Both the Wall Street Journal and todays New York Times have run stories highlighting the severe problems being created by the inflation of food prices worldwide. From the Times:
Haiti’s hunger, that burn in the belly that so many here feel, has become fiercer than ever in recent days as global food prices spiral out of reach, spiking as much as 45 percent since the end of 2006 and turning Haitian staples like beans, corn and rice into closely guarded treasures.
Saint Louis Meriska’s children ate two spoonfuls of rice apiece as their only meal recently and then went without any food the following day. His eyes downcast, his own stomach empty, the unemployed father said forlornly, “They look at me and say, ‘Papa, I’m hungry,’ and I have to look away. It’s humiliating and it makes you angry.”
The rise in commodity prices have placed normal food staples out of the reach of many of the world’s poorest people. This hunger, beyond the human toll, is begining to shake the political foundations of many countries.
Down Cairo’s Hafziyah Street, peddlers selling food from behind wood carts bark out their prices. But few customers can afford their fish or chicken, which bake in the hot sun. Food prices have doubled in two months.
Ahmed Abul Gheit, 25, sat on a cheap, stained wooden chair by his own pile of rotting tomatoes. “We can’t even find food,” he said, looking over at his friend Sobhy Abdullah, 50. Then raising his hands toward the sky, as if in prayer, he said, “May God take the guy I have in mind.”
Mr. Abdullah nodded, knowing full well that the “guy” was President Hosni Mubarak.
The explosion in food pricing has also brought criticism of the bio-fuels program, which some see as a catalyst for higher grain prices. The world economic situation continues to deteriorate, and the changes to come may bring us to unchartered territory. Read the Times story here.
Bill Manzi.com 
Your Honor,
I have been watching the food inflation cycle rapidly growing for several months now. It began when our government began it’s “green” revolution, legislating ethanol production without any idea of the unintended consequences.
It wasn’t too long before farmers found that growing corn was more profitable and converted from many of the grains and vegetables they once grew to corn.
Soon every industry that used the other grains were paying ever increasing prices. Now bread, beer and cereal prices were climbing.
The increase in oil price coupled with scarcity of once plentiful foods is affecting your precious “working families”.
Now with commodity speculation, changes in the value of money and the poverty of foreign citizen, the problem is spreading world wide.
Some points;
Human influence on “global warming” is NOT a provable science. The science has been politicized and now people will and are suffering. Soon you will see rioting especially in Hati.
The good news; if the politicians and their mentor activists leave things alone the problem will correct themselves. High prices will bring in more acres of rare comodities to stablize prices. IT WILL TAKE TIME.
IF ANYONE WANTS TO CHALLENGE ME ON THE GLOBAL WARMING FANTASY, I WILL BE WILLING DISCUSS IT.
Jules
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An Interesting Phenomenon;
When I try to enter a comment under you “WE” entry I am automatically sent to the “WE” website.
Do you figure that I will sign up if sent there endlessly?
Jules
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That feature was designed specifically for you. I figured if Newt Gingrich and President Bush were coming on board the global warming express you could as well.
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Your Honor,
Nanacy Pelosi AND Newt Gingrich sitting together is like joining matter and anti-matter. KABOOM
President Bush is in fact aboard using all the right green words.
A dark day for the few of us who stand for truth and justice. I feel like one of the 300 who stood alone in the pass at Thermopylae. Certain to die.
Not only do these sad events not sway me from my belief, but I would like to quote some paragraphs from an editorial in The Economist issue of April 19, 2008 entitled “The Silent Tsunami”. A discussion of the food crisis and it’s causes.
First let me preface my remarks by establishing my beliefs;
1. I cannot argue the Science of Global warming as to whether it is real or not. Neither can you (or Nancy Pelosi, Newt Gingerich or President Bush nor WE)
2. The truth of any scientific hypothesis cannot be established by a show of hands.
3. I support any “green” activity that is implemented economically and inteligently (a commodity in short supply). It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to know we have mucked up our planet. My issue here is health and safety not global warming.
4. I take umbrage with the POLITICS of global warming as far as human impact is concerned.
With that settled I now quote from the editorial;
“In general, government ought to liberalise markets, not intervene in them further. Food is riddled with state intervention at every turn, from subsidies to millers for cheap bread to bribes for farmers to leave land fallow.”
The argument that follows in the paragraph says these interventions upset markets through distortion and leads to economic imbalance world wide.
The editorial continues in the next paragraph, “For decades, this produced low world prices and disincentives to poor farmers. Now the opposite is happening. As a result of yet another government distortion-this time subsidies to biofuels in the rich world-prices have gone through the roof.
Your Honor, if you look at my first entry in this issue I make the same arguments. The do-gooders (i.e. Noncy Pelosi and her bipartisan gang) have enacted global warming legislation along with mandatory subsidies, to mandate biofuels in our automotive gas causing a major change in the economics of agriculture resulting in food shortages and price increases.
In short the action of your WE buddies have caused the death of many (starvation and riots) and the hardship to millions of people (even the Democrat’s working families) to satisfy an unsubstantiated global warning effect.
That increase in cost to the citizens of this fair city will come out of your hide if you should go after a property tax increase. The article goes on to plead with the governments to leave things alone and let the markets resolve themselves. It will take time. (compare that argument with mine in the first entry).
You can read the article at http://www.economist.com
The food crisis is real and now. Global warming is not.
I stand ready to defend my position on the FACTS.
Jules
PS I look forward to our discussion on the income tax elimination vote in November.
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