UN- Food Inflation Triggering Uprisings Around The Globe!!

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   lady_love158posted 13 years ago

   http://apnews.myway.com/article/20110303/D9LNNCN01.html
   
   I've posted about this before but here it is espoused by the UN. You might ask why is there inflation? Economies are recovering slowly, unemployment remains high, incomes are stagnant, and interest rates are low... so what is driving inflation?
   The answer, US monetary and economic policy and the expansion of US debt... in other words Obama's foolish policies and out of control spending is inflicting pain and suffering around the world, destabalizing governments and prolonging our own economic pain.

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      kerrygposted 13 years agoin reply to this

      "The answer, US monetary and economic policy and the expansion of US debt... in other words Obama's foolish policies and out of control spending is inflicting pain and suffering around the world, destabalizing governments and prolonging our own economic pain."
      
      The article you linked says nothing of the kind, so why don't you explain that statement.
      
      Rising oil prices are one of the main drivers of rising food prices, and I love how the right's answer to that is "drill, baby, drill" - doing nothing to solve the root cause of the problem, but simply putting off the day of reckoning for another decade or two.
      
      Did you know that we spend an average of ten calories of fossil fuel energy to produce every calorie of food we consume? Where's the logic in that? We should be getting agriculture OFF oil, not encouraging it to use even more.

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         lady_love158posted 13 years agoin reply to this

         Why are oil prices rising? We have plenty of inventory... and oil prices only started really running up after the uprisings. So why are prices rising? Because Obama is printing money... with more dollars in the pot the vaule of those dollars shrink which means suppliers want more of them for their goods.
         
         Unfortunately now is not the time to impose a moratorium on drilling especially while filing out billions to foreign countries so they can drill! Neither shoul we be easing huge sums on ethanol... like it or not we rely on fossile fuel and will for the next 50 years at least so we should be extracting it whever we can right now.

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            kerrygposted 13 years agoin reply to this

            Oil prices were predicted to top 2008 levels this year well before the uprisings started. Demand has been rising steadily now that world economies are starting to recover from the recession, and it has well outpaced the rate of new discoveries. Furthermore, Wikileaks revealed that the US government believes Saudi Arabia has been overstating its oil reserves by as much as 40%.
            
            Squeezing every last drop of oil out of the planet will only delay the inevitable. It's much wiser to plan ahead by minimizing our dependence on fossil fuels in the present, when we still have the time and money to make the transition comfortably, than to concentrate on drill, drill, drilling until there isn't any left and we have a bona fide crisis on our hands.

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               lady_love158posted 13 years agoin reply to this

               Define present... right now there is nothing to replace oil and if we are going to cut our dependence on oil we will have to insure we are prosperous so there is capital for investment and innovation that means we must tap the sources of fuel we have and not rely on foreign sources. It does no one any good left in the ground.

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                  kerrygposted 13 years agoin reply to this

                  We're talking about agriculture, though, not cars or electricity. The replacement for oil is not only well known, it has been known since the dawn of agriculture itself, 10,000 years ago.
                  
                  As recently as 1940, we got 2.3 calories of food for every 1 calorie of fossil fuel energy burned, so agriculture is one area where the lack of technology to replace oil doesn't matter in the slightest. All that is necessary to drastically cut agriculture-related oil consumption and disconnect food prices from oil prices for good is a shift in food and farm policy.
                  
                  One large chunk of the 10 calories of fossil fuel energy it now takes to produce one calorie of food is taken up by transportation. The average meal travels a total of more than 2000 miles from field to plate. Unless you live in the Arctic, that's ridiculous. During World War 2, America produced 40% of the produce we consumed as a nation in backyard gardens. With a nationwide effort to revive the WW2 era victory garden movement, we could get a substantial percentage of our food traveling less than 2000 feet from field to plate.
                  
                  Another large chunk of those 10 calories is from making and transporting chemical pesticides and fertilizers. This is easily remedied by switching to organic agriculture, or even systems such as IPM that use chemicals, but in much lower quantities.
                  
                  A third large chunk comes from animal agriculture. We're eating substantially more meat than we did in the past (222 pounds per capita in 2007 versus 144 pounds per capita in 1950), and raising it in ways that guzzle oil. Modern animal agriculture shoves thousands of animals together in a tiny space, ships in their food (grain), and ships out their manure. Then it ships the animals to slaughter and ships the meat to grocery stores. All of this requires oil, and lots of it. Return ruminants to pasture to eat grass as nature intended and poultry and pigs to farmyards to eat scraps and you not only save the oil you would have used fertilizing and spraying and transporting the grain, you also save the oil you would have spent dealing with the manure, because it goes right back into the soil where it belongs. Increasing the number of backyard chicken flocks would even reduce the transportation problem for the meat itself.
                  
                  Michael Pollan lays out more suggestions here: http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/12/magaz … wanted=all

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                     lady_love158posted 13 years agoin reply to this

                     Yeah that all sounds wonderful but impractical for most people... we could go back to being hunters and gatherers too... but the libs would need someone to do the hunting and gathering for them... they have rights you know!

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                        kerrygposted 13 years agoin reply to this

                        Oh yeah, it's sooooo hard to plant a couple tomatoes in the backyard. Or zucchini, heavens. That stuff grows like it's trying to take over the planet. You practically need a blowtorch to kill it.
                        
                        Last time I checked, also, we had double digit unemployment in many states. Get some of them growing food instead of collecting unemployment and you kill two birds with one stone. Detroit is already doing this, in fact.

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                           lady_love158posted 13 years agoin reply to this

                           You do know some people live in cities? You do realize that not everyone can love on a diet of tomatoes string beans and zuchinni... you know it takes land to grow food and you can't grow it in the winter so you also need to know how to can you need to obtain the supplies to do so... you realize there are property taxes to pay too right? Theses can be quite substantial! So you urban farmers will have to earn some money... I suppose they could sell some of their crop and jars... but they will need to sell a lot! Don't get me wrong im a big believer of buying local and I buy directly from local farms when I can but obviously I'm restricted by the season... I also believe property taxes are evil and should be illegal... but that wont happen as long as public workers feel entilted to every benefit under the sun... so while your idea of a return to an agricultural society sounds appealing it wont happen by choice.

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                              kerrygposted 13 years agoin reply to this

                              There are many different options for people who want to grow their own food in cities, from window farms and balcony gardens to community gardening and yardsharing. You won't be completely self-sufficient for food, but you can be much more so than you currently are and really dedicated families can get pretty close to it. The Dervaes family grows up to 6000 pounds of produce per year on 1/10th of an acre in urban Pasadena, plus eggs and milk from their own chickens and goats.

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                           wormdoposted 13 years agoin reply to this

                           I don't have a backyard. I don't even have a windowbox. I live in a cramped apartment.

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                              kerrygposted 13 years agoin reply to this

                              Do you have a window?
                              
                              http://www.windowfarms.org/
                              
                              If gardening is something you want to do, community gardens are becoming increasingly common in many cities, and the yardsharing movement is also taking off. Both can be good ways to get access to land at little or no cost.

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                                 wormdoposted 13 years agoin reply to this

                                 Yes, one. Those things look pretty cool, actually. But I doubt I could grow enough to eat all through the year with just my one window to be honest.

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                                    kerrygposted 13 years agoin reply to this

                                    Of course not, but if you want to become more self-sufficient, every little bit helps.

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                                       wormdoposted 13 years agoin reply to this

                                       That's true. To be honest I'm seriously thinking about getting one of those things now anyway just because it's awesome.

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                                          kerrygposted 13 years agoin reply to this

                                          *g* Cool!
                                          
                                          I've got six whole acres and have considered it myself because the prospect of fresh salad greens and culinary herbs all year round is mouth-watering, and it would be much cheaper than a greenhouse!

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                        PrettyPantherposted 13 years agoin reply to this

                        Why is it impractical?  It is really quite easy to grow your own food and raising chickens is even easier.  For those who live in apartments, community gardens are a great way to grow fresh food as well as foster community fellowship.

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                           lady_love158posted 13 years agoin reply to this

                           I'm all for it... as long as it's done by choice. The problem with you libs is you take what you view as a good idea then decide it would be better if everybody did it and then you get a law passed forcing everyone to comply with your idea and empower government to make sure it's done the way they tell you! Then you have the nerve to call it freedom!

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                              PrettyPantherposted 13 years agoin reply to this

                              Yeah, I said all that, didn't I? 
                              
                              It appears to be impossible to have a reasonable conversation with you.

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   dutchman1951posted 13 years ago

   What Panther is saying is good to consider. I and my neighbors on both sides took down our adjacent fence lines, and stretched a garden across all three yards, we all work it and share it, and what we cannot share we put on the driveways for the rest of the neighbors. and guess what it is working.
   
   Yesterday a neighbor I did not know who lives at the top of the hill, and had stopped to get some vegies last week, brought me down 10 loaves of bread and said. Put this in your freezer and it will last and defrost them one at a time the day before you run out. He saw a deal at a local store( a 10 for 10 sale) and stopped and offerd it as pay back for what he took.
   
   I tell ya, folks can survive if we just work togeather. Forget differences.

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   pisean282311posted 13 years ago

   i think obama is responsible for everything which happens on planet earth...last heard that he was also responsible for extinction of dinos from the earth

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   kephriraposted 13 years ago

   It is that fact that the global economy is recovering that means there is inflation.
   
   High oil prices are not primarily due to the economic policies of any one country - they are due to rising global demand because of global economic growth which is actually quite high when you figure in places like China.
   
   Food price inflation is partly due to high oil prices, and partly also due to demand - huge numbers of people are moving out of poverty in China, India and many other countries. So instead of eating enough to survive like they always did, they now want to eat enough to get fat like the rest of us.

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      lady_love158posted 13 years agoin reply to this

      So what your saying is the value of the dollar is unaffected by the number in circulation... so why is counterfeiting illegal?

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         kephriraposted 13 years agoin reply to this

         I'm not saying anything about the dollar. But prices are rising globally, not just in America. I'm from the UK, so I don't know enough to comment on the US, other than to say that this isn't a US thing, its a global thing.

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            lady_love158posted 13 years agoin reply to this

            What you may not realize is the dollar is the worlds reserve currency and much trade between countries takes place in dollars even if the USA isn't involved! So when the value of the dollar declines it raises the costs of goods traded in dollars including food! For some people food is a larger percentage of their income so such movements in the dollar are particularly hurtful and this has led to the uprisings in the Middle East. Of course other factors also contribute to higher prices.

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               pisean282311posted 13 years agoin reply to this

               You are focussing on event not the series of events which lead to uprising...usa is moving towards becoming ex super power...it would be another decade to reach that tag...it is usa's politics which have seen politics in middle east barring iran in present state...usa's downstream will see more and more government get topple...it has less to do with barack obama and more to do wtih downslide of usa which began in bush era and seems to continue in obama's time...in times to come we would see more and more countries giving up usa backed dictators and governments...yes unemployment , food inflation are key factors but those governments remained in place because of super power usa's backing ...and ex super power doesnot have much power to manipulate things any more...with rising china , world equation is changing faster than we think it is...and change is rule of life...world was largely manipulated by uk , 50 years ago , and 25 yrs down the line , it would be china...transaction brings uncertainty and we are in transaction phase...

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