Food Price Riots Popping Up Around The World

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Doug50 said:
Yes. It costs a lot to ship Chinese over here.
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I’m sure you’re being ironic, but it’s actually the other way around. Much, if not most, Chinese food in the U.S. (including entire “mixes”) is made by Tyson Foods, which also ships a tremendous amount of product to China and other parts of the Far East.

Two interesting small things of little consequence. One of the big products is Chicken feet. They can’t be put into the human food chain in the U.S. (though there is a lot of “bootlegging” so to speak among oriental communities here) because the USDA considers them irredeemably contaminated. So they’re frozen, put into sealed containers and shipped directly to the Far East, where they’re considered a delicacy.

Americans prefer white meat. Much of the poultry dark meat is shipped to “Maquilladora” treaty areas in Northern Mexico, where it is cut into little cubes, impaled on little wood skewers and also shipped to the Far East,where dark meat is preferred. They’re expensive, but there is a lot of money in the Far East nowadays. Has been for a long time.

One of the weirdest things I ever saw was in a pork plant, where pig rectums were packed meticulously into small boxes, put into sealed containers and shipped to the Far East where they’re considered a delicacy. They sold for $40/pound here, with shipping costs added on arrival. Again, there is no possibility at all of getting USDA approval of those, no matter what you do to them. Always wondered how the Orientals prepare them, but maybe I don’t want to know.

Something angering, however, is that for a time, China imported chicken breast meat from the U.S., processed it into little “chicken jerky” strips and shipped it back to the U.S. for pet snacks. Still does, I believe. An American company tried to do the same thing, (very competitive-no shipping halfway around the word) but the USDA required that they dye it green or blue; something the government did not require of the Chinese product, and which would have made it completely unmarketable. So, for a time, China had a US government enforced monopoly on the product. Eventually, through political pressure, the manufacturer was allowed to dye it a sort of light caramel brown like the Chinese product. The stuff is dyed to keep it out of the human food chain.

Somehow, though, the mind has some difficulty accepting the idea that chicken breast strips be fed to animals when people go hungry anywhere in the world. But it has to do with the way product goes into the human food chain. It’s not contaminated. It’s that the poultry processor (not just poultry producers either) has to declare, at the plant level, that product is headed to the human food chain or it isn’t. If it is, the producer has to take responsibility for it to keep it that way, even if they can’t sell it into the human food chain. If they can’t sell it and don’t want to store it indefinitely, it’s “de-humaned” officially and sold to animal food manufacturers or non-food uses. Upon such designation, it can never come back into the human food chain. It’s inspected by a different agency that regulates animal food manufacture, and USDA never sees it again. Food processing companies nearly always overproduce because they can’t fail to fill big orders (e.g., you don’t “short” Kentucky Fried’s order or Marriott’s. You go “long” 100% of the time in order to avoid it).

Go into Walmart (if you can stand to go there. I hate shopping and fight shy of the place) and you’ll find the product in the pet food section right now. I won’t mention brand names. Perfectly good chicken breast meat for dogs.

Something about all that just doesn’t sit well.
 
Got timed out.

Whilst ruminating.

Chewing my intellectual cud, as it were.

Resuming:
The Office of Arid Land Studies at the Univ of Ariz used to do fabulous work. 30 years ago. When I checked their Web site recently, something had changed.

It just seems like their best work was behind them and they had abandoned all their promising projects.

That’s just me talking. But something has changed.

They were at the forefront of research in jojoba, in guayule, and some other stuff. [They now say, well, yeah but that stuff doesn’t work. Too hard to sex the plants. Etc.]

Maybe, it’s bureaucracy … it’s like … well … we could put a man on the moon, but it was a direct flight … whereas, if we had had to make it a one-stop flight, with a stopover in Kansas City, we never would have made it.

In other words, the technology works, but the politics gets in the way.

Great article in today’s (Tuesday’s) 22 April 2008, Wall Street Journal, page A23. below the fold. “Why I left Greenpeace” by Patrick Moore. “… I observed that none of my fellow directors had any formal science education. They were either political activists or environmental entrepreneurs.” … and … " … a Greenpeace decision to support a world-wide ban on chlorine."
In one of his books, Tom Sowell an absolute must read, by the way … www.tsowell.com ]

states that Africa has lots of water, but the topography is such that it runs off quickly.

There are flash floods.

So, there is water.

But it must be collected, stored and saved up.

The problem is that collecting flash flood waters requires some special considerations, special designs. But it can be done.

Anyway, there were irrigated mango orchards, tomato gardens (grown for export to Europe, believe it or not) … irrigated millet fields … some guys got together and pooled their money to buy a little tiny gas engine pump … on a one-wheeled “cart”. They moved it from field to field. Near the river, they built a “wall” about six feet high near the river and sloping down to ground level 100 meters or so away. There was a little channel scooped in the top and they pumped river water into the little channel and periodically diverted the water into the field.

I had proposed the construction of Minto Wheels. Solar powered water pumps. I even bought the construction manuals. The designs were valid for any kind of Freon, of which there were several. People in the office weren’t much interested in brazing tubing and fabricating a 1 RPM Minto Wheel driving a slow stroke reciprocating pump.

BUT. Freon is now outlawed.

So, there goes the ball game.
There was a lot of foreign aid, but a lot of money, both private donations and government-aid, was stolen. One ag plane [according to the grant application] turned out to be a baby airliner purchased to fly the dictator out of the country in the event of a coup. The local ag expert was in fact a white Rhodesian soldier of fortune hired to fly the plane. He was actually interviewed on television; the producers of the program [biggie name ] even were awarded a very biggie television award. Anyway, there was a coup and the “ag expert” stole the plane and flew away by hisself. And the “ag secretary” "local fellow] stole the treasury and disappeared. Popped up later on in Nigeria. [we kept an eye out for him]
 
Ridgerunner said:
How in the world could anybody raise enough termites to make ethanol in enough quantity to make it worthwhile?
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That’s just it you can’t and certainly not in the volumes that’d make any difference no matter what the profit return might be. Individuals can make bio-diseal from spent resturant grease but there’d never be enough to run .1% of the US economy.
 
Ridgerunner said:
I’m sure you’re being ironic, but it’s actually the other way around. Much, if not most, Chinese food in the U.S. (including entire “mixes”) is made by Tyson Foods, which also ships a tremendous amount of product to China and other parts of the Far East.
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Yea I was. I was actaully referring to imagrant workers brought over to work the resturants.

So if chicken feet can never be used for US consumption how’d pickled pig’s feet get through? 😛
 
Doug50 said:
Yea I was. I was actaully referring to imagrant workers brought over to work the resturants.

So if chicken feet can never be used for US consumption how’d pickled pig’s feet get through? 😛
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I don’t know. Perhaps historical; deference to German immigrants over Chinese. Who knows? But there are a lot of anomalous things in the food production realm. Some might make sense for reasons that are not apparent to me. Some, I think, are in place simply because they make life simpler for the USDA. From my experience of them, their personnel are not always the sharpest knives in the drawer.

Some of the same things are true in medicines. Most veterinary medicines, if not all, are made to the same standards and under the same conditions as human medicines; many in the very same production facilities, with this stream going this way and that stream going that way. But they cost far less than human medicines that are the very same thing. Also, you can buy controlled substances for veterinary use without prescription that you could never buy without prescription for human use. Probably doper ignorance and the “yuck factor” are the only things that prevent widespread abuse.
 
Doug50 said:
Yea I was. I was actaully referring to imagrant workers brought over to work the resturants.

So if chicken feet can never be used for US consumption how’d pickled pig’s feet get through? 😛
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The pigs wash their feet first.😛
 
Doug50 said:
Any of you read German?
internationalepolitik.de/archiv/jahrgang-2008/april/download/1dd009358046b66009311ddacf8b74f50e1742a742a/original_ip_04_birol.pdf

The International Energy Agency (IEA) gives alarm: The world could run out of oil faster than expected - the danger of a supply shortage is rising
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Can’t read German. Might be a few slight translation difficulties, as some of the sentences don’t seem to quite work. But still, I can see what’s being said.

I’m always a bit leery of anyone who calls for a “New World Order” as the interviewee does, or one who says the markets will no longer work so “national governments as well as international institutions have to help define the rules and follow them”. But that’s just my idiosyncracy; doubtless an Irish “ancestral memory” of rule by the Black and Tans.

Interestingly, interviewee doesn’t seem worried about the uranium supply or even the coal supply. As to the former, the concern is bringing it online fast enough, and global warming is the concern regarding the latter. Small alarm bells go off with the last one. Barely audible, but there, if for no other reason that she does not explain how a reduction in burning oil will be more than offset by burning coal. But never mind.

She does declare that the First World will not be so terribly affected anytime soon, but says the real disaster will be on the poor countries, e.g., the Sahel nations. But then, she tells us that 40% of the world’s population has no access to electricity anyway, so I’m not entirely sure how they’re going to be drastically affected. Gasoline for their vehicles, I guess, would be it, but I can’t help but wonder how many vehicles people with no electricity actually have.

I would not disagree that U.S. production is declining and that no significant exploration is being done. That’s what happens when virtually everything but existing fields can’t even be explored. No surprise there, and more’s the pity.

She doesn’t talk about every field or potential field in the world, but does talk about Russia, Venezuela and the Middle East. She talks about how “we” (Germany, I guess) have no political or economic control over what they might decide to do. She does not mention the South China Sea (perhaps because estimates vary so wildly) or the “Stans”, perhaps for the same reason. No mention is made of shale oil or tar sands. Perhaps there are none in Germany, but perhaps that’s discarded because of the “global warming” concern expressed. She does feel that all increased production must come from OPEC or from nowhere. It is concerning that so much of the production comes from countries that are not friendly to anyone, really, let alone to the West, though oil is fungible once it’s on a tanker, then the market does control where it goes. It is also concerning that no significant attempts at exploration seem, by these comments, to be going on in places that could have promise. Africa is ignored, except to the extent the interviewee talks about its poverty.

But on the whole, an interesting point of view. Seems a bit pessimistic, or perhaps more accurately, uncertain about changes in use that might help things or areas of potential production that are not in the “hostile neighbor” countries. Consideration of alternatives does not seem to be the subject of the interview.

I was quite surprised by the statement that Germany would be less affected than other developed countries; possibly because Germany has lots of coal? That wasn’t explained, and might have been worth reading.
 
Ridgerunner said:
Can’t read German. Might be a few slight translation difficulties, as some of the sentences don’t seem to quite work. But still, I can see what’s being said.

I’m always a bit leery of anyone who calls for a “New World Order” as the interviewee does, or one who says the markets will no longer work so “national governments as well as international institutions have to help define the rules and follow them”. But that’s just my idiosyncracy; doubtless an Irish “ancestral memory” of rule by the Black and Tans.
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Me sainted Irish Mither used to say, “When the first Irishman arrived in America, he said, 'Whit kind of a givernment d’ye have here? I’m agin it!”

The longer I live, the more convinced I am that old Irishman was right.😛
 
To paraphrase Pogo Possum, “We have met the enemy, and he is sitting in Congress.”
 
rlg94086 said:
😃 Saw this in the papers…very funny…and accurate.
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I found 2 cartoons on the same page than tied into discussions here (one on a different thread). Considering my less that happy disposition right now, I had to post them. :cool:
 
I saw a $6 loaf of bread today in a store. $6! That’s scary stuff. Gas is $3.45 a gallon, eggs and milk are up 25% from a year ago, and I won’t even tell you what I’m paying for a gallon of oil to heat my house. My family and I live in Massachusetts, where it’s expensive enough already. Now? I don’t know how people are getting by. We have more and more kids showing up to our school breakfast program; more and more kids “forgetting” to bring lunch. Things are getting tough, friends. Pray that God will show mercy to the poor, and that we’ll be His hands in these tight times.
 
Michaeljc4 said:
I saw a $6 loaf of bread today in a store. $6! That’s scary stuff. Gas is $3.45 a gallon, eggs and milk are up 25% from a year ago, and I won’t even tell you what I’m paying for a gallon of oil to heat my house. My family and I live in Massachusetts, where it’s expensive enough already. Now? I don’t know how people are getting by. We have more and more kids showing up to our school breakfast program; more and more kids “forgetting” to bring lunch. Things are getting tough, friends. Pray that God will show mercy to the poor, and that we’ll be His hands in these tight times.
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It makes me feel so weak that I could not do anything to alleviate the suffering. Unfortunately, I do not believe in a benevolent God. In addition, as a mentioned iteratively, I believe things will get worse. I thought human ingenuity will solve poverty, but it seems that my faith has been sundered. I wonder if I could take this attrition.
 
I remember long lines at gas stations, home mortgage rates at 16%, car dealerships with one or two cars on the whole lot and no customers at all, virtually the entire S&L industry going down and its governmental regulatory and guarantor organization with it, gold at what would be (adjusted for inflation) about double what it is now, silver at $40/ounce (not adjusted for inflation…that was the price) and Arab oil states threatening to go on a “silver standard” for oil purchases, inflation at several times what it is now, unemployment about double what it is now, everybody believing the Saudis and the Japanese would buy up the whole economy, panicked state legislatures passing laws against foreign ownership of farmland, foreclosed Hawaiian oceanfront condos going begging for buyers, upper Midwest farmland prices going from $3,000/acre to $500/acre almost overnight, collapse of the Mexican peso that left the Texas coast a virtual ghost town, foreclosures vastly in excess of what they are now, Rust Belt northerners who used to make $30-40/hour (a lot then)wandering into this country to make $5-$6.00/hour in poultry plants, negative return on savings, bankruptcies so numerous the first meetings of creditors were “standing room only” in federal courthouses and people had to be sworn in in crowds instead of individually, the “oil patch bust” when some the best business buildings in Dallas stood foreclosed, empty and without takers, banks that wouldn’t loan money at all; not at all, a period when first, people couldn’t get rid of their dollars fast enough and would buy absolutely anything as long as it was tangible, changed overnight to a situation where people wouldn’t buy anything, no matter what because they were so scared, when almost everybody owed more on their cars or houses than they were worth. And during it all, the Soviet Union hung nuclear holocaust over everybody’s head and it seemed like Soviet satellites were popping up everywhere.

This is a tough time. No doubt about it, and it isn’t over. But having lived through a lot worse, and believing this time hasn’t quite “bottomed out”, but isn’t far from it, it’s awfully hard for me to get too engaged in doomsday scenarios. The “bubble” that preceded this “burst” was nowhere near as wild as the one 30 years ago, and I don’t see that the “bust” will be as bad as that one either.
 
Ridgerunner said:
This is a tough time. No doubt about it, and it isn’t over. But having lived through a lot worse, and believing this time hasn’t quite “bottomed out”, but isn’t far from it, it’s awfully hard for me to get too engaged in doomsday scenarios. The “bubble” that preceded this “burst” was nowhere near as wild as the one 30 years ago, and I don’t see that the “bust” will be as bad as that one either.
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The problem is that the MSM does not report news anymore. They make the new up by over sensationalizing it.

Part of it is because that they are losing influence and credibility, part of it is because of the pervasiveness of the Relative nature of today’s society, and part of it is because of their irrational hatred of Bush.

New like this, without historical reference, is pure bunk.
 
ribozyme said:
It makes me feel so weak that I could not do anything to alleviate the suffering. Unfortunately, I do not believe in a benevolent God. In addition, as a mentioned iteratively, I believe things will get worse. I thought human ingenuity will solve poverty, but it seems that my faith has been sundered. I wonder if I could take this attrition.
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From your sources:

“Perhaps the most widespread evil is the Western view of man and nature.”

“The earth’s immune system, so to speak, has recognized the presence of the human species and is starting to kick in. The earth is attempting to rid itself of an infection by the human parasite.”

“If God made the earth for human habitation, then He made it for the Stone Age mode of habitation.”

No wonder you’re depressed, if you spend your time reading stuff like this. But take heart! Any writer who writes things so grotesque, so excessive, mean-spirited and human-hating is not wisely to be believed in anything else he says.
 
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