The Economist: The Silent Tsunami

[robertpaulsen]

The silent tsunami

Apr 17th 2008
From The Economist print edition
Food prices are causing misery and strife around the world. Radical solutions are needed

PICTURES of hunger usually show passive eyes and swollen bellies. The harvest fails because of war or strife; the onset of crisis is sudden and localised. Its burden falls on those already at the margin.

Today's pictures are different. “This is a silent tsunami,” says Josette Sheeran of the World Food Programme, a United Nations agency. A wave of food-price inflation is moving through the world, leaving riots and shaken governments in its wake. For the first time in 30 years, food protests are erupting in many places at once. Bangladesh is in turmoil (see article); even China is worried (see article). Elsewhere, the food crisis of 2008 will test the assertion of Amartya Sen, an Indian economist, that famines do not happen in democracies.

Famine traditionally means mass starvation. The measures of today's crisis are misery and malnutrition. The middle classes in poor countries are giving up health care and cutting out meat so they can eat three meals a day. The middling poor, those on $2 a day, are pulling children from school and cutting back on vegetables so they can still afford rice. Those on $1 a day are cutting back on meat, vegetables and one or two meals, so they can afford one bowl. The desperate—those on 50 cents a day—face disaster.

Roughly a billion people live on $1 a day. If, on a conservative estimate, the cost of their food rises 20% (and in some places, it has risen a lot more), 100m people could be forced back to this level, the common measure of absolute poverty. In some countries, that would undo all the gains in poverty reduction they have made during the past decade of growth. Because food markets are in turmoil, civil strife is growing; and because trade and openness itself could be undermined, the food crisis of 2008 may become a challenge to globalisation.

http://www.economist.com/opinion/displayStory.cfm?Story_ID=11050146

I would have to agree with Matt Savinar's comments on this:

The cover of this week's issue of The Economist - the Anglo-American financial establishment's paper of record - is worth taking particular note of even if most LATOC readers (myself included) are likely to find their "solutions" - more aggressive globalization - to be revolting.

http://www.lifeaftertheoilcrash.net/BreakingNews.html

[izquierdista]

1. They may not happen in democracies

But they do happen under fascist dictatorships.

As far as the solutions go, if all the money that was pumped into the Third World to make them consumers of Western products was instead used to make them self-sufficient in food, fiber, and fuel, then this crisis would not be looming. Instead of buying American grain, they could have been expanding their own fields of foods native to the area. Instead of buying Saudi crude oil, they could have been growing biofuel crops and putting up windmills. All this tying together of the Global Economy was such a wonderful idea -- until the leader of it stumbled and fell flat on its face. The next time a conservative says they are "proud to be an American", remind them that "pride goeth before a fall".

[1776Forever]

2. And you know who is going to pay for this atrocity in the end besides those that are starving?

Look in the mirror - this is going to cause American's who travel even more grief and we are probably going to see a heightened terrorist attack regiment because of it! While the CEO's keep getting their millions and more and more companies are moving to China and India!

Did the Bilderberg's plan this? NAFTA, CAFTA, etc.? I wonder sometimes! I know it is a tin-foil hat subject but it is going that way quickly. Both Clinton's belong to it and so do Rumsfeld, and many others, some that I wouldn't have thought such as John Edwards. Makes one wonder though!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Bilderberg_attendees

:shrug:

[grasswire]

6. the elites, especially the Bushes, have long favored population control...

...even to the point that George Herbert Walker Bush, as a Congressman, was given the nickname "Rubbers" by his fellows in Congress because he was so enamored of eugenics and other such tinkering with humanity. He favored the depopulation of "lesser" peoples. Their long view is Hegelian and Malthusian. Interesting, but horrifying.

[Baby Snooks]

7. And of course she was pro-life

Barbara Bush "renounced" her position on abortion when they entered the race for president in 1980. And yet probably hasn't changed her position and probably would support sterilization of the "lesser thans" although of course the taxpayers would pay for it. The Bushes have always lived off other people's money. And lived very well.

During the 2001 UNAIDS conference one of the representatives of the Bush Administration made reference to AIDS as a natural form of population control which horrified everyone but of course all the AIDS organizations believe in being "politically correct" to ensure they get some sort of funding so none of them said a word.

[autorank]

3. It's murder

Simply put and it's a testimony to the merging of the culture of greed and the culture of death.

How pathetic the manipulators are. k*r

[Hydra]

4. Pathetic is right

The only reason for mass murder is fear. Those "elite" murderers tremble in their boots at the thought of the people of the world tossing them out on their a**es, where they might have to work at surviving.

I think it's a good idea, myself. Make them grow their own food and husband their own animals. Lets see how they do.

[MmeG]

5. Shock Doctrine in action:

anyone see the story in the NYTimes earlier this week with a reference to new acceptance of GM foods due to hunger concerns?

[Hannah Bell]

8. Yep. It's deliberate, I fully believe this now. n/t