Famine?

Greetings good citizen,

Once again global stock exchanges are bleeding from the eye-sockets (which is as it should be considering the severe degree of mismanagement global capitalists are inflicting on a vehicle created to serve us all.)

Tangential to this is the warnings coming out of, er, ‘progressive’ media regarding the detrimental effects the drought will have on the global food supply.

So the > One Percent are going to starve, eh?

Of course not…but the starving masses may well lash out at the fortunate few who can still ‘afford’ food.

(Naturally, worse than people being able to afford retail prices on obviously scarce commodities will be those who steal food intended as relief for the poor so they can sell it to those who can’t afford to pay full price!)

But there will be numerous ‘Robin Hoods’ guarding against precisely that sort of thing.

I find it curious that the closeted Libertarians think we will suffer from a food crisis when energy prices are climbing radically. Could it be they know something the rest of us don’t?

Which begs the question ‘How do they know this?’

They would respond…just look at the drought, it’s everywhere (in the WEST, not so much in the East or the South east, where the bulk of our food is grown.

But that isn’t what’s deviling us. It’s never been a case of whether or not the US can grow enough food to support itself. It can!

The ‘problem’ is the cheaper there…which would starve to death without the heavily subsidized food they receive from the US.

That’s what’s gonna put the bite on the US food supply.

Once we start questioning why so much food is being shipped overseas it will suddenly become ‘humanitarian aid’ for people ‘much worse off’ than starving Americans.

The Great Drought of 2012 has yet to come to an end, but we already know that its consequences will be severe. With more than one-half of America’s counties designated as drought disaster areas, the 2012 harvest of corn, soybeans, and other food staples is guaranteed to fall far short of predictions. This, in turn, will boost food prices domestically and abroad, causing increased misery for farmers and low-income Americans and far greater hardship for poor people in countries that rely on imported U.S. grains.

This, however, is just the beginning of the likely consequences: if history is any guide, rising food prices of this sort will also lead to widespread social unrest and violent conflict.

Food -- affordable food -- is essential to human survival and well-being. Take that away, and people become anxious, desperate, and angry. In the United States, food represents only about 13% of the average household budget, a relatively small share, so a boost in food prices in 2013 will probably not prove overly taxing for most middle- and upper-income families. It could, however, produce considerable hardship for poor and unemployed Americans with limited resources. “You are talking about a real bite out of family budgets,”commented Ernie Gross, an agricultural economist at Omaha’s CreightonUniversity. This could add to the discontent already evident in depressed and high-unemployment areas, perhaps prompting an intensified backlash against incumbent politicians and other forms of dissent and unrest.

Now compound this with sky high energy prices and you have a real fuckaree on your hands!

Sort of redefines the ‘heat or eat’ question and plays directly into the hand of those of us preaching about the existence of a kill off conspiracy.

Yes, that ‘members only’ club you have to be born into has proven (repeatedly) that it doesn’t give a rats ass about the rest of humanity.

And they only have one solution to every problem…‘exterminate ‘em’!

If you weren’t fortunate enough to be born into this exclusive club you are automatically classified as a member of the ‘surplus population’, a vast majority of which is considered ‘expendable’.

Don’t get the wrong impression here…can’t ‘rule in hell’ if there isn’t anybody to ‘bow and scrape’…a certain amount of the surplus population is considered ‘valuable’ as servants/slaves.

Otherwise known as ‘useful idiots’.

But once again I digress.

Food is the great stabilizer as civilization is only nine meals deep. Three days without food and civilization is ‘toast’…

You want to add the lack of heat and light into that equation the time frame shortens considerably…for those of you looking ahead to 12/21/12.

Not that anyone’s calendar has anything to do with any of this BS…

Which is not to say the criminals in charge didn’t leap on the chance to misdirect the superstitious masses into thinking this fuckaree was ‘divine intervention’.

But you know I hold no truck with ‘spirit in the sky’.

Shorthand?

I’d opine the US ‘would be’ just fine despite the drought in the west…it is the capitalist supported cheaper there that will tip the scales against us, creating a ‘world-wide’ famine because our (barely sufficient) food will be shipped overseas to ‘protect their investments.’

Capitalism is NOT your friend.

Thanks for letting me inside your head,

Gegner

More valuable than gold!

Greetings good citizen,

For time out of mind (as far as the West is concerned) people didn’t bother to steal food as the punishment far outweighed the short-term benefit.

Although we can only speculate what would happen to a ‘first time’ offender if he were nabbed for, er, ‘hijacking’, that isn’t quite an accurate desciption of what took place here.

In late March, they contacted Allen Lund. The broker carried out a standard series of checks, including verifying the company’s federal registration and its insurance coverage. Then it assigned the company to pick up a load of tomatoes from a shipper in Miami on Monday, March 28.

Over the next four days, working through Lund and three other freight brokers, E&A Transport picked up four more loads of tomatoes, a load of cucumbers and a load of frozen meat from shippers across Florida, including in the Miami area, Palmetto and Punta Gorda.

At each pick-up, a driver working for E&A showed up at the wheel of a tractor with a refrigerated trailer. The shippers loaded the pallets of tomatoes or the other goods into the trucks and the driver drove off. None of the loads got to their destinations.

The load of frozen meat, worth about $48,000, was picked up from a meatpacker north of Miami. It was bound for Salem, Ore. It is missing, too.

“This was definitely a smart organization,” said Mr. Holland, who was the broker on the load of meat. “They were smooth as silk.”

The thieves sought out loads headed for Detroit, Hartford, the Hunts Point market in New York, Los Angeles and Sacramento. Mr. Holland said that gave them time to carry out multiple thefts before the alarm was sounded, since in each case it would be from two to four days before the loads were due at their destinations. Brokers and shippers suspect the thieves had a buyer for the produce.

In this case nobody got a gun stuck in their face. Contracts were drawn up and what appears to be a legitimate trucking company was contracted to pick up the goods and deliver them to their respective destinations.

So, in a case of what looks like fraud, what would a first time offender be facing, punishmentwise?

If he had a real good attorney, he could probably get away with probation and community service.

But that’s beside the point, isn’t it?

The point, the real story here is a combination of ‘who took the food’ and why?

The theory put forth here is the food was stolen for resale…although the dollar figures don’t seem to justify the risk involved.

You can indeed speculate that the loads were ‘insured’ (although for how much will remain unknown.) in the beginning insurance is ‘attractively priced’ something that changes quite quickly as the ‘risk’ (losses) mounts.

Why food and why now?

Should we be on the lookout for a big time pasta fest (with 4 truckloads of tomatos comprising the bulk of the missing cargo?)

Hard to say good citizen, you know the uprisings across the Middle East have more to do with food shortages than ‘freedom’ but the rat-bastard capitalists don’t want you even thinking about what they will soon inflict upon you in the not too distant future.

Yeah, there was a blurb in today’s paper about inflation being ‘up slightly’ due to the relentless increases in food and gasoline.

Using the ‘New (Republican) math’ inflation is only up a few hundredths of a percent. But measured the ‘traditional’ way, (without all of the fudge and bullshit) inflation is running around nine and a half percent.

Make no mistake about it good citizen, food (in times of scarcity, regardless of the cause) is more valuable than gold!

Something to keep in mind after the collapse of civilization, a hoard of food is just as likely to get you killed as quick as a pile of gold will. Maybe even quicker given that the only thing gold will be marginally good for after the collapse is buying food…but that ‘assumes’ a seller (stupid enough to take troublesome ‘yellow metal’ over any number of vastly more useful items.)

But we still drift off topic.

One can assume this story attracted media attention because of the ‘slickness’ of the crime, four or five truckloads of food that have ‘disappeared’ after being legitimately contacted for.

Left to our imaginations is how much more food and toher items are simply ‘never making it to its intended destination’ that doesn’t get reported (to anyone beyond the trucker’s insurance carrier?)

I’d posit this puzzle is much larger than it appears and could account for the absence of food riots that should have broken out among the tens of millions of newly homeless created by globalization.

Not that such an untoward occurance would be considered ‘newsworthy’ by the coporate owned media. Which is to say if there were food riots it is doubtful we’d see it on the six o’clock news, even as a sidebar.

Did I mention the rat-bastard capitalists?

Four truckloads of tomatos makes for a curious mystery…throw in a truck load of mystery meat and it sounds like you have a Roman festival in the works…the only thing missing is the truck load of pasta.

And that may have slipped through the net…probably on purpose.

Just as mercenaries make no sense in a ‘free’ society, neither does stealing food in a land where more than a third of the population is on some form of food assistance.

Again, the numbers are ‘households’ and not individuals.

If prices get much higher it is only going to make the ‘theft’ problem that much worse…a circle without end.

And speaking of ‘ends’, I leave you here to ponder the true nature of this story.

Thanks for letting me inside your head,

Gegner

A pox upon our nation...

Greetings good citizen,

I’ve lost count of how many articles I’ve run on the topic of food shortages or the steady rise in the number of people seeking food ‘assistance’. One thing is for sure, it’s the topic that keeps on giving.

Which brings us to the opposite side of that coin, if these stories actually mean something then why hasn’t it happened yet?

Maybe it’s not going to happen…although that’s nothing more than wishful thinking. A food shortage isn’t a matter of ‘if’ but ‘when.’ Worse, the food supply will probably ‘dry up’ in tandem with the money supply.

Which isn’t particularly ‘encouraging’ news, so we have to ask ourselves…why bother?

Isn’t watching this train wreck in slow motion excruciating enough? What am I hoping to accomplish besides making myself look foolish?

Well good citizen, it IS getting worse, each report is a bit more dire than the one before it.

Um, due to the length of the original article, you will need to use the link to read the whole story.

Food Stamp Use Soars, and Stigma Fades

By JASON DePARLE and ROBERT GEBELOFF
Published: November 28, 2009

MARTINSVILLE, Ohio — With food stamp use at record highs and climbing every month, a program once scorned as a failed welfare scheme now helps feed one in eight Americans and one in four children. [Um, no good citizen, the number of applicants is rising because more and more people are ‘qualifying’. Back when these people had ‘good’ jobs, they didn’t qualify, now that they have shitty ‘new economy’ jobs (if they work at all) they do qualify!]

With millions of jobs lost and major industries on the ropes, America’s array of government aid — including unemployment insurance, food stamps and cash welfare — is being tested as never before. This series examines how the safety net is holding up under the worst economic crisis in decades. [Um, they have already pointed out that the extension of unemployment benefits to 92 weeks is unprecedented in the history of the program…worse, a record number of recipients will soon exhaust those extended benefits, while absolutely nothing is being done about the underlying cause of the crisis.]

It has grown so rapidly in places so diverse that it is becoming nearly as ordinary as the groceries it buys. More than 36 million people use inconspicuous plastic cards for staples like milk, bread and cheese, swiping them at counters in blighted cities and in suburbs pocked with foreclosure signs. [Interesting choice of verbiage there, don’t you think? The crisis is indeed a pox upon our nation, although some are suffering more than others…]

Virtually all have incomes near or below the federal poverty line, but their eclectic ranks testify to the range of people struggling with basic needs. They include single mothers and married couples, the newly jobless and the chronically poor, longtime recipients of welfare checks and workers whose reduced hours or slender wages leave pantries bare.

While the numbers have soared during the recession, the path was cleared in better times when the Bush administration led a campaign to erase the program’s stigma, calling food stamps “nutritional aid” instead of welfare, and made it easier to apply. That bipartisan effort capped an extraordinary reversal from the 1990s, when some conservatives tried to abolish the program, Congress enacted large cuts and bureaucratic hurdles chased many needy people away. [I suspect we would learn that this little known ‘helping hand’ from the Bush administration wasn’t enacted until after the economic crisis Bush’s political/economic policies created were in full bloom. It’s a little weird to hear about these programs so long after their creation…]

From the ailing resorts of the Florida Keys to Alaskan villages along the Bering Sea, the program is now expanding at a pace of about 20,000 people a day.

There are 239 counties in the United States where at least a quarter of the population receives food stamps, according to an analysis of local data collected by The New York Times. The counties are as big as the Bronx and Philadelphia and as small as Owsley County in Kentucky, a patch of Appalachian distress where half of the 4,600 residents receive food stamps.

In more than 750 counties, the program helps feed one in three blacks. In more than 800 counties, it helps feed one in three children. In the Mississippi River cities of St. Louis, Memphis and New Orleans, half of the children or more receive food stamps. Even in Peoria, Ill. — Everytown, U.S.A. — nearly 40 percent of children receive aid. [I believe a report from nearly a year ago stated that 40 percent was a ‘national mean’, that 4 out of every 10 US citizens were receiving some kind of food assistance. It’s hard to get firm numbers because of the plethora of food assistance programs out there!]

While use is greatest where poverty runs deep, the growth has been especially swift in once-prosperous places hit by the housing bust. There are about 50 small counties and a dozen sizable ones where the rolls have doubled in the last two years. In another 205 counties, they have risen by at least two-thirds. These places with soaring rolls include populous Riverside County, Calif., most of greater Phoenix and Las Vegas, a ring of affluent Atlanta suburbs, and a 150-mile stretch of southwest Florida from Bradenton to the Everglades.

Although the program is growing at a record rate, the federal official who oversees it would like it to grow even faster. [Which is to say this remark isn’t as mean spirited as it appears to be…]

“I think the response of the program has been tremendous,” said Kevin Concannon, an under secretary of agriculture, “but we’re mindful that there are another 15, 16 million who could benefit.” [Yes good citizen, while the ‘stigma’ of receiving ‘food assistance’ has diminished, it hasn’t completely disappeared.]

Nationwide, food stamps reach about two-thirds of those eligible, with rates ranging from an estimated 50 percent in California to 98 percent in Missouri. Mr. Concannon urged lagging states to do more to enroll the needy, citing a recent government report that found a sharp rise in Americans with inconsistent access to adequate food.

“This is the most urgent time for our feeding programs in our lifetime, with the exception of the Depression,” he said. “It’s time for us to face up to the fact that in this country of plenty, there are hungry people.”

The program’s growing reach can be seen in a corner of southwestern Ohio where red state politics reign and blue-collar workers have often called food stamps a sign of laziness. But unemployment has soared, and food stamp use in a six-county area outside Cincinnati has risen more than 50 percent.

As the ‘economic desert’ grows, reality starts to sink in to the conservative mind…it is better to accept the ‘handout’ and survive than to perish for one’s misguided principles. But you know that isn’t how they see it, especially when the ‘aid’ is going to someone other than them.

But enough of that, this article is four pages long and I just couldn’t bring myself to put that much reading on your plate…not that I haven’t in the past or that I will continue to refrain in the future…just saying, ya know?

What got me going here was the rather dramatic rise in participation rates. This isn’t all due to rising unemployment; ‘underemployment’ is playing a strong role here too.

If we follow this ‘trend’, it is sure looking like half of us will soon be on some kind of food assistance program…and that by itself should make you go hmmn…

A population largely unable to feed itself is one of the surest early signs of social collapse, so why can’t we afford food?

Part of it is energy costs. Simply put, our paychecks aren’t keeping pace with the amount we are forced to spend on energy, leaving us less money to spend on other, er, ‘necessities’.

Of the four basic necessities, food, clothing, shelter and transportation, you have the most control over the smallest of the four…food.

If it costs you more to commute to your job, you usually lose the extra from your food and clothing budget…with clothing commonly representing a sacrifice in the ‘entertainment’ budget.

If you’re not being paid enough to ‘crack your nut’ and times like these don’t provide the leverage to get a raise, you either find yourself ‘in the hunt’ (for a new job) or looking for a way to stretch out your income!

And suddenly we have ‘food assistance’ to the rescue! Until the chiseler you work for finds out you’re on food stamps and they decide you don’t need a raise after all, you’ve got it covered, even if your underwear is in tatters.

Because that’s the ‘root’ of the problem good citizen, the people on ‘food assistance’ simply aren’t being paid enough!

Worse, good citizen, this problem is unlikely to straighten itself out. The boss isn’t going to volunteer to pay you more.

In fact, if it were up to him, he’d never pay you more! Which is why we shouldn’t allow anyone to cut anybody a paycheck! If the decision ever comes down to you or him, you aren’t even an afterthought. He wins, you lose.

Naturally, it is unhealthy for society to let any individual make this choice. At the end of the day, they simply don’t have enough information to make the right choice, never-mind that their motivation for making that choice is all wrong too!

If we are to save civilization (or what passes for it) we must remove ‘self-interest’ from the decision-making process. It has been proven time and again that a person acting in their own best interests will throw their entire civilization ‘under the bus’ because they do not comprehend the consequences of their actions.

Greed is seldom benign.

Thanks for letting me inside your head,

Gegner

What are they playing at?

Greetings good citizen,

Not only did the nation mourn the loss of the senior senator from Massachusetts, but the stock markets, which looked close to closing negative, rallied once more in the last five minutes of trading.

I’m sure you’ve all heard enough about the funeral arrangements so there’s no need to dwell upon them further here. On the other hand, if you blinked you likely missed the post that is tonight’s offering

Yes, good citizen, after rising continually throughout the ‘deflationary’ period of low interest rates and ‘negative’ inflation, we are now being advised that food prices are, once again, ‘on the rise’.

I’m pretty close to this issue as I ‘do’ the shopping…um, is this article trying to tell me that food prices stopped going up and are now resuming their climb or are they saying they will move up at an even brisker pace than they have been rising?

Food Prices Likely to Start Ticking Up

By WILLIAM NEUMAN
Published: August 25, 2009

Prices for beef, milk, eggs and some other grocery items have been dropping for several months, providing relief for consumers who suffered through the steep increases of a year ago. But prices are likely to start edging upward again as the economy recovers, according to a new federal report and economic analysts. [Excuse me? When did the price increases stop? If they stopped, I have yet to see it reflected in the weekly shopping bill.]

“The impact from lower energy prices on grocery store prices has largely been played out, and so we’re now looking at grocery store prices to rise modestly through the end of the year,” said Mark Vitner, a managing director and senior economist at Wells Fargo. [Again, the original word on this topic is grocers were unable to ‘recoup’ their ‘losses’ when energy costs spiked and they would keep increasing prices because of this…now we’re being told that ‘reduced energy prices’ have finally ‘played out’ and prices are about to go up again? WTF! Prices haven’t stopped rising.]

The government report, by the Economic Research Service of the Department of Agriculture, said that grocery prices decreased 0.5 percent in July, compared with June. Compared with July 2008, when overall food costs were surging, grocery prices in July were down 0.9 percent. [Um, notice they don’t tell you what planet this is taking place on, as ‘tenths of a percent’ are once again being treated as a ‘big deal’.]

In several food categories, prices dropped sharply. Beef fell 2.3 percent in July, compared with June, the eighth decrease in the last nine months, according to the report. [Have you priced beef recently? They are indeed knocking down the price BECAUSE NOBODY WAS BUYING IT!] Egg prices were down 2.7 percent from June to July and were 21.3 percent below their level in July a year ago. Milk prices declined 0.4 percent in the month, the 10th decline in the last 11 months, and were 18.4 percent below July 2008. [Somewhat strange to see them using heavily subsidized milk prices as a comparison since the price has no relationship to reality.]

The national average price for a gallon of fresh whole milk in July was $2.99, compared with $3.96 in the same month a year earlier, a 25 percent drop, according to federal data.

Prices for fresh fruit and vegetables were also down markedly compared with their levels a year ago. [Um, you don’t suppose ‘seasonality’ AND the drastic reduction in energy prices have anything to do with it, do you?]

In contrast, some food prices rose compared with last year, including breakfast cereals, sugar and carbonated drinks. [So much for our nod to ‘reality’, a lot more than breakfast cereal and soft drinks have gone up in price.]

Over all, the Agriculture Department forecast that prices for what it calls “food at home,” a category that includes purchases at grocery stores, convenience stores and farmers’ markets, will rise 2 to 3 percent this year. Last year, the department said, prices for food at home rose 6.4 percent, the highest jump in nearly two decades.

“We do expect some price increases with the recovering economy,” said Ephraim Leibtag, a senior economist at the Agriculture Department. “Our numbers here imply there has to be some additional inflation in the next six months to get out of the negatives we’re in right now.” [Wait a minute, Slim! Do you see the ‘smokescreen’ being blown up your backside? The so-called ‘recovery’ (which so far only bloodhounds have caught scent of) is going to be accompanied by rising food prices? What kind of twaddle is this? As I have pointed out repeatedly in the past, it is extremely dangerous to lie about what the consumer can see and touch themselves. If you haven’t been paying attention, let me inform you that despite the lousy spring, they’re projecting a bumper harvest this year! But then again, we’re literally swimming in oil and the price continues to rise…]

Bill Lapp, president of Advanced Economic Solutions, a consulting firm that specializes in analysis of food commodity costs, said that even with only a modest gain this year, food inflation was expected to outpace the overall rise in the Consumer Price Index, which he said could be close to zero for the year. [What do you suppose this will do for the still nascent economic recovery? Worse, it appears we are being prepped to let speculators make another killing while they pick our pockets yet again!]

Mr. Lapp said that one reason food prices would continue to rise was that commodities like corn continued to trade above historical averages, even though they had come down from the unusually high levels they reached last year. [Um, add to that that most ethanol producers have gone bankrupt in the meantime…]

And some of the food categories that have recorded price declines, like beef, pork, poultry and dairy products, will begin to go back up as farmers cull herds and flocks, causing supplies of those products to decline.

“I think that the food inflation wake-up call won’t begin, in large measure, until late this year and in 2010,” Mr. Lapp said. He said, however, that there were already signs of rising prices for chicken and milk. [So, this is the tip of the iceberg…millions have lost their homes and millions more have lost their jobs, how do you suppose this is going to turn out?]

Faith Weiner, senior director of public affairs for Stop & Shop, the supermarket chain, said that shoppers had been snapping up large packages of meat or poultry when they were on sale.

“We think folks are stocking up,” Ms. Weiner said. “You might have a special on chicken breasts, a Big Buy packet at a reduced price. People are buying more than they normally would and freezing them because it’s a good value.”

What part of this picture don’t these assholes get? Cut jobs and slash the wages of those who keep their jobs, then let prices climb out of control…what does that sound like to you?

It sounds like a recipe for disaster to me.

How much do they think people will tolerate? Sadly, we’ve already proven that we will tolerate quite a bit, even the unfair and the unreasonable.

And once you’ve ‘given it back’ you have to fight for it all over again.

How bad do you suppose it will get good citizen? We all have different thresholds and can even astound ourselves with the levels of depravity we will tolerate.

Why?

Because in our current ‘anything goes’ situation, nobody is making a stand, it’s all good…until it isn’t.

There’s been a lot of discussion out there about ‘moral compasses’ and it has revealed we don’t, as a society, have one.

Be afraid, good citizen, be very afraid.

Thanks for letting me inside your head,

Gegner