Stop blaming the evil speculator lurking in the shadows for prices rising. The problem is foreign governments restricting trade and hoarding. Don' t be a douche. Commodity markets work great.
The primary consumers of this staple are typically from very opportunistic, corrupt and deceitful cultures. Like he said. Stop blaming the evil speculator lurking in the shadows for prices rising. The problem is foreign governments restricting trade and hoarding. Don' t be a douche. Commodity markets work great. [/QUOTE]
Wifey checked with the in-laws in the Philippines. There is no rice shortage. The President there, a Bush associate from their Yale days, is under investigation for corruption so they are spreading the rice famine issue as a diversion, a canard.
Load Up the Pantry by Brett Arends Wednesday, April 23, 2008 provided by I don't want to alarm anybody, but maybe it's time for Americans to start stockpiling food. No, this is not a drill. You've seen the TV footage of food riots in parts of the developing world. Yes, they're a long way away from the U.S. But most foodstuffs operate in a global market. When the cost of wheat soars in Asia, it will do the same here. Reality: Food prices are already rising here much faster than the returns you are likely to get from keeping your money in a bank or money-market fund. And there are very good reasons to believe prices on the shelves are about to start rising a lot faster. "Load up the pantry," says Manu Daftary, one of Wall Street's top investors and the manager of the Quaker Strategic Growth mutual fund. "I think prices are going higher. People are too complacent. They think it isn't going to happen here. But I don't know how the food companies can absorb higher costs." (Full disclosure: I am an investor in Quaker Strategic) Stocking up on food may not replace your long-term investments, but it may make a sensible home for some of your shorter-term cash. Do the math. If you keep your standby cash in a money-market fund you'll be lucky to get a 2.5% interest rate. Even the best one-year certificate of deposit you can find is only going to pay you about 4.1%, according to Bankrate.com. And those yields are before tax. Meanwhile the most recent government data shows food inflation for the average American household is now running at 4.5% a year. And some prices are rising even more quickly. The latest data show cereal prices rising by more than 8% a year. Both flour and rice are up more than 13%. Milk, cheese, bananas and even peanut butter: They're all up by more than 10%. Eggs have rocketed up 30% in a year. Ground beef prices are up 4.8% and chicken by 5.4%. These are trends that have been in place for some time. And if you are hoping they will pass, here's the bad news: They may actually accelerate. The reason? The prices of many underlying raw materials have risen much more quickly still. Wheat prices, for example, have roughly tripled in the past three years. Sooner or later, the food companies are going to have to pass those costs on. Kraft saw its raw material costs soar by about $1.25 billion last year, squeezing profit margins. The company recently warned that higher prices are here to stay. Last month the chief executive of General Mills, Kendall Powell, made a similar point. The main reason for rising prices, of course, is the surge in demand from China and India. Hundreds of millions of people are joining the middle class each year, and that means they want to eat more and better food. A secondary reason has been the growing demand for ethanol as a fuel additive. That's soaking up some of the corn supply. You can't easily stock up on perishables like eggs or milk. But other products will keep. Among them: Dried pasta, rice, cereals, and cans of everything from tuna fish to fruit and vegetables. The kicker: You should also save money by buying them in bulk. If this seems a stretch, ponder this: The emerging bull market in agricultural products is following in the footsteps of oil. A few years ago, many Americans hoped $2 gas was a temporary spike. Now it's the rosy memory of a bygone age. The good news is that it's easier to store Cap'n Crunch or cans of Starkist in your home than it is to store lots of gasoline. Safer, too. Write to Brett Arends at brett.arends@wsj.com Copyrighted, Dow Jones & Company, Inc. All rights
I heard somewhere that the average city in the US only has a 3 day supply of food in grocery stores. Only 2 days supply at the average hospital. Just in time warehousing is the cause. I doubt we will see anything serious, but in a disaster or short term disruption (Katrina?), it would be wise to have at least a week or 2 supply of staples. Bunch of sites in internet, just google "years supply of food".
Oooo evil rationing limits purchases to EIGHTY POUNDS! The horror! Better stock up before the food riots start. If you rent a moving truck and spend all day going in and out of Costco I bet you can get a few tons - that should hold anybody for a week or two. LMAO. And some bozo is claiming martial law is next? And some other moron thinks this is just like the Soviet Union? No comparison to Hitler yet, but I'm sure that's coming. Short your brains out. Whoops, that won't be much. How about "put every dime you have or can borrow on the line"? Use options, get that extra leverage to really rake in the money. Buy the really out of the money puts, this market is going to lose 90% if martial law is imposed to prevent food riots and people are dying of starvation in the streets. When you are rich beyond measure, you'll be able to bribe government officials to let you into Area 51 where you can steal a spaceship and go visit Elvis.
An "unintended consequence" of outsourcing. Not only did we "give away well paying middle class wage jobs so that we could continue to buy cheap stuff at Wal-Mart", we hosed ourselves... We've accelerated the development of a greater middle class in Asia. They want more, higher quality food + energy to drive their motorized vehicles and air conditioning... thus driving up the price for those commodities world wide. Oops...
Now that seems pretty reasonable. Wouldn't hurt to sock away some of what you'll use and will not spoil. At the TGregg Estate, we've already got more than a years worth of some things (like pasta and yes rice), mostly because we obtained them for an outstanding price. We do like buying low.
Can I grow RICE in Florida?? not for a profit motive, I just want to help the world out when in dire straits..