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Rice, death and the dollar - 4/24/2008 7:59:32 AM   
SugarMyChurro


Posts: 1912
Joined: 4/26/2007
Status: offline 		Rice, death and the dollar
http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Global_Economy/JD22Dj01.html

It is not only rice, of course, that the cash-rich countries of the world are buying as a store of value; the price of wheat, soy and other grains has risen almost as fast. This might deal the death-blow to America's hapless efforts to stabilize the Middle East, where a higher proportion of impoverished people eat off state subsidies than in any other part of the world. Egypt has been the anchor for American diplomacy in the Arab world since the Jimmy Carter administration (1977 to 1981), and is most susceptible to hunger. Food prices have risen by 145% in Lebanon and by 20% in Syria this year. Iraqis depend on food subsidies financed by American aid.

Reduced to essentials, America's foreign policy sought two unattainable objectives: to stabilize the Middle East and destabilize China. That is an exaggeration, of course, for Washington hoped not to sow instability, but only to put China in its place over the Tibetan affair.

The George W Bush administration might as well have used the State Department as a set for the Jackass reality show. American arrogance has eroded the ground under many of the governments on which its foreign policy depends. It is hard to characterize what will come next, except, like the stunts on Jackass, that it is going to hurt.

-----

It's exactly as if one hand didn't know what the other hand was doing.



Pardon me, while I go mistake my wife for a hat...
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RE: Rice, death and the dollar - 4/24/2008 9:00:22 AM   
Owner59


Posts: 17033
Joined: 3/14/2006
From: Dirty Jersey
Status: offline 		   Sam`s Club and Costco,stores owned by Walmart, are limiting rice sales here in the US,to 3 or 4 bags.Goes to show just how "global" the economy is.

Rice,as simple as it is(a side dish to you and me),is the world`s food staple(comparatively)and what billions of people survive on.
.

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=89886019&ft=1&f=1001


There`s food riots(some deadly) in Africa,Mexico,Haiti,the Middle and far East.

China has rice shortages and the price of rice is above what the world`s poor can afford to pay.In some parts of the world,rice has doubled in price.


There`s no cheaper alternative to rice and nothing else to eat.


<waits for seeksfemaleslave to make ugly comment that the poor can just soak us for food and money,the lazy bums>




(in reply to SugarMyChurro)
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RE: Rice, death and the dollar - 4/24/2008 9:20:57 AM   
pahunkboy


Posts: 33061
Joined: 2/26/2006
From: Central Pennsylvania
Status: offline 		not all food stuffs will store.

diversify your stockpile.

dollars will still be exchanged in our lifetime.

which is more expensive, a gallon of milk, or a gallon of gas?

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RE: Rice, death and the dollar - 4/24/2008 9:24:15 AM   
Lordandmaster


Posts: 10943
Joined: 6/22/2004
Status: offline 		Economists all seem to agree that we are headed for the worst downturn since the Great Depression.  So high prices for rice are the least of what we're going to see.  I think we're just going to have to accept what's coming--and vote out all the assholes who helped make it happen.

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RE: Rice, death and the dollar - 4/24/2008 10:11:23 AM   
popeye1250


Posts: 18104
Joined: 1/27/2006
From: New Hampshire
Status: offline
quote:

ORIGINAL: SugarMyChurro

Rice, death and the dollar
http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Global_Economy/JD22Dj01.html

It is not only rice, of course, that the cash-rich countries of the world are buying as a store of value; the price of wheat, soy and other grains has risen almost as fast. This might deal the death-blow to America's hapless efforts to stabilize the Middle East, where a higher proportion of impoverished people eat off state subsidies than in any other part of the world. Egypt has been the anchor for American diplomacy in the Arab world since the Jimmy Carter administration (1977 to 1981), and is most susceptible to hunger. Food prices have risen by 145% in Lebanon and by 20% in Syria this year. Iraqis depend on food subsidies financed by American aid.

Reduced to essentials, America's foreign policy sought two unattainable objectives: to stabilize the Middle East and destabilize China. That is an exaggeration, of course, for Washington hoped not to sow instability, but only to put China in its place over the Tibetan affair.

The George W Bush administration might as well have used the State Department as a set for the Jackass reality show. American arrogance has eroded the ground under many of the governments on which its foreign policy depends. It is hard to characterize what will come next, except, like the stunts on Jackass, that it is going to hurt.

-----

It's exactly as if one hand didn't know what the other hand was doing.



Pardon me, while I go mistake my wife for a hat...



I'd like to see the U.S. do a lot less "foreign policy."
I'd give it a grade of "F" so far.
To the U.S. State dept "foreign policy" is simply cutting checks to foreign countries.
They're incapable of conducting any type of relations with foreign countries without cutting checks.
I got a 4 page letter from them about 8 years ago(After contacting my congressman's office) explaining that countries that are getting our foreign aid dollars are expected to "graduate" off of "foreign aid" after a certain period.
I wonder how many countries have "graduated" in the last 8 years? Not Irsael or Egypt certainly.
And of course they didn't say how long that time period was.
The letter sounded like it was written by a college freshman doing a "research" paper.
That's the problem with many in govt. service, they think they're still in college doing research papers.
We need to start getting some "real" people in govt. service!
Right now it's loaded with frat boys and sorority girls with "degrees" who wouldn't survive in the D.P.S.


_____________________________

"But Your Honor, this is not a Jury of my Peers, these people are all decent, honest, law-abiding citizens!"

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RE: Rice, death and the dollar - 4/24/2008 10:28:14 AM   
SugarMyChurro


Posts: 1912
Joined: 4/26/2007
Status: offline 		::waves cheerfully from central California - breadbasket of the U.S.A.::


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RE: Rice, death and the dollar - 4/24/2008 10:46:48 AM   
RealityLicks


Posts: 1615
Joined: 10/23/2007
Status: offline 		I wish all of those who have posted so far would consider these events in slightly broader terms.  This issue is only tangentially a condemnation of this current US administration and much more to do with long-term ideas regarding food on this planet.

For 20 years,the emphasis has been on acquiring commodities to feed the domestic consumers' luxury habit instead of on food.  Water management programmes need not be that costly but allowing desertification to reduce Africa's arable land to just 7% of its area was always bound to have this result.  The warnings are on record but no-one was listening.

Popeye, thats 20 years of reducing aid to foreign countries while increasing subsidies to farmers in the west. OK?

SMC, great opinion piece but facts needed checking: there's no rice shortage in Egypt - its one of the world's biggest producers. Its just cutting exports - like all the producers - hence the price rises.  Its production is actually up.

Farmers in poor countries are abandoning their land and moving to the cities because a) they haven't the resources to irrigate and b) western tariffs and subsidies for their own growers are absolutely invincible.

In tandem with this, WTO rules normally insist on them opening their markets to subsidised western goods - food and manufactures - which demolish their economies, driving more and more farmers out of business and making them more and more dependent on handouts.  This happens under western governments of all stripes and will only change if people stop moaning, engage with it and make it change.  This fatalistic crap about not being able to provide enough food for everyone on the earth drives me fucking nuts - of course we can, if we simply co-operate.

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RE: Rice, death and the dollar - 4/24/2008 10:52:28 AM   
popeye1250


Posts: 18104
Joined: 1/27/2006
From: New Hampshire
Status: offline 		Realitylicks, 10 years ago we gave out $10 b in foreign aid, last fall that amount was $34.6 b.
That doesn't sound like a reduction to me.
I just don't want my govt. involved in the "foreign aid" business in the first place.

_____________________________

"But Your Honor, this is not a Jury of my Peers, these people are all decent, honest, law-abiding citizens!"

(in reply to RealityLicks)
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RE: Rice, death and the dollar - 4/24/2008 10:55:30 AM   
RealityLicks


Posts: 1615
Joined: 10/23/2007
Status: offline 		Where do you get your figures?

quote:

ORIGINAL:  CEO, United Nations Food and Agriculture Organisation:
"The situation we are in is the result of inappropriate policies over the past 20 years. Between 1990 and 2000 we lowered food aid for agriculture by half,"


http://www.reuters.com/article/newsOne/idUSL2393249620080423


< Message edited by RealityLicks -- 4/24/2008 11:02:31 AM >

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RE: Rice, death and the dollar - 4/24/2008 11:00:44 AM   
popeye1250


Posts: 18104
Joined: 1/27/2006
From: New Hampshire
Status: offline 		From the congressional budget office and they're probably low when you consider all the U.S. State Dept "giveaways".
Also, that "$34.6b" figure was on the nightly news last fall.
It's just not the govt's job to be doing this kind of stuff.
They're supposed to be running our govt. not a charity for foreign countries.

_____________________________

"But Your Honor, this is not a Jury of my Peers, these people are all decent, honest, law-abiding citizens!"

(in reply to RealityLicks)
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RE: Rice, death and the dollar - 4/24/2008 11:03:59 AM   
RealityLicks


Posts: 1615
Joined: 10/23/2007
Status: offline 		Oh, sorry. I didn't realise you saw it on TV last year - I take it all back.

Ok, that was a bit facetious but you know, not every story is "about" America.



< Message edited by RealityLicks -- 4/24/2008 11:05:36 AM >

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RE: Rice, death and the dollar - 4/24/2008 11:36:59 AM   
slaveboyforyou


Posts: 3607
Joined: 1/6/2005
From: Arkansas, U.S.A.
Status: offline
quote:

::waves cheerfully from central California - breadbasket of the U.S.A.::


Waves back from south Arkansas, the number 1 rice producer in the U.S.

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RE: Rice, death and the dollar - 4/24/2008 12:30:00 PM   
pahunkboy


Posts: 33061
Joined: 2/26/2006
From: Central Pennsylvania
Status: offline 		ever since the appropriations for iraq started,i no longer consider 1 billion as alot of money.

who wants to be a millionaire?  not me.   even a billion is paultry

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RE: Rice, death and the dollar - 4/24/2008 1:06:23 PM   
RealityLicks


Posts: 1615
Joined: 10/23/2007
Status: offline 		You're right, it is isn't that much ...and getting less every day.  However, when you add all the costs in Iraq onto your foreign aid tally, it makes it go a little further because it serves two purposes.

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RE: Rice, death and the dollar - 4/24/2008 1:26:00 PM   
charmdpetKeira


Posts: 916
Joined: 6/2/2007
Status: offline 		*raises hand*
 
A little help?
 
Am I correct in thinking that the items that the prices are spiking in, are things that can be stored for long periods of time?
 
And the price of corn and potatoes, my first owner telling me about last year; those too?
 
k

_____________________________

Life is tough, that does not mean it isn't fair.

There is no wrong choice, only consequence.

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RE: Rice, death and the dollar - 4/24/2008 1:41:40 PM   
Lordandmaster


Posts: 10943
Joined: 6/22/2004
Status: offline 		Who said it wasn't both?  I don't know which one is "tangential" and which "non-tangential."  I didn't see our government doing very much over the past seven years to head off this crisis.  On the contrary, I saw them doing plenty to hasten it.

quote:

ORIGINAL: RealityLicks

I wish all of those who have posted so far would consider these events in slightly broader terms.  This issue is only tangentially a condemnation of this current US administration and much more to do with long-term ideas regarding food on this planet.

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RE: Rice, death and the dollar - 4/25/2008 12:27:31 AM   
RealityLicks


Posts: 1615
Joined: 10/23/2007
Status: offline 		It is often argued by credible sources that Bush has been better on development issues than his predecessor.  This may be because as awareness spreads its harder for governments to be seen as totally inactive and some of his programmes are pretty questionable in terms of long term benefit.  But in all essentials, development issues are low-priority for all western governments and I don't mind which party here or in America takes a lead on that.

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RE: Rice, death and the dollar - 4/25/2008 1:39:09 AM   
meatcleaver


Posts: 9030
Joined: 3/13/2006
Status: offline 		As a society we watch our governments pursue corrupt and criminal policies and as long as the burgers and coke don't run out we don't give a shit. One day it will bite back at us and the ones that caused it and we chose to ignore, will be sitting pretty above the fray.

_____________________________

There are fascists who consider themselves humanitarians, like cannibals on a health kick, eating only vegetarians.

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RE: Rice, death and the dollar - 4/25/2008 2:28:10 AM   
SugarMyChurro


Posts: 1912
Joined: 4/26/2007
Status: offline
quote:

ORIGINAL: RealityLicks
It is often argued by credible sources that Bush has been better on development issues than his predecessor.


That comes across as a wholly specious claim if I ever saw one. Credible sources like what?

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RE: Rice, death and the dollar - 4/25/2008 6:03:09 AM   
RealityLicks


Posts: 1615
Joined: 10/23/2007
Status: offline 		Well, if you are able to show how Clinton did better I'm all ears.  I'm not saying Bush has achieved much and I can certainly list many detrimental effects of what he has done as per my posts on this site.  However, simply by virtue of the number of visits to developing countries thereby publicising issues and dollars invested in - admittedly flawed - programmes, he simply has done more on the issue than Clinton did.  It would be counter-productive to argue about how much each US President has done as an individual, when the emphasis should be on what collectively can be done in future. 

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