AMERICAblog: Rice shortage triggers 50% price increase in two weeks
Jamra
· 1 year ago
"The impact will be felt most keenly by the world's poorest populations, who have become increasingly dependent on the crop as the prices of other grains have become too costly"
And yet who has proposed price protections and grower hand-outs in order to push the costs even higher - Hillary! Her economic plan is insane. Like Randi Rhodes said: the ho needs to drop out of the race and take her bigotted nonsense with her.
bullitt
· 1 year ago
Do you think our leaders give a rat's ass about the price of any food source. They are living as royalty along with their rich friends. Their greatest worry is whether or not their filet mignon was cooked to their liking!
vkobaya
· 1 year ago
leaders ... greatestworry is whether or not their filet mignon was cooked to their liking
Not Filet mignon, more like caviar and truffles, except Bush. That ass served hot dogs to Queen Elizabeth, and to Putin. He probably is too stupid to even prefer premium hot dogs like Hebrew National, likes Oscar Meyer.
Oh I wish he were an Oscar Meyer wiener, cause there would be nothing left of him.
Reality is that he is an Oscar Meyer wiener.
ndtovent
· 1 year ago
GOD, don't I know it! I cook/eat a LOT of rice. I use it in a lot of main dishes, but i love it so much that I can eat it just plain w/no seasoning. Make a lot of rice pilaf and mexican rice dishes, freezing it/them for side dishes during the week, etc... And the price per lb has tripled here in just the last few months.. WTF???!!!!!
nicho
· 1 year ago
MAHALLA EL-KOBRA, Egypt—Thousands of demonstrators angry about rising prices and stagnant salaries torched buildings, looted shops and hurled bricks at police who responded with tear gas Sunday in a northern industrial town as Egyptians staged a nationwide strike. more stories like this
About 150 people were arrested and 80 were wounded in the gritty Nile Delta town of Mahalla el-Kobra, where riots broke out among residents and disgruntled workers at the largest textile factory in Egypt.
Protesters stormed city hall, burned tires in the streets, smashed chairs through shop windows and ran off with computers. At least two schools were set ablaze and facades of banks were vandalized, police said.
Nearly 100 others were arrested elsewhere across Egypt, officials said, as thousands skipped work and school and hundreds protested over the rising cost of food and deteriorating working conditions.
nicho
· 1 year ago
Busboy 12 minutes ago
I know this has to be Bush's fault. Where are Older and Wiser and Lynchie and tlsintx and Webster to explain how Bush and his cronies pulled off the rice shortage and how Halliburton is going to profit?
What a breathtakingly stupid comment.
aquarius2
· 1 year ago
Chris
Thank you for reminding me that there are nations where rice is a staple. We moan and groan here but I cannot begin to imagine what it would be like to be without food for my family. It makes me want to cry when I think about it. Next time I am asked to donate I am going to remember this post and bump up my donation.l
This would be a great time to elect a President who, by his own admission, doesnt know much about the economy...
meow
· 1 year ago
neoliberalism is all I can say--oh gees the IMF and World Bank thought they knew what they were doing--lie
theWalrus
· 1 year ago
"Jamra, I am supporting Obama, but your attempt to pin this on Hillary is lunacy."
Maybe that's because "Jamra" (formerly known as "ObamaMiracle") is a lunatic.
Kibitzer 2006
· 1 year ago
I just want to know what this means:
"This is the second year running in which production - which increased in real terms last year - has failed to keep pace with population growth."
What are "real terms" for rice production? I understand that "real terms" for prices, salaries, etc. means relative to overall inflation. For rice production about the only meaning I could think of would be relative to population size. So how does rice production increase in "real terms" and yet fail to keep pace with population growth?
--Kibitzer 2206
S_in_Tokyo
· 1 year ago
This thread is full of crazies. Can't you take news as bad as this seriously? Does everything have to be fodder for partisan bickering?
The Dude Abides
· 1 year ago
The biggest factor contributing to high rice prices is excessive speculation by the commodities traders, which is causing the rice producers to hoard their stocks, thus driving up the price. The commodity traders use huge amounts of leverage, and can therefore control a humongous dollar amount of rice with a minimal investment. The easiest solution to this problem would be to raise the margin requirement to 100%, thus requiring "cash on the barrelhead" if the trader wants to place a trade. This would wring the excess speculation out of the rice trade (and do the same thing for other food commodities), and lower rice prices.
If these food riots start spreading to poor US allies with significant Muslim populations, we could see increased radicalization and anti-American sentiment. Leave it to Chimpy to wait for this to happen before taking action, and that action he takes will probably be the wrong one.
jr
· 1 year ago
"there's no inflation"-helicopter ben
nikto
· 1 year ago
This is going to put the price of attending "ROCKY HORROR" midnight shows out of the reach of ordinary people.
Somebody's got to do something!
Gary SF
· 1 year ago
there have been riots in several countries regarding the price of rice. Here in SF, there has been some 'panic buying' in Chinatown.
Jamra, I am supporting Obama, but your attempt to pin this on Hillary is lunacy.
Busboy
· 1 year ago
I know this has to be Bush's fault. Where are Older and Wiser and Lynchie and tlsintx and Webster to explain how Bush and his cronies pulled off the rice shortage and how Halliburton is going to profit?
ndtovent
· 1 year ago
No, it's not all bush's fault directly, but the policies of his administration for the last 8 years, with a "screw-you-I-got-mine congress and a lax (read -- almost NO) regulation of the financial industry, and the gungho policy moves towards ethanol (made with CORN rather than more abundant vegetation sources such as switchgrass, et. al.) have been a major contribution to it.. Thanks, assholes
Jamra
· 1 year ago
"Where are Older and Wiser and Lynchie and tlsintx and Webster to explain how Bush and his cronies pulled off the rice shortage and how Halliburton is going to profit?"
Billary has to be at the root of the problem. No doubt the blue dress had something to do with it and the fact that racist Hillary photo-shopped Obama's pic for a KKK attack ad.
Webster
· 1 year ago
We didn't have to say it--you already did, Jamra. And, frankly, I wouldn't be a bit surprised--if there's money to be made in anything over the bodies of the innocent, Bush and his cronies will be there...
vkobaya
· 1 year ago
I know this has to be Bush's fault.
Yep! Bush is full of bullshit suggesting we make biofuel out of corn and other carbohydrate staples. Scientists calculate that it takes twice as much energy (petroleum) to produce those staples as is produced. These staples are for food. Rather than wasting our food for making fuel, we should use the waste products from the production of staples, stalks, leaves and roots. The cellulose in the wastes can be enzymatically hydrolyzed to sugar which then can be fermented to the desired alcohol. Or the plant wastes can be catalytically cracked like petroleum to produce the desired synthetic petrochemicals. Either way, can obtain many, many times the amount of fuel that comes from making alcohol from food grains.
There is a reason why Bush is promoting synthetic biofuels. These synthetic biofuels require huge capital investments in factories and equipment meaning that the rich fat cats still control the production and can gouge citizens to their heart's content. But if we turn to things like solar and wind energy, each citizen can have their own solar panels or wind mills and thus control the cost of the power themselves. You notice that when industry gets involved in solar and wind energy, they continue to stress massive fields of either with the concurrent high captial investments and overhead allowing the fat cats to continue to control the sources of power and profiteer from our need for that power. In reality, we can install solar panels and windmills on our own homes and provide all the power we need.
Then too, I think the current shortage is a fake. Bush has only been promoting ethanol from corn for several months. They cannot have already ramped up production of ethanol that much that we are already experiencing massive world wide shortages. Probably hording against future needs and higher prices. Bush has never done anything that isn't criminal.
Busboy
· 1 year ago
I'm with you until the last paragraph. These ethanol subsidies have been going on for years. Everyone knows that ethanol is more expensive than gasoline to produce on a BTU basis without the government subsidy. However, it's the democrats and greens who are pushing the subsidies along with a few corn state republicans.
All Comments
And yet who has proposed price protections and grower hand-outs in order to push the costs even higher - Hillary! Her economic plan is insane. Like Randi Rhodes said: the ho needs to drop out of the race and take her bigotted nonsense with her.
Not Filet mignon, more like caviar and truffles, except Bush. That ass served hot dogs to Queen Elizabeth, and to Putin. He probably is too stupid to even prefer premium hot dogs like Hebrew National, likes Oscar Meyer.
Oh I wish he were an Oscar Meyer wiener, cause there would be nothing left of him.
Reality is that he is an Oscar Meyer wiener.
more stories like this
About 150 people were arrested and 80 were wounded in the gritty Nile Delta town of Mahalla el-Kobra, where riots broke out among residents and disgruntled workers at the largest textile factory in Egypt.
Protesters stormed city hall, burned tires in the streets, smashed chairs through shop windows and ran off with computers. At least two schools were set ablaze and facades of banks were vandalized, police said.
Nearly 100 others were arrested elsewhere across Egypt, officials said, as thousands skipped work and school and hundreds protested over the rising cost of food and deteriorating working conditions.
I know this has to be Bush's fault. Where are Older and Wiser and Lynchie and tlsintx and Webster to explain how Bush and his cronies pulled off the rice shortage and how Halliburton is going to profit?
What a breathtakingly stupid comment.
Thank you for reminding me that there are nations where rice is a staple. We moan and groan here but I cannot begin to imagine what it would be like to be without food for my family. It makes me want to cry when I think about it. Next time I am asked to donate I am going to remember this post and bump up my donation.l
Things are turning ugly.
http://www.magicvalley.com/articles/2008/04/06/...
Maybe that's because "Jamra" (formerly known as "ObamaMiracle") is a lunatic.
"This is the second year running in which production - which increased in real terms last year - has failed to keep pace with population growth."
What are "real terms" for rice production? I understand that "real terms" for prices, salaries, etc. means relative to overall inflation. For rice production about the only meaning I could think of would be relative to population size. So how does rice production increase in "real terms" and yet fail to keep pace with population growth?
--Kibitzer 2206
If these food riots start spreading to poor US allies with significant Muslim populations, we could see increased radicalization and anti-American sentiment. Leave it to Chimpy to wait for this to happen before taking action, and that action he takes will probably be the wrong one.
midnight shows out of the reach of ordinary people.
Somebody's got to do something!
Jamra, I am supporting Obama, but your attempt to pin this on Hillary is lunacy.
Billary has to be at the root of the problem. No doubt the blue dress had something to do with it and the fact that racist Hillary photo-shopped Obama's pic for a KKK attack ad.
Yep! Bush is full of bullshit suggesting we make biofuel out of corn and other carbohydrate staples. Scientists calculate that it takes twice as much energy (petroleum) to produce those staples as is produced. These staples are for food. Rather than wasting our food for making fuel, we should use the waste products from the production of staples, stalks, leaves and roots. The cellulose in the wastes can be enzymatically hydrolyzed to sugar which then can be fermented to the desired alcohol. Or the plant wastes can be catalytically cracked like petroleum to produce the desired synthetic petrochemicals. Either way, can obtain many, many times the amount of fuel that comes from making alcohol from food grains.
There is a reason why Bush is promoting synthetic biofuels. These synthetic biofuels require huge capital investments in factories and equipment meaning that the rich fat cats still control the production and can gouge citizens to their heart's content. But if we turn to things like solar and wind energy, each citizen can have their own solar panels or wind mills and thus control the cost of the power themselves. You notice that when industry gets involved in solar and wind energy, they continue to stress massive fields of either with the concurrent high captial investments and overhead allowing the fat cats to continue to control the sources of power and profiteer from our need for that power. In reality, we can install solar panels and windmills on our own homes and provide all the power we need.
Then too, I think the current shortage is a fake. Bush has only been promoting ethanol from corn for several months. They cannot have already ramped up production of ethanol that much that we are already experiencing massive world wide shortages. Probably hording against future needs and higher prices. Bush has never done anything that isn't criminal.