When food prices are too high, politicians will tell their poor folk the long-term health benefits of long-term fasting. Better yet, how long-term fasting is a penance that helps them get to heaven.
Peak food is never going to happen because of one word Africa. It's just a matter of time before some of the bigger countries or firms do deals with African states to lease and clear a lot of their fertile land to put down agric products and then export it. Looks like a win-win to me for both sides but then you can probably count on the Africans in charge of stealing from their population.... The corrupt African leaders really are discraceful people.
Speculation in precious metals should be encouraged by governments and regulators world wide to take presure off of food prices. Who get hurts with 5000$ gold? Nobody. Who get hurts with 500$ chicken? Everyone.
Got to love the media putting the blame on those naughty and very greedy speculators. How about the politicians for not putting proper plans in place, tax breaks for new agric. investment that sort of thing. Same with the energy companies here in the UK. All very well to blame them for higher prices but why haven't the govt. done something like 20 years ago FORCE more nuclear power stations on the nation. Give the population a simple equation even the xfactor retards can understand - Without Nuclear power there will be an energy crisis and you can either have the lights go out 2-3 times a week which means you won't be able to - play computer games charge your mobile so you can send 50 inane texts to your friends switch on your microwave catch up on tv which celebrity has just bought a new pair of shoes etc Or with nuclear power have as much cheapish energy as you want. I wonder which one they'd choose...........
Speculators perform a function that has public benifit: they take on the risk that producers want to offset. Speculation can become 'excessive' when a large quanitity of the output is bought up and placed in silos and warehouses as a hoard. Producers will have little need to offset their risk as they can savely increase production in a market environment that's artificially tight. This causes a self-reinforcing trend where sellers in both the paper and physical markets are hard to come by and the majority of output is lying idle in storage spaces. This has a devestating economic impact as it promotes rent seeking by transfering wealth into assets which are purposefully idled. To prevent this economic behaviour the government should sell short futures and put on delivery by claiming the commodities in the speculator's own warehouses.
The thing that bothers me most about this whole thing is that nobody has commented on the fact that the person they chose to deal with all this supposed food mailaise is named ms. Chow.
Will not rising food prices, on balance, and over a period of time, help the third world? As these regions are predominantly subsistence farming and commodities producing will it not over time increase the living standards and self reliance of third world farmers and put the ball back in their court? This commodities cycle will also help 1st world governments to remove farming subsidies and produce a level playing field for the future.
As long as the fed continues to stimulate the economy and add in QE 1,2,3,4,5,6,7 and so forth the bubble will continue to expand. The last thing this economy needs is stimulus and free trillions!!!!