate bubble? Could you get
bank loans for equipment and operating expenses under today's
constrained credit conditions? Could you afford fuel for your
equipment when petroleum costs over $115 a barrel? Is water readily
available from developed supplies and is electricity available at
regulated prices? Could you purchase anything other than genetically-
modified seed? Would local supermarkets buy your produce when your
prices are undercut by massive cor****ate distributor****ps im****ting
food from abroad? Does the system even exist in your home town for
marketing of local farm products?
And does anyone in power even care?
Well, whether they do or not, "We the People" should care. One of the
worst aspects of the consumer society is the separation between the
individual and the products of the earth we utilize. We always assume
that whatever we need will be there so long as we have money in our
bank account or the ability to charge on a credit card and pay later.
Such assumptions are losing their validity. Back in the 1960s people
who were starting to understand these things began a modest "back to
the land" movement. Today it is time to start one again. Except this
time we need to do it right by demanding government policies that
sup****t it. This means low-cost credit, price sup****ts, affordable
utilities, favorable tax policies, and decisions by government and
businesses to "buy local." Food production cannot safely be left in
the hands of agribusiness and international finance capitalism any
longer.
Richard C. Cook is a former U.S. federal government analyst, whose
career included service with the U.S. Civil Service Commission, the
Food and Drug Administration, the Carter White House, NASA, and the
U.S. Treasury Department. His articles on economics, politics, and
space policy have appeared on numerous websites. His book on monetary
reform entitled We Hold These Truths: The Promise of Monetary Reform
is in preparation. He is also the author of Challenger Revealed: An
Insider's Account of How the Reagan Administration Caused the Greatest
Tragedy of the Space Age, called by one reviewer, "the most im****tant
spaceflight book of the last twenty years." His website is at
www.richardccook.com
- o O o -
Did Tsar Nicholas II Of Russia And The Romanov Royal Family Die In The
Ipatiev House in Ekaterinburg - Or Did Britain And The U.S. Cooperate
In Their Secret Rescue...?
History says 'NO', but some surprising voices say 'YES!'
Read online or download for free the 1920's book, 'Rescuing The Czar:
Two Authentic Diaries', together with some equally surprising news
re****ts, at http://www.mimico-by-the-lake.com/histrus3.htm
You'll find a wide range of other free online classic history and
travel books (on English history, American History, Canadian History,
European History, Napoleonic History, Russian History, German History,
Greek and Roman History), plus the books of Jane Austen, at
http://www.mimico-by-the-lake.com/freehist.htm
(Some of these books will be uploaded over the next few days, so if
you click on a book title on that page which doesn't presently work,
pleade try it again in a day or so.)
|
