[ExI] rice price

[hkhenson]

At 09:17 PM 4/12/2008, samantha wrote:
>scerir wrote:
> > Damien wrote:
> >
> >> Uh-oh:
> >> LONDON and BANGKOK -- Rice prices jumped 30 per cent to an all-time
> >> high on Thursday, raising fears of fresh outbreaks of social unrest
> >> across Asia where the grain is a staple food for more than 2.5bn people.
> >> The increase came after Egypt, a leading exporter, imposed a formal
> >> ban on selling rice abroad to keep local prices down, and the
> >> Philippines announced plans for a major purchase of the grain in the
> >> international market to boost supplies. Global rice stocks are at
> >> their lowest since 1976.
> >>
> > It seems there are riots around the world because of rising
> > prices. An Egyptian daily newspaper reports that 12,000
> > people have been arrested for selling flour on
> > the black market. Rice prices, meanwhile, rocketed
> > from just over $200 per ton last October to $430
> > at the end of March. The government responded on April 1
> > by suspending rice exports for six months.
> >
>All the "softs" are pretty much doing the same thing.  Wheat is out of
>sight.  Oil/energy cost in the food production cycle are a large part of
>it.  In the case of corn the idiotic push by the US government to make
>it a source of fuel did not help.  A lot of extra planting of corn
>occurred that in some cases resulted in less of other crops.   Real
>inflation of the money supply and loosening of critical interest rates
>play a large role.
>
>This is a pretty scary development although not entirely unexpected.
>Check your grocery bills and if you are diligent compare them to what
>you paid a year ago.   It is not just an effect elsewhere.

This is the expected effect of $100 oil.  We are far out on the curve 
of diminishing returns.  Unless a new source of energy replaces oil 
in a relatively short period of time, an awful number of people will starve.

Things are so tightly interwoven it is hard to say what effect this 
will have on you personally.  The electric power will probably stay 
up, but travel by air might become to expensive for most people.

Keith