thevicenarian.com

High Grain Prices = Global Unrest

Posted by T.W. Hanson - Apr 7th, 2008 at 20:04

You may have noticed headlines about spiking food commodity prices. If you haven’t, it will soon become readily apparent in your grocery store. To prepare for the coming price appreciation, I have given up my meat consumption. But that is too much of an aside. The higher grain prices are a function of many factors from bad weather in Australia to diminished grain reserves. If you were a savvy or lucky vicenarian, you may have profited from the recent moves. However, the world will not be so lucky.

Hunger, more broadly the scarcity of resources, has been the primary cause of most human conflicts. Good luck convincing a soldier in Zimbabwe that he should jeopardize his government allowance in the name of the democratic process.

One of the other frightening developments in this recent grain price explosion is ethanol. Other than it being one of the factors driving up prices and starving the world’s poor, it also is destroying the environment.

Although I have resigned my efforts in converting the adult population into vegetarians to failure, I hope you see through the next politician who proclaims ethanol to be America’s savior. I believe “Let them eat cake” didn’t go over so well the last time it was considered a talking point.