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Deja Food: Will Social Unrest Surge As Corn Prices Soar?
With Corn hitting its highs again, we are reminded that global food production has been hitting constraints as rising populations and changing diets hit against flattening productivity, water and fertility constraints, and the likely early effects of climate change. As was described in the recent all-encompassing theory of global-collapse, there is general agreement that one of the contributing factors to the rolling revolutions beginning at the end of 2010 was increasing food prices eating into already strained incomes. It is unclear how much impact easing has had on food prices this time, weather has very much made its presence felt (as we noted here). From one omnipotent force (central bankers) to another (hand of god), the fear is that more broadly, food is likely to be a more persistent problem than oil supply. This is because we require almost continual replenishment of food to stay alive and avoid severe social and behavioral stress - food is the most inelastic part of consumption. This says nothing of the pernicious inflationary impact that will likely quell the kind of free-flowing printing so many hope to see from China et al.
The FAO food price index and outbreaks of social unrest. (Lagi et. al.)
Global food production has been hitting constraints as rising populations and changing diets hit against flattening productivity, water and fertility constraints, and the likely early effects of climate change.
One of the main effects of the Green Revolution of the 1950's, 60’s and 70's was to put food production onto a fossil fuel platform. Modern food production relies on pesticides, fertilisers, machinery, drying systems, long-haul transport, packaging, freezing and so on, all fossil fuel dependent. Modern seed varieties require more water, which requires more complex irrigation and aquifer pumping, again requiring more fossil fuel input, and putting more strain on already stressed water supplies. By various estimates, between six and ten fossil fuel calories are used to produce every calorie of food.
More directly, food is now being converted into fuel, adding further pressure to already strained supplies. Today, 40% of the US corn crop is used to produce biofuels, and globally, biofuels consume 6.5% of grains and 8% of vegetable oil production. The rise and fall in oil prices has been matched by food prices.
Food is the most inelastic part of consumption. Like oil, rising prices drive out other consumption, which can lead to job losses, unemployment, and defaults. The most developed countries spend about 10% of their disposable income on food, however in many parts of the world it is over 50%.
At this point it is illustrative to look at how the interactions between the financial, oil and food economies can have major unexpected repercussions. When major stresses are transmitted along complex and increasingly vulnerable inter-dependencies, there is a greater risk of system wide contagion and instability.
While food prices remained high, they received a further stimulus and increased volatility via massive quantitative easing in the US. The two rounds of QE were to support battered financial institutions. This injection helped drive a global commodity bubble, affecting an already stressed global food market. Pressure was displaced from the US onto the plates of citizens in the Middle-East and North Africa.
There is general agreement that one of the contributing factors to the rolling revolutions beginning at the end of 2010 was increasing food prices eating into already strained incomes. Food is, and always has been a mainstay of welfare and social peace. Figure:9 shows the recent correlation between the FAO index and outbreaks of political and social unrest.
One outcome was the revolution in Libya, a result of which was the loss of nearly two million barrels of high quality oil a day to the global economy. Thus oil prices remained high, averaging well over $100 even as fears for the global economy increased and growth in many major economies began to stall. From this perspective, QE temporally displaced risk to banks that returned as higher oil and food prices, via the real economy and a distant revolution.
More broadly, food is likely to be a more persistent problem than oil supply. Firstly, this is because we require almost continual replenishment of food to stay alive and avoid severe social and behavioral stress. Secondly, the loss of food in society had a far deeper impact than oil. Finally, the implications of evolving systemic risk means food production, access and affordability would be undermined.
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never understood why corn is considered food.
eat a bunch of corn, take a dump the next day and have a look.
about as usefull a food as celery.
your poor understanding doesn't change the fact that billions of people rely on corn for their calories to stay alive.
corn is nothing like celery. in fact, a high corn based diet leads to OBESITY (just look around America, a high corn intake country).
Uh, corn flakes, corn bread, tortillas, polenta, etc . . .
US citizenism result in fat American corn-fed beef flaps around Chinese member!
Corn ?
Corn whiskey, by God...Georgia Moon. 80 proof. Shine on !
social unrest?
how about lower healthcare costs because Americans lose some weight by not over eating since food costs more?
Americans will continue to overeat. The will just subsititute malamine in their corn chips and colas.
You are SO far off with that comment. IMHO the single biggest cause of obesity in the US is malnutrition. People who eat high-calorie foods that are over-processed and have little to no micro-nutrients end up overeating, because their bodies are not getting the nutrition necessary to sate their hunger. I've personally lost over 60 pounds simply by taking nutrition seriously, doing daily juicing w/carrots, apples etc. and adding moderate exercise to my daily routine.
So sure, take the miserable, half-starved wretches eating McCrap because that's all they can afford, and then take even THAT away from them. Good plan! I'm sure that will work out just dandy. Why not just say "let them eat cake" while you're at it? Let us all know how that works out for you...
LMFAO!!!
Short corn (shit, so is GS), Long corn-fed beef flaps FTMFW!
High fructose corn syrup...the sugar in coke, pepsi, cereal, peanut butter, ketchup. Corn is what they feed the live stock...cows, pork, etc and just about everything else the masses eat.
Well, with the caveat that old school Texans like their Dublin Dr Pepper. Yes, you rich mofos can order it online and have it shipped to impress your friends/clients/mistresses (what mistress doesn't like a real sugar daddy).
I used to go to specific stores in the DFW area to buy "mexican cokes", which were imported and made with cane sugar. Curiously, right before I high tailed it to AK they went to "either/or" cane sugar/corn syrup on the paper label which was stuck on the reUSED green glass bottles. You know, with the "white glass" dammage on the green glass bottle. You know, when people reused shit. Before the hippies showed up with recylcing.
Anyway, cane sugar soda > any other soda.
I don't drink sodas. I haven't for years. But, I will make room in my diet for the occasional 8oz or 10z old school tasty if I can buy them. Virgil's rootbeer is another rare exception because its just damn good.
But, I am a gold bug too. Old money, old soda, new world. Fuck the new world, you will come back around to my old money. And my old soda. Am I mean? Yeah, I am. Mean reversion. In soda.
Regards,
Cooter
JFC. Nothing is sacred.
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/07/15/us/after-parting-ways-with-dr-pepper-dublin-bottler-goes-on.html
Sorry for the clearly dated information.
<<insert Jackie Gleason "Sum Bitch" youtube/audio fragment here>>
I still don't drink corn syrup sodas. Cane sugar, sometimes.
Regards,
Cooter
Agreed Cooter -- and you know damn well what's causing this wreck aside from the drought, the drought's no joke... I'm from Texas. I've lived through decades of summers in the 100+ degree Texas heat. I've said it probably 15-20... hell, maybe even 100x to people I discuss our "agricultural" position with: The biggest threat is the amount of people. Feeding 7+ billion people is hard work.
Hard work for the planet not just farmers. I'm a pretty experienced gardener and I still have vegetables go south on me constantly that I was hoping to harvest. Can you imagine if I had no backup? Even with all the knoweldge I've worked to acquire I still need water otherwise it's pointless. This is happening across the globe. People are committing suicide because it's not that they can't plant seed, they have no water to water the seed with.
Top it off in 'Murica with billions of pounds of chemical based fertilizer, pesticide, herbicide... "everycide" and you've got yourself one big-ass desert in the making. It's no surprise to me or most people who understand what extended use of chemical based soil stimulants do over decades with no rest or cover crops.
Either way I'm pretty sure they'll move from massive corn field to massive corn field after they realize pouring bleach on soil then planting genetically modified bleach resistant seed is a bad idea because: It kills the soil and everything that is required to remineralize that soil for additional growth. No grass to shield the soil from the sun thus reserving water, no nutrient cycle or additional nitrogen from natural grasses and manure, nothing sustinable. Mycorrhizae? Kill it all. Nitrogen was totally present in soil before. After all the land is just a plot for chemicals and seeds, it's not alive. A mass of literal "dirt" -- not soil is being sown across the mid-West. I'll be damned if people are "surprised" this shit is S-T-U-P-I-D and is going to kill billions eventually.
Who fucking cares though, right? TV's still working.
...Always more land to destroy with our awesome agricultural system, right? Don't get me wrong... what humans have achieved with food production is incredible, but forest and the trees right?
Unfortunately I think the ride's about to get very real my friends. Grow some fuckin' food.
I'm ranting, but who was the guy from the 1700s that predicted that we'd run out of food with our current population growth, that is until bio related sciences stepped in and extended harvest, yield, etc?
well said tekhneek!
+1
"They" are killing the soil. "They" are culling the population.
This is probably the most important near term issue - which is why we highlight it on this website. GMO "foods" have been engineered to be the pesticide or to withstand RoundUp Ready saturation. In other words, when bugs bite the plant, the poison splits open their stomach and kills them. Then you eat the "food" with no significant human testing based on the declaration of Michael R. Taylor - Monsanto’s former attorney, later their vice president, and now the US Food Safety Czar. -- www.weaponsofmassdebt.com
Michael Taylor Foods Safety search
https://startpage.com/do/search?q=Michael+Taylor+Foods+Safety
Learn more about GMOs
http://www.labelgmos.org/resources
Union of Concerned Scientists
Failure to Yield: Evaluating the Performance of Genetically Engineered Crops
http://www.ucsusa.org/food_and_agriculture/science_and_impacts/science/f...
The film “Percy Schmeiser: David versus Monsanto (2009),” about a Canadian farmer’s battle against Monsanto’s GMO canola seed, should be added to the movie resource list.
Check out his website: http://www.percyschmeiser.com/
Laurie's Food Blog
http://lauriesfoodblog.wordpress.com/
Genetically Modified crops
Maybe the best way to start this discussion and invite comments is ask you to watch this video:
Genetically Modified crops causing world wide concern (eco movie 2)
http://www.veoh.com/watch/v62763535BzaxhK9
A documentary about how the big chemical companies in the USA got to break the constitution and patent a living organism, patent LIFE, and now they have the monopoly of the so called agriculture.
No doubt there is some exaggeration but this is really scary. I will certainly avoid growing seeds from the USA that have been genetically altered.
More discussion: http://www.frankwoolf.com/forum/showthread.php?t=41
10 Facts Why GM Food is Bad - Jeffrey M. Smith (Institute for Responsible Technology)
http://www.healthylivingblog.net/?cat=25
We Texans are still grumbling over the yankee screw job that was done to the One True Dr. Pepper. The only thing preventing outright revolt is HEB's store brand colas. No HFCS, pure cane sugar and cheaper by far than the national brands.
Make mine a "Dr. B", please. And God's honest truth, the best root beer of any I've ever tried. That plus Blue Bell vanilla ice cream yields the Best Root Beer Float Ever(tm).
High fructose corn syrup is highly addictive. About as addictive as cocaine. So, withdrawal symptoms could definitely cause some social unrest.
Fuck em, I ain't buying their inflation.....got a freezer full of fukishima fish.
...And they double as a freezer light, which saves energy! Go green!
Do they stay lit when you close the door ?
Somebody has never had good corn bread!
I consider high-fructose corn syrup to be an essential nutrient!
Also, my automobile craves its gasoline laced with government-mandated ethanol.
MOONSHINE RECIPES
Fuck Yeah! Highly liquid assets.
Ramadan started today:
Question: When is Ramadan 2012? Ramadan, the greatest religious observance in Islam, is an annual month of fasting. What are the dates for Ramadan in 2012? Answer: Ramadan is expected to begin on or around July 20, 2012 and will finish on or around August 19, 2012.
A great window in which to start bombing the shit out of things, supposing you had four aircraft carriers hanging around somewhere.
Ramadan started just about 7 hours ago here on the east coast ,, they have already started celebrating in a theater in Colorado...
You understand how corn is not a usefull food much in the same way bernanke understands his monetary policy is good for the economy.
With a flip of your finger you have offended and marginalized the entire "Corn Syrup And Derivatives Consumer Nation" ! Monedas 1929 Comedy Jihad Never Underestimate The Importance Of Corn As A Stool Marker
Watch Obama and the Liberal Democrats blame speculators.
You mean the Conservative Democrats. There is no liberal in the USA. And don't discount the Republicans. It was Nixon, a Republican, who instituted wage and price controls against the evil speculators.
Interesting. Let me get this straight.
According to ZeroHedge posters:
-it's NOT ok to blame speculators and manipulation when it is rampant in the corn market. (driving price up). it's just stupid liberals.
-but it IS ok to blame speculators and manipulation when it is rampant in the silver/gold market. (driving price down).
hmm...
that said: I personally blame
-Fed policy (ZIRP) that pushes speculators and "investors" into the commodity markets
-speculators/manipulators, especially the TBTF a-holes.
-terrible drought.
The price of corn is up due to supply constraints. Speculators can and do profit from this.
Metals should also be higher in price becuse of the same issue, supply, and manipulation controls that price down.
That said, your targets are equally valid.
Demand for metals is elastic, while food is more static based on caloric needs for the population at large. Speculation on food is a no-brainer for the banker set, people gotta eat. A lack of corn would be a good thing for America, if you look at the C13/C14 makeup of most fat fucks in the USA, the flub is purely corn based. I think the equation for a nation of fat asses is something like:
(Food company profit drive*corn subsidy)*SNAP=Sickcare system for obesity
At some point it will drive the government into bankruptcy faster than a rate hike or a lost war. If it starts tinkering with the subsidies later on, see Sudan for a current example.
quit eatin their stuff and price will come down to zero...it's magic
Speculators you say.
Let me tell you something, the worst speculators you could have think of are (at this point) the EU, the ECB and or course the Fed and throw in some Chinese commie madness ala China is doing great. And you have a flow over effect into markets, equities go bid, the USD sells. The current equity rally has NOTHING to do with earnings, they have been sh*t, it has EVERYTHING to do with the most dangerous man in charge of value/devaluing the USD = Ben Bernanke. He has set off oil bid and hasn't bothered (he is arrogant ass-wipe) to check that India and China are both facing major hyper-inflated food prices (both India and China have been dumping their currencies on mass and buying USDs as an inflation hedge for months.)
As for traders speculating in commodities, well they are crowded markets usually held by a handful of players, that is correct. But that is the market for you and the big players will offset USD weakness and pour into commodities, sans gold and silver. Why? Because the major flows are going into food commodities hedge funds will be watching the middle east/Africa/India and China for clues on droughts etc. SO the food spike has just begun. But as long as central banks are printing money like they are you'll see the crowded corn/wheat prices skyrocket.
The gold spike will occur once we go to war, but equities are capped as Asia won't allow total USD depreciation
I think you mean the Leftist Socialist Communist Pinko Red Soviet Liberal Democrats.
Well ... I did get you guys to thinking!
climate change? what a nonsense. Temperature was supposed to go up, increasing food production. It is just government running the productive people into the ground. Atlas Shrugged in reality.
People in the uk are freezing to death because of a global warming tax they can't pay.
ignorant comment to say the least.
the worst drought in 60 years is government's fault? Terrible corn yields that are dropping by the day is government's fault? Inability to feed and water cattle due to drought is government's fault?
wake up.
Regardless if this is due to global climate change or not, we have a major ecologic disaster unfolding in real time across Amercia's breadbelt, not to mention other highly productive agricultural regions around the world.
this last year I had to cut my grass in November, Decmeber, and March. In MINNEAPOLIS. We had almost no snow, and almost nothing stuck. We've been having near record hot summer, and this is after near record hot spring and near record winter. Who cares if it's global warming or not, it's HOT as hell, and the crops won't grow.
The country is already in the second Great Depression, we might be witnessing the second dust bowl in the making. History repeats itself.
It's the sun becoming more active after its almost total lack of sunspot activity during this latest quiet cycle. Apparently, solar scientists are flumoxed by its current behavior. Predictions are that we can look forward to some massive solar flares coming our way with much concomitant heating of the atmosphere.
Good points. Readers should check the last issue of Scientific American regarding the issue of coronal mass ejection, CME, events occuring in this cycle. The big effect wouldn't be an increase in temperature, it would be the flux of charged particles hitting and collapsing the earth's magnetic field and taking out all the transformers in the electrical grid due to induced high voltages. (Too much magnetic induction can be bitch, though dynamos and electric motors depend on it) Imagine the world without an elecrical grid (this includes the internet of course) for months while the transformers are replaced. No cooling, refrigeration etc.
It also seems to me an important issue regarding monocultures, like corn, is suspectibility to genetic diseases and pests. We are truly living on the edge of a knife with our unsustainable human population.
Two things bother me about the global warming crowd: first, the arrogance. And second, the misguided belief that government is best equipped to 'solve' the problem.
Not accusing you of either, just sharing my thoughts.
I'm in MLPS, too, and yeah, last winter was snow free....like the rest of the country. I am, however, calling BS on November/December grass cutting. And it seems you've forgotte about winter 2010 all too soon...
Well, when you are confronted by the same tired old arguments that have been shown to be wrong, you can get a little testy. Add in outright scientific fraud by a member of the Cato Institute at a Congressional hearing...
BTW, my only dog in the hunt is the science....
It is very clear that we will never have the will to actually address the problem, we are going to learn the hard way, i.e. by trial of fire....
Oh, I was golfing in NY in January, twice.... Feb, too, March as well....
Scientific Socialism isn't scientific fraud .... it's just fraud .... period !
Ok Flakmeister we've already been down this road, but I think that the science today is being manipulated to show that the cause of climate change is mankind and it's technology. That is about another form of control and ways to profiteer from it. That is my problem with the whole current scenario.
I don't deny that climate change is happening, just those who insist that mankind is causing it. Climate change on planet earth is not a new thing involving mankind's use of carbon. Over six thousand years ago the earth warmed rapidly and melted the glaciers that covered a large land mass in North America. What caused that?
Or how about the Alpine glaciers? I found this:
Now why on earth would it have been so warm back then, and at least "ten times?" I'm going to maintain my position that this current climate change is a natural cyclic process that earth has gone through many times.
/s Clearly Ulrich Joerin the scientist mentioned in the Spiegel article hadn't got the memo from the IPCC yet, back in 2005... /s
Something else for you to consider:
IPCC Admits Its Past Reports Were JunkJuly 16, 2012
excerpt:
In case you don't agree with The American Thinker article's assessment you can read the 2010 IAC report for yourself here:
Climate Change Assessments, Review of the Processes & Procedures of the IPCChttp://reviewipcc.interacademycouncil.net/report.html
So you are saying that science is a deliberate fraud?
If that was the case then some real reasearch funded by the "other" side would be able to dispell it? I wonder why it has not happened, eh? So either the other "side" are liars or incompetent....
BTW, that Americanthinker article is written by a guy from the Heartland Inst...Hardly an objective source....
Finally, get the science correct, if you call the warming at the end of the last Ice Age "fast", you have to call the current warming "hyperbolic"...
Yes, global warming and cooling occurs over long slow cycles... Whereas the past 200 years is not even a tick on the geological clock...
Look at the rates of change of C02 and temperature over the past 400,000 years in the Vostok ice core data and compare that to the current rates...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Carbon_Dioxide_400kyr.png
Could you remind us what was driving those Ice Age cycles? How strong were those climate forcings compared to this
http://www.esrl.noaa.gov/gmd/aggi/
Edit:
Here is a another goodie dealing with the recent Esper paper that the Daily Mail misrepresented:
Note that the trends are ~ -0.06 to -0.3 C per 1000 years, we are currently running at +0.16 per decade and have been for the past 30 years...
http://iopscience.iop.org/1748-9326/6/4/044022
I have been looking at crop conditions in NE, IA, WI, IL, and MI the past two weeks. Less than 15% of what I saw was "good", mostly in central IL and presumably IN. Some relief came yesterday for parts of WI and MI, but was not sufficient to raise any prospect for anything but reduced or non-existent (not fit for fodder) yields. I am now back home in WI and the mood is somber although the temp has dropped.
So you have bad wheather and this means climate change? We have a very cold summer at the moment here in this part of the world.
What kind of ignorance is it to think statistical information can be obtained from 1 season?
Hilarious...
How about this paper
http://iopscience.iop.org/1748-9326/6/4/044022
or this one
http://arxiv.org/ftp/arxiv/papers/1204/1204.1286.pdf
Some good statistics for you....
Angels Don't Play this HAARP: Advances in Tesla Technology -- http://haarp.net/
The Military's Pandora's Box
by Dr. Nick Begich and Jeane Manning
This article was prepared to provide a summary of the contents of a book written in 1995 which describes an entirely new class of weapons. The weapons and their effects are described in the following pages. The United States Navy and Air Force have joined with the University of Alaska, Fairbanks, to build a prototype for a ground based "Star Wars" weapon system located in the remote bush country of Alaska.
The individuals who are demanding answers about HAARP are scattered around the planet. As well as bush dwellers in Alaska, they include: a physician in Finland; a scientist in Holland; an anti-nuclear protester in Australia; independent physicists in the United States; a grandmother in Canada, and countless others.
Unlike the protests of the 1960s the objections to HAARP have been registered using the tools of the 1990s. From the Internet, fax machines, syndicated talk radio and a number of alternative print mediums the word is getting out and people are waking up to this new intrusion by an over zealous United States government.
The research team put together to gather the materials which eventually found their way into the book never held a formal meeting, never formed a formal organization. Each person acted like a node on a planetary info-spirit-net with one goal held by all -- to keep this controversial new science in the public eye. The result of the team's effort was a book which describes the science and the political ramifications of this technology.
That book, Angels Don't Play this HAARP: Advances in Tesla Technology, has 230 pages. This article will only give the highlights. Despite the amount of research (350 footnoted sources), at its heart it is a story about ordinary people who took on an extraordinary challenge in bringing their research forward.
HAARP Boils the Upper Atmosphere
HAARP will zap the upper atmosphere with a focused and steerable electromagnetic beam. It is an advanced model of an "ionospheric heater." (The ionosphere is the electrically-charged sphere surrounding Earth's upper atmosphere. It ranges between 40 to 60 miles above the surface of the Earth.)
Put simply, the apparatus for HAARP is a reversal of a radio telescope; antenna send out signals instead of receiving. HAARP is the test run for a super-powerful radiowave-beaming technology that lifts areas of the ionosphere by focusing a beam and heating those areas. Electromagnetic waves then bounce back onto earth and penetrate everything -- living and dead.
HAARP publicity gives the impression that the High-frequency Active Auroral Research Program is mainly an academic project with the goal of changing the ionosphere to improve communications for our own good. However, other U.S. military documents put it more clearly -- HAARP aims to learn how to "exploit the ionosphere for Department of Defense purposes." Communicating with submarines is only one of those purposes.
Press releases and other information from the military on HAARP continually downplay what it could do. Publicity documents insist that the HAARP project is no different than other ionospheric heaters operating safely throughout the world in places such as Arecibo, Puerto Rico, Tromso, Norway, and the former Soviet Union. However, a 1990 government document indicates that the radio-frequency (RF) power zap will drive the ionosphere to unnatural activities.
...
Bubble of Electric Particles
Angels Don't Play This HAARP includes interviews with independent scientists such as Elizabeth Rauscher. She has a Ph.D., a long and impressive career in high-energy physics, and has been published in prestigious science journals and books. Rauscher commented on HAARP. "You're pumping tremendous energy into an extremely delicate molecular configuration that comprises these multi-layers we call the ionosphere."
"The ionosphere is prone to catalytic reactions," she explained, "if a small part is changed, a major change in the ionosphere can happen."
In describing the ionosphere as a delicately balanced system, Dr. Rauscher shared her mental picture of it -- a soap-bubble-like sphere surrounding Earth's atmosphere, with movements swirling over the surface of the bubble. If a big enough hole is punched through it, she predicts, it could pop.
Slicing the Ionosphere
Physicist Daniel Winter, Ph.D., of Waynesville, North Carolina, says, "HAARP high-frequency emissions can couple with longwave (extremely-low-frequency, or ELF) pulses the Earth grid uses to distribute information as vibrations to synchronize dances of life in the biosphere." Dan terms this geomagnetic action 'Earth's information bloodstream,' and says it is likely that coupling of HAARP HF (high-frequency) with natural ELF can cause unplanned, unsuspected side effects.
David Yarrow of Albany, New York, is a researcher with a background in electronics. He described possible interactions of HAARP radiation with the ionosphere and Earth's magnetic grid: "HAARP will not burn holes in the ionosphere. That is a dangerous understatement of what HAARP's giant gigawatt beam will do. Earth is spinning relative to thin electric shells of the multilayer membrane of ion-o-speres that absorb and shield Earth's surface from intense solar radiation, including charged particle storms in solar winds erupting from the sun. Earth's axial spin means that HAARP -- in a burst lasting more than a few minutes -- will slice through the ionosphere like a microwave knife. This produces not a hole but a long tear -- an incision."
...
http://haarp.net/
Grain STOPS GROWTH above about 95 deg F.
Thank you Bernanke.
I wasn't aware Bernake had a weather machine. Is he controlling HAARP too? Quick! someone call Jesse Ventura!
BB doesn't have a weather machine ,, but the point is that if you push everyone and everything to the point where everything must operate perfectly for society to continue operating smoothly you are guaranteeing failure... very much like the elites pushing everyone into debt , manipulating prices and crushing and harvesting the little people.. food/corn has been pushed to extremes for 10 years now ... worldwide we had huge social unrest during the last food/corn price spike ,, this will be worse.
Unrest? Only while the congress-ethanol lobby keeps the ethanol mandate, food is one thing for the obese, gasoline another, unless you are unemployed and don't get out much
its better to be unemployed, too expensive to get a job
The Great Slack-Session - YouTube - http://youtu.be/3sAryusv48o
In 2008, the financial system of the United States fell apart.
Millions of people have no fucking jobs.
None of the fucking people in charge can fix it.
VICTORY IS AT HAND!
using food for fuel is the dumbest policy we have ever allowed.
as a working adult furthering my education i took a classes in environmental microbiology (back in 2007)....the instructor had the students mesmerized and enthralled at the wonders of corn ethanol. i waited to the end of the lecture and when other students began asking questions about how to increase the amount of production of this wonderful fuel....
i could not stand it any longer...i raised my hand and asked the professor what would happen when the corn supply tightened and our global residents that required corn to actually live began looking at us putting it in our SUV tank and driving it down the road. needless to say most everyone (even the prof) didn't understand the corn supply, manipulation, and the benefit of a strong US dollar. at the end of the discussion i simply stated that any 'food' used as 'fuel' would not work long term....there are just too many people in this world.
The Bernanke will Ctl C (print corn!)
All is well...
DHS has 550M rounds of .40 cal to help manage any situation.
And the average obese American is an easy target.
I think in that case, the correct term for an obese American is "cover."
Stack two on top of each other and you have defilade.
And they hired the dumbest fucks on the planet who will shoot the rest of us if they are told to do so.
If there are 10^8 gun owners (100M) and they have on average of 10^3 rounds of ammo (I have about 10^4), then they are up against 10^11 (100B) rounds of ammo and multiple guns/person (I have around 10, but 2-3 is more typical). So, would you rather bet on the DHS or irate members of the NRA (around 5 x 10^6 well trained members). Remember NRA members are actually trained in the use of firearms, from reloading to breakdown and re-assembly. DHS, not so much. Incompetence is our greatest advantage.
DHS is backed by something called the United States Military. Good luck.
If it actually comes to the point that the DHS makes war on the NRA, somehow I doubt the US Military will back the DHS. The US Military is full of NRA members.
"DHS (heavily-armed self-procaimed badass Federal agency) has a lot in common with *another* bunch of self-proclaimed badasses, the DEA.
In 1993, a bunch of froot-loop religious fundies shot up the living shit out of a DEA SWAT/entry team. Despite the DEA's brave and unorthodox and expressly forbidden tactic of blindly shooting through the church's (closed) front door - which mysteriously disapperared after it was over; the FBI said, "Uh, we seem to have lost it. Bummer. Sorry." - and shooting the Davidians (penned) dogs and puppies, they only reason they were able to run away like little bitches from the initial gunbattle is because the Davidians allowed them to.
The military is the wild card in these deals. They showed up and made their presence felt at Mt. Carmel. Mil choppers firing blindly into the compound through roofs; rumors of Delta guys doing infiltration....
Maybe they'll do it again - maybe they won't. Since 1993, the chain of command has foisted DADT on them. Then scrapped it for the recent 'Gay pride day' crock o shit. Horseshit ROE's in the various sandboxes. Grunts & NCO's being prosecuted for 'war crimes', while the brass who ordered it and/or tried to cover it up {Pat tillman, anyone?} skate away. Apparently, no military prosecution for the Ft. Hood Jihadi Asshole, whose fitness evals all warned he'd do something like that. Orders to be nice & repsectful & turn your back on the Afghani 'partner' who just might take that as his chance to shoot you. And now no urinals on carriers. At some point, they're gonna get tired of this shit, and refuse to fire on the proles. Then they - and their lovely lovely milspec weaponry - will *join* 'em. Then things might get interesting.
I think you're thinking of the ATF re: the Davidians/Waco.
Showboating assholes trying to justify their budget...
That is the time period(Ruby Ridge, Waco, OKC) that my world view began to change drastically. Everything I thought I 'knew' and had been taught I began to see as lies, illusion and propaganda.
Yes. As I wrote just a few days ago on a thread that discussed increased corn prices, this is a major disaster in the making.
The Arab Spring was not so much about democracy as it was about food prices. Increased corn and soy prices rock the world.
High Gold prices raise eyebrows. High food and energy prices raise war. In America we pacify the masses with cheap flat panel TV's, and let the people eat iPads.
But corn tortillas are the name of the game in Mexico, and corn and soy are staples around the world. A modest increase in corn and soy prices throws a huge percentage of the world into starvation.
Starving people are desperate. Desperate people = social unrest.
In the past, the Fed AND all the private TBTF a-holes were to blame for high energy/food prices due to bad monetary policy and a manipulated commodities market (that has little regulation by the way).
but now, throw in the worst drought since 1956 and we're toast. At least around here (Minneapolis), the weather is stranger than it has EVER been. Farmers are literally watching their corn go up in flames. Same with the soy.
Cattle guys are throwing in the towel and bringing in their cattle early cause they can't afford to feed or water the things.
an epic disaster in the making.
+1000
I repeat, there is no inflation. High food prices are being caused by the drought.
You should get out more
http://abacus-financialviews.blogspot.com.au/2011/12/ivory-towers-and-inflation.html
You should crawl back into the troll mine from whence you came.........
"So what about corn..Let them sweeten with Stevia!" no? "Let them drink potato (potatoe) Vodka!"... still not right.... "Let them eat organic beef!" grrrr. Gotta be a rallying cry for the masses in there somewhere....
EBT mamas will be furious!
No they won't , they'll probably get an increase and they will still sell EBT purchases at 50% of the actual cost for cash... maybe they'll increase their take to 66%.
Corn == Ethanol subsidies.
Hm did the USA ever have to import food staples any time in its history ?
2013
Even rationing was rare. I believe only sugar was in both World Wars.
We don't grow much sugar anymore either ,, the gov't shut down and purchased the sugar plantations in south Florida years ago "for environmental reasons" ... We still have huge taxes on imported sugar however to make high fructose corn syrup appear to be a better deal and increase domestic corn sales...
Well, at least we have a shitload of peas to eat..............
I heard an asshole say on tv today $5.00 gas is the new $4.00 gas.
The screw turns....
The strain on the world's agriculture is no black swan...
A small minority of people have been aware of the path humanity is on for a while now; moreover they have been telling us how the odds are changing...
Welcome to the Anthropocene bitchez....
Fuck Bill Gates.
Malthus vindicated?
In spades....
1789: Malthus' "An essay on the principle of population" is published. World population < 1 billion.
2012: World population ~7 billion.
It is a shame that Malthus isn't alive today. With a track record like that he would be a natural choice to head a trillion dollar hedge fund. Or at least he could make a comfortable living as a CNBC market commentator.
Why don't you compute the R^2 for "Fossil Fuel" utilization and world population? Get back to us when you have the answer...
Just did it! The answer is: Malthus was wrong by > 7X.
Clearly the question went way over your head....
Clearly you don't understand the difference between correlation and causation...
I assure you that I understand it a fuck of a lot better than you do....
Take a look at the first figure for a little perspective....
http://oilprice.com/Energy/Energy-General/Fossil-Fuel-Use-Mass-Extinctions-And-The-Difficulty-With-Sustainable-Living.html
Pay attention to the ratio of wheat and oil production over the past 45 years...
http://www.paulchefurka.ca/Food_Energy.html
And assuming you don't suffer from ADHD, you can chew on this
http://www.fromthewilderness.com/free/ww3/100303_eating_oil.html
PS Any asshat who would answer a question about R^2 the way you did is clearly blowing smoke and has no idea what they are talking about...
PS Any asshat who would answer a question about R^2 the way you did is clearly blowing smoke and has no idea what they are talking about...
Ohhh! Struck a nerve did I? So sorry about that!
Get back to me when the world population drops below a billion and then we'll talk.
Hey, if the shoe fits buddy...
Now go and bullshit your buddies at the bar over some Bud Lights or PBR, you are outta your league here...
PS No later than 2120...In case you can't add or subtract, we won't be around...
PS No later than 2120...In case you can't add or subtract, we won't be around...
Besides, according to geneticist Brian Sykes, the human "y" chromosome only has approximately 100,000 years of life left in it. So hey, party on.
"PS No later than 2120...In case you can't add or subtract, we won't be around..."
I thought it IS 2012.
Does one note that it's same digits only with different permutation? lol
Life, a mystery indeed..............
----------
"Heaven and earth are impartial. They allow all things to die."
Oh man....fromthewilderness, that takes me back to my early days of doom research! Thanks.
Too bad Ruppert fell apart late in life.
The danger of extrapolation. Malthus didn't know that in the future there would be tractors, pesticides, fertilizers and refridgerated transportation.
And pray tell, what powers all those wonderful goodies?
Could you refresh us about the Haber-Bosch process and it's role in agriculture?
Exactly! I am not in danger of extrapolating that we will have these means of production for ever. There are limits to growth.
Edit - BTW I'm a horticulturist, not agriculturist :)
It is possible to fix nitrogen (make it biologically available in a form such as NH4), at room T and P. Soy beans have symbiotic root nodules with enzymes (catalyst such as nitrogenase) that do it quite efficienctly compared to the high T Haber process involving Fe catalysts. It will likely be possible to incorporate the genes to produce such enzymes in other crops like corn, wheat etc eliminating the need for ex-situ ferilzation. so fossil fuels are not inevitably needed for fertilizer production. Indeed, food production in general, like all energy conversion processes doesn't have to rely on fossil fuel. Instead, we can easily derive all our electricity, chemicals and fuel (via electrochemical synthesis from simple molecules like H2O, N2, and CO2) by breaking nuclear rather than chemical bonds to provide the thermal energy or electrical current. You don't need much mass to get a huge amount of energy when the conversion factor is the speed of light squared. Unfortunately, we should have been making this transition from inefficient fossil fuels to nuclear based energy 30 years ago.
Thanks, that was interesting. However, I'm happy with the way I produce food as I do now - I don't have a tractor, just over-developed biceps!
Edit: I grow my corn through an underplanting of white clover, which fixes nitrogen in the root nodules and suppresses weeds, plus the bees like it.
I hear you...
Nukes were to be the bridge to solar as anything sustainable on the Earth must ultimately rely on the sun (basic thermodynamics)...
But, we fucked up nuclear as it turned out harder to master than we originally thought. Given the tragic accidents to date, I doubt the public will ever accept like they once did...
Note that a major disaster has occured on each continent, the US was very lucky with TMI...
For the record, I was a strong nuclear supporter until recently... It still has a place, but for how long?
Err the biological process is efficient but slow, hence the Haber process.
But will we be able to sustain such high degrees of complexity?
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/pick-your-debt-poison
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/trade-study-global-systemic-collapse
I like the simple and practical ideas on this site:
Masanobu Fukuoka's Natural Farming
http://www.permaculture.com/node/140
As much as I hate to say it:
Bankstown 75th Ave Niggas (Baton Rouge Louisiana) - YouTube - http://youtu.be/6jsX0OYhO0A
Do you think these fine citizens have ever picked an ear of corn themselves?
Agreed,
Take a look at the face of this enormous planet on Google earth. Zoom in on a few random places and you will see evidence of man, more often than not.
A thousand years is the blink of an eye in the history of this planet, and in the last 1000 years we have completely altered the terrain, chopping down forests and removing vast swathes of whatever vegetation existed, replacing it with farmland.
In the past 50 years we have extracted and burned enough CO2 to increase its composition in the atmosphere by 30% and the trend line continues upwards.
There will be consequences for this. WTF they will be is anyone's guess.
Nice try liberal, but global warming and climate change have both been proven not to be true. /sarcasm.
from what I understand, ...
the corn crops are all from newer seeds that make corn much less susceptible to drought. So despite the drought the corn harvest is 3rd largest ever.
I think I read the above from daily-mail or something.
as we all know, corn yield estimates are iffy at best.
This year we expected a major corn yield because a HUGE amount of corn was planted. then, with such a warm and great spring, an even larger corn yield was expeced. but then the heat/drought came.
In theory, we have more drought resistant versions of corn. however, they're not meant to be THIS drought resistant. But it's not just the drought, it's the HEAT. I've never seen anything like it. My farmer friends have also never seen anything like it. The corn is just burning up.
So the question is:
how much of the corn will survive. If this heat doesn't end soon we could have a catastrophic worldwide food emergency.
now today's price is also so high due to speculators/investors/Fed policy... but nobody knows how high it might go.
Here are some pictures. It's from the Huff Post which I know you all hate... but I just googled "corn pictures 2012" and it was the top google search.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/07/17/us-drought-2012-photos-pictures_n_1678039.html#slide=1234989
Easy dude. How are other food staples doing? I'm thinking rice.
I don't know the answer, but it's a little early to ring the 'catastrophic food emergency alarm' based on conversations with your farmer friends.
No. I think its just about the right time. If you are going to panic, its best to panic early.
Ask China how their rice crops were last year.
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/02/09/business/global/09food.html?pagewanted...
What have you seen ? Little of the July 11 crop conditions report was still true when it came out. Forget about acres planted. The yields are falling rapidly. The ears are not filling-out.
when you take the items off the shelves and keep on walking, who cares how high the prices go !
the one percenters are pissed about corn prices, this is really going to affect their foie gras budgets ...................
I'm not a one percenter but I do love foie gras ... thankfully not living in California where it has been banned.
http://www.restaurantaupieddecochon.ca/menu.html
Edit: the poutine foie gras ... what can I say except delicious and wouldn't want to have it more than a few times a year ;)
"Hm did the USA ever have to import food staples any time in its history ?"
The question is how pissed the rest of the world will be when we stop exporting.
That would be bad enough. But i was picturing angry mobs thronging New York piers for the next Ukrainian grain freighter. Or its millet and lentil patches in downtown Detroit.
Well, thanks to continental drift, the hungry hoards from Asia and Africa will have a lot of swimming to do if they want to try to "harvest" our crops for their uses. So, they will just have to bitch and moan to their despots like the Egyptians did last spring. Maybe they can convince to reduce their military spending to buy higher priced food.
Now is a good time to put a little food away if you can, more than a 72 hour kit, less than a tin foil hat bunker. You sleep better, trust me. I tried some of the freeze dried "backpacker" type food, NO improvement in the last 40 years. I like some basics ( wheat, rice beans, canned fish, meats ect) I grow what I can and belong to a cca. Gotta go.....grass fed steak and fresh spuds tonight. Nothing like hedgeless horseman, but I will cook by fire tonight!!
I have been gardening for 25 years. I grow and now can enough to support those around me who have their head burried in their ass.
obama thanks you, all the more for his taking......
http://farmwars.info/?p=8052
We can only hope the marxist craw back under the rock from which they came.
Why is ethenol used as a fuel additive? I've read that ethenol burned produces a much lower energy factor than pure gasoline. Answer? Producers of ethenol bribes our politicians and gets subsidies to boot. Corrupt USA politics in action.
Editing to say I also read that ethonol is more expensive than gasoline.
It also seriously fucks up 2-stroke carburetors.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oxygenate
food shortages coming just in time to kick up the rebellions that will inhibit any sort of potential middle eastern confederacy to answer our or isreal's attack on iran which will probably occur the day after Obama is defeated in the election. National debt forgiveness + oil rations for european nations that conscript their 50% or more unemployed 18-24 yo population to aid in american hegemonic efforts. maybe also after the election a terrorist attack will occur here but only after the war is waged and before january. that will be good reason for an indefinite suspension of the transition to power of Romney due to national emergency thus making Barry a good ol dictator.
Take a fucking Xanax will ya.
Any idea where the up to date chart is?
LOL, how about we all start mixing our waste cooking oil to our modified gasoline engines? Watch how fast they say, "no, that's cheating!" Kidding but not kidding.
People here have been doing that for years
Sorry, no it's for diesel engines, my bad. Just strain off the BCBs (Burnt Crispy Bits) add some white spirit and it works, it even lubricates the engine. Still have to pay fuel duty on it though.
20 years ago the waste companies charged the restaurants and take-aways to collect their used cooking oil. Then they started doing free collection. Now they pay the restaurants for it.
Pork prices about to go through the roof:
Drought Now Burning Pig Farmers, Toohttp://www.cnbc.com/id/48230065
It'll hurt some more then others.
Time to fire up the extra freezer...
"One of the main effects of the Green Revolution of the 1950's, 60’s and 70's was to put food production onto a fossil fuel platform. Modern food production relies on pesticides, fertilisers, machinery, drying systems, long-haul transport, packaging, freezing and so on, all fossil fuel dependent. Modern seed varieties require more water, which requires more complex irrigation and aquifer pumping, again requiring more fossil fuel input, and putting more strain on already stressed water supplies. By various estimates, between six and ten fossil fuel calories are used to produce every calorie of food."
It takes more oil to produce corn, and corn is used to make ethanol to stretch our oil consumption/supplies. Burning oil screws with the environment and makes corn production drop. Declining corn production makes ethanol/gasoline/oil more expensive. Higher oil prices make corn more expensive to grow. Farmers cant afford it and go broke. They sell the farm, move to town, and mow lawns for a living. Mowing lawns burns oil, driving prices higher.....................
Brilliant!...Humans are not smart enough to have figured out a plan to destroy themselves this efficiently.
It must be alien mind control.........good thing I have my tin foil hat.
There was an interesting newscast on RT today concerning Indian farmers throwing off the yoke of modern farming methods that were forced on them and lead to so many farmers' suicides. Their soil became completely exhausted and now they are returning to organic farming which is more sustainable. I wonder if the modern farming methods, which entail massive soil exhaustion in the US, may have a central role to play in these recent crop failures. Perhaps the crops become more vulnerable to 3 sigma events and these methods are engineered to work in a relatively narrow band of assorted variables, including temperature variation.
Monoculture ain't winning, if you catch my drift...
Look at the EROEI on corn ethanol, it's 1.3 at best... and that doesn;t discount the depletion of the Ogallala (like oil, a one time endowment)
We have a small farm in in the Punjab. It wasn't to make money, but to be a self sustaining family. There was constant rotation of crops, growing alfalfa to plow back in at times, natural fertilizer like cow dung (lots of that shit!) the works. It was always a patchwork of smaller fields, and it was very productive. What was remarkable though was the complete lack of pesticides used. You never see planes spraying crops even on the large spreads. You don't see large farms that goes on for miles, all planted with one crop. Punjab means "five rivers", the irrigation network has been in place since ancient times, what farmlands don't have access to river water, dig wells. They have been at this for hundreds of years.
Those with a memory of what worked before will probably go back to it. The input cost for doing it like the gringos is too heavy a burden for most. It leaves them vulnerable to catastrophic failure. The winter crop is always wheat, for the chapatis. They grow the high yield new fangled strains for the market. For themselves, they grow the lower yield native wheat which fetches a higher price, they're like the Japanese about their rice. It seems like a well thought out decision based on empirical evidence.
Whip Obesity Now.......
Is there a new button?
They are trying to get people on food stamps so they have 'healthy' gun fodder for the next war
Much of the world lives hand to mouth with nothing to spare. If prices go up they starve. Most here could use to lose a few pounds and are not in much danger. I blame commodity traders and the bernank for everything. The drought, high prices, everything. Ruthless bastards.
Most here are no more than one week safe of extreme danger in the event of riots.
... as we speak ... http://www.cnbc.com/id/48249284
I am afraid to walk into the parking lot now with a couple bags of groceries. WTF is it going to be like if the crop fails miserably.
Punch #1 food inflation (monetary debasement)
Punch #2 Drought (food to the highest bidder)
Punch #3 War (Iran)
Should be an interestng next couple of months.