Food Riots Commence As The Fed's Loose Money Policy Leads To First Violence Of 2011

We were only partially serious when we predicted that following the just released FAO data confirming food prices have just hit an all time high, we were expecting food riots to ensue imminently. Alas, as all too often happens these days, we were right. 2011 first and certainly not last rioting comes out of Algeria, where Bernanke's genocidal policies are first to take root. From the Associated Press: "Riots over rising food prices and chronic unemployment spiraled out
from Algeria's capital on Thursday, with youths torching government
buildings and shouting "Bring us Sugar!" Police helicopters circled over Algiers, and stores
closed early. Security officers blocked off streets in the tense
working-class neighborhood of Bab el-Oued, near the capital's ancient
Casbah, and areas outside the city were swept up in the rampages. The U.S. Embassy issued a warning to Americans in Algeria to "remain vigilant" and avoid crowds. Riots on Wednesday night in the neighborhood saw a police station, a Renault car dealership and other buildings set ablaze. Police with tear gas fired back at stone-throwing youths through the night." Algeria's violence is unfortunately just the start. The big to keep an eye out on is rice. If the liquidity makes its way there, the Chinese soft landing may just become much, much harder.

From the AP:

Wednesday's violence started after evening Muslim prayers. It came after price hikes for milk, sugar and flour in recent days, and amid simmering frustration that Algeria's abundant gas-and-oil resources have not translated into broader prosperity.

Youths resumed their outbursts Thursday afternoon.

Violence erupted across town in the El Harrach neighborhood, where youths set tires on fire and threw stones at police. Some officers were seen rounding up suspected troublemakers.

In the suburb of Rouiba, youths set fire to tires and danced around them, chanting "Bring us sugar!" Others tore down street signs and smashed streetlights with iron bars. In the suburb of Bordj El Bahri east of Algiers, rioters set fire to a post office. In nearby Dergana, youths set a town hall alight.

The violence led to blocked roads and kept schoolchildren and workers from getting home. Parents were heard talking to their children on cell phones, urging them to seek safety.

Algeria is still recovering from an insurgency that ravaged the country throughout the 1990s after the army canceled 1992 elections that fundamentalists were expected to win. Bab el-Oued is a former stronghold of that group, the now-banned Islamic Salvation Front, or FIS.

"They are right, these young people. They have no job, no housing, no visa (for other countries) and now not even bread or milk," said Amara Ourab, a resident of the neighborhood in her 50s.

Neighboring Tunisia has also seen violent protests in recent weeks over unemployment, leading to three deaths.

We can't wait for the Banzai Institute to do an artist's impression of the hand sketches taking place at the Hague's 2013 proceedings for crimes against humanity which will prominently feature just one notable Ivy league educated defendant

h/t Sean

Comments

[Thanatos]

I don't buy the useless eater... But all of the good stuff has come from Oil not Technology.

All our Tech does is convert Oil into something else we need or want.

When the Oil is short, So are we...

[aerojet]

Is this really a food riot or some more welfare cases upset that they might have to pay a non-subsidized price for certain food items?  It's like the riots in Greece--give me a fucking break!  Those people aren't protesting anything but their inability to grasp reality.

[TraderMark]

1 in 6 Ameericans now in poverty even using very generous definition of who is in poverty

i.e. if you make 14K as a single or 26k as a family of 4 - you are not in poverty.

http://www.fundmymutualfund.com/2011/01/ap-census-estimates-suggest-1-in...

Take away the food stamp program and we'd make Algeria look like amateur hour.

[walküre]

Family dinner at McDonald's is about $30 bucks.. or the equivalent to one oz Silver.

[mauistroker]

TDs title piece was about the Feds easy money and food inflation. We've been all over the map on this one - OK I guess? There's more mileage in the analogy introduced above though - the Bernank is pouring gasoline on but doesn't have a match. Then someone said the his match is irrelevant because the 'fire is already lit'. This is doing my fucking head in.

Then I thought, maybe its that he's pouring the gasoline on (and has matches) but the wood is wet and just keeps going out. Now I sound like badly written dialogue between Vincent and Jules in Pulp Fiction! It needs a Hussman or someone who really gets it but to to put it in simple terms like the fire analogy.

What happens when the wood eventually dries out? Is it inferno time or just a normal bonfire because the fuel that dried the wood in burnt off?

This is central to everything and there is no consensus on it - inflation, deflation, hyper this, timing, which comes first, etc

[TruthInSunshine]

If you want to use an analogy, may I suggest:

Bernanke can pile all the firewood as high as he would like (in reality, I would and do argue that he is actually somewhat constrained, as recent political events are demonstrating - and he hasn't even come close to printing the sums involved in hyperinflationary nation-states, relative to GDP), but if the termites that are eating the wood, with the termites being a drop in demand for credit, a drop in demand for goods and services, a drop in demand for EMPLOYEES, a drop in WAGES, a drop in the value of real estate, a drop in demand to open new businesses to all the aforementioned factors, etc. - if these termites eat the wood as fast, faster, or even closely as fast as Bernanke stocks the firewood, match or no match, Bernanke is going to run out of firewood, and he likely won't even know if he's stockpiled enough to keep the fire from dying out after political consequences *he shouldn't be dabbling in political matters, anyways, but yet he arguably is* kneecap him severely (and for anyone who thinks this won't happen, look at what inflation did to Carter's chances at a 2nd term, or how The Federal Reserve was viewed back in 1979).

ZeroHedge ran a piece 3 weeks ago claiming Bernanke's policies finally offset, arguably, the overhang in shadow liabilities banks had, from a purely monetarist viewpoint.

I'd add the extremely large caveat that unless Bernanke can 'fix' the employment, wage and demand side of the equation, he might as well bring a supersoaker to a 5 alarm fire.

Bernanke can't fix those things, whether one believes he does or does not intend to try.

[Kali]

My two cents, FWIW. (as a VERY small food producer).

Populations have become dependent on foods that are not "indigenous".  Maybe if Algerians had stuck with date palms, instead of traded commodities, they would not be in this fix and would have their "sugar".

Can't find link, but remember reading article about India(?), program to get farmers back to growing local foods/plants/livestock instead of paying Monsanto and Dow big bucks for seed stock and ag chems that they had to borrow money for.   Ends up, farmers made more $$ selling food locally, not so much famine and nutrition was greatly enhanced.  Instead of trying to bend (break?) nature to do human want/will, should be working with nature to provide what is needed.

[Dapper Dan]

What is the date of this article? is it 01/06/11