Food crysis 2010?

[maple_leafs182]

If you read any economic, financial, or political analysis for 2010 that doesn’t mention the food shortage looming next year, throw it in the trash, as it is worthless. There is overwhelming, undeniable evidence that the world will run out of food next year. When this happens, the resulting triple digit food inflation will lead panicking central banks around the world to dump their foreign reserves to appreciate their currencies and lower the cost of food imports, causing the collapse of the dollar, the treasury market, derivative markets, and the global financial system. The US will experience economic disintegration.

The 2010 Food Crisis Means Financial Armageddon

Over the last two years, the world has faced a series of unprecedented financial crises: the collapse of the housing market, the freezing of the credit markets, the failure of Wall Street brokerage firms (Bear Stearns/Lehman Brothers), the failure of Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae, the failure of AIG, Iceland’s economic collapse, the bankruptcy of the major auto manufacturers (General Motors, Ford, and Chrysler), etc… In the face of all these challenges, the demise of the dollar, derivative markets, and the modern international system of credit has been repeatedly forecasted and feared. However, all these doomsday scenarios have so far been proved false, and, despite tremendous chaos and losses, the global financial system has held together.

The 2010 Food Crisis is different. It is THE CRISIS. The one that makes all doomsday scenarios come true. The government bailouts and central bank interventions, which have held the financial world together during the last two years, will be powerless to prevent the 2010 Food Crisis from bringing the global financial system to its knees.

Financial crisis will kick into high gear

So far the crisis has been driven by the slow and steady increase in defaults on mortgages and other loans. This is about to change. What will drive the financial crisis in 2010 will be panic about food supplies and the dollar’s plunging value. Things will start moving fast.

Dynamics Behind 2010 Food Crisis

Early in 2009, the supply and demand in agricultural markets went badly out of balance. The world experienced a catastrophic fall in food production as a result of the financial crisis (low commodity prices and lack of credit) and adverse weather on a global scale. Meanwhile, China and other Asian exporters, in an effort to preserve their economic growth, were unleashing domestic consumption long constrained by inflation fears, and demand for raw materials, especially food staples, exploded as Chinese consumers worked their way towards American-style overconsumption, prodded on by a flood of cheap credit and easy loans from the government.

Normally food prices should have already shot higher months ago, leading to lower food consumption and bringing the global food supply/demand situation back into balance. This never happened because the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA), instead of adjusting production estimates down to reflect decreased production, adjusted estimates upwards to match increasing demand from china. In this way, the USDA has brought supply and demand back into balance (on paper) and temporarily delayed a rise in food prices by ensuring a catastrophe in 2010.

Overconsumption is leading to disaster

It is absolutely key to understand that the production of agricultural goods is a fixed, once a year cycle (or twice a year in the case of double crops). The wheat, corn, soybeans and other food staples are harvested in the fall/spring and then that is it for production. It doesn’t matter how high prices go or how desperate people get, no new supply can be brought online until the next harvest at the earliest. The supply must last until the next harvest, which is why it is critical that food is correctly priced to avoid overconsumption, otherwise food shortages occur.

The USDA—by manufacturing the data needed to keep supply and demand in balance—has ensured that agricultural commodities are incorrectly priced, which has lead to overconsumption and has guaranteed disaster next year when supplies run out.

Full Article

Thoughts?

Edited January 8, 2010 by maple_leafs182

[Guest TrueMetis]

Bullshit.

[eyeball]

More and more I'm convinced I've made the right move by getting back into commercial fishing.

No matter what happens, people still need to eat.

[blueblood]

Thoughts?

As much as I want this to be true, I highly doubt it based on current grain prices which are at a discount compared to the Feb 2008.

If this is true it's another feather in the hat for the Canadian economy. With Canada being one of the largest grain exporters in the world, a food crisis benefits us.

[eyeball]

If true, many species of wild animals and plants in areas heavily populated by human beings will no doubt be exploited and likely over-exploited. Many of these that are already facing the brink will likely be pushed into extinction. It should be no surprise that our financial capital crisis should become a crisis of natural capital.

Environmental stewardship will be the first thing to go out the window in many areas. Starving people do not generally make good environmentalists.

[eyeball]

The USDA—by manufacturing the data needed to keep supply and demand in balance—has ensured that agricultural commodities are incorrectly priced, which has lead to overconsumption and has guaranteed disaster next year when supplies run out.

Fudged numbers are exactly what caused the sub-prime fiasco. How ironic.

Speaking of food, it's clear a natural capital crisis will be hardest on people who have pegged their personal well being on pie in the sky as opposed to pie in the hand. So I wonder what gold bullion tastes like?

[blueblood]

Fudged numbers are exactly what caused the sub-prime fiasco. How ironic.

Speaking of food, it's clear a natural capital crisis will be hardest on people who have pegged their personal well being on pie in the sky as opposed to pie in the hand. So I wonder what gold bullion tastes like?

It'll taste like new machinery and winters in mexico for this cowboy!

[eyeball]

It'll taste like new machinery and winters in mexico for this cowboy!

I'm hoping for a new radar myself. Everything else is going into a rebuilt ground-line drum.

Mexico? Sounds hot and they'll probably be barbecuing gringos by next winter to feed themselves. Mind you they'd probably take one whiff of me and say "too fishy".

[Michael Hardner]

maple_leaf182 - if this doesn't happen, will you learn from this experience ?

This doom-and-gloom article makes pretty specific predictions, so it will be easy to check back in a year to see that they didn't come true.

[maple_leafs182]

maple_leaf182 - if this doesn't happen, will you learn from this experience ?

This doom-and-gloom article makes pretty specific predictions, so it will be easy to check back in a year to see that they didn't come true.

I didn't say it would come true, I just thought I should post it, hear what other people other then mainstream media are saying

I can guarantee we are headed for a depression though

[eyeball]

I didn't say it would come true, I just thought I should post it, hear what other people other then mainstream media are saying

I can guarantee we are headed for a depression though

You can guarantee people will still be hungry too.

[blueblood]

I didn't say it would come true, I just thought I should post it, hear what other people other then mainstream media are saying

I can guarantee we are headed for a depression though

That was a tinfoil hat newspaper article. There was no references to any of their claims.

As for a depression, I doubt it. We were supposed to be in a depression last year...

[maple_leafs182]

That was a tinfoil hat newspaper article. There was no references to any of their claims.

As for a depression, I doubt it. We were supposed to be in a depression last year...

We were in a depression last year, just the early stages of it. You can call it a recession if you want.

It took 3 years into the Great Depression for them to finally declare it a depression.

85,000 jobs were lost in December in the States, over 7 million jobs in the US have been lost since the beginning of this recession.

The US economy is based 70% on consumer spending.

People without jobs aren't spending money.

The only thing propping up the economy up now is the bailouts, government intensives, and mortgages rates at zero.

Debt is what caused the recession and now we are being encouraged to go in more debt to stimulate the economy, we're just creating an even bigger bubble.

We are trying to spend our way out of this recession.

All we are doing is going more into debt and creating more inflation.

Companies are selling off assets and laying off employees to cover losses, they can only do that for so long before they go bankrupt and more jobs are lost.

This is gonna be the worst depression yet.

May turn into an inflationary depression over time.

Governments are lying to us.

We should be mad.

Central Banks are private corporations, they are the ones who put nations in debt.

Money is created out of debt, it is loaned at interest to nations by central banks.

This is the very thing that America fought against in the American Revolution.

But it seems Americans or Canadians didn't learn a lesson from that.

They both fell into the hands of the International Bankers.

So much for the land of the free...

The people no longer control the country.

Welcome to new age fascism.

[bush_cheney2004]

The US economy is based 70% on consumer spending.

Good...you are learning...before you said 40%.

We are trying to spend our way out of this recession.

All we are doing is going more into debt and creating more inflation.

"We" were doing that before the "depression" too.

Companies are selling off assets and laying off employees to cover losses, they can only do that for so long before they go bankrupt and more jobs are lost.

Ditto...same behavior before the "depression".

This is gonna be the worst depression yet.

May turn into an inflationary depression over time.

Governments are lying to us.

We should be mad.

This doesn't make any sense. How can you bemoan the coming "depression" while criticizing the previous actions and structures of a healthy economy? Can't have it both ways.

Central Banks are private corporations, they are the ones who put nations in debt.

Money is created out of debt, it is loaned at interest to nations by central banks.

This is the very thing that America fought against in the American Revolution.

But it seems Americans or Canadians didn't learn a lesson from that.

No...Americans fought against British and Canadians.

[charter.rights]

More and more I'm convinced I've made the right move by getting back into commercial fishing.

No matter what happens, people still need to eat.

You still need the transportation and the market to deliver it. If people aren't working then no transportation, no market...unless...of course...you want to give it away...and then no gas for the boats...

[charter.rights]

If true, many species of wild animals and plants in areas heavily populated by human beings will no doubt be exploited and likely over-exploited. Many of these that are already facing the brink will likely be pushed into extinction. It should be no surprise that our financial capital crisis should become a crisis of natural capital.

Environmental stewardship will be the first thing to go out the window in many areas. Starving people do not generally make good environmentalists.

The 100 mile diet pretty much solves the problem. If people stopped thinking in terms of meat only, they would survive nicely. What I can't get within about 10 kms of my house, I grow - very easily.

Take a look at the Square Foot Gardening method. It is promising for backyard food production.

[eyeball]

You still need the transportation and the market to deliver it. If people aren't working then no transportation, no market...unless...of course...you want to give it away...and then no gas for the boats...

If it gets that bad there probably won't be any debt collectors either. We can all just relax and tend our square foot gardens!

[Oleg Bach]

There is a gluttonous culture of hoplessness exists in the western world..that is the crisis- OUR syetem has created unhappy fat people who can not stop eating--food fuel and material objects we don't need..this is a great imbalance- we should send our diet pills to the poor and starving and finally finish them off. No joke it's a crazy world and here is no excuse for one person being a pig while the other is skeletal.

[blueblood]

If it gets that bad there probably won't be any debt collectors either. We can all just relax and tend our square foot gardens!

that's fine, i'll tend my couple square mile gardens!

[charter.rights]

that's fine, i'll tend my couple square mile gardens!

Try it without oil, electricity and markets......I don't think you can get very far...

[blueblood]

Try it without oil, electricity and markets......I don't think you can get very far...

Hydro not going anywhere

Oil, well we have 80-100 yrs. of that left if not more. By then something new will have come along. Remember whale oil and how big that used to be (well you can't remember whale oil because you weren't alive, but its a fascinating topic)

Markets, well food or fuel, whichever market is the highest bidder!

If all else fales, it's time to invest in some clydesdales and make a killing on land rent!