Never mind the poor and the hungry. The USA has imaginary enemies to fight.

Money must flow faster from the poor to the rich. In confusion there is profit, especially for those who created the confusion and are prepared to take advantage of the opportunity to profit.

Of course Social Security, Medicare, education, welfare, etc. could facilitate this transfer, but without the fog of war, only at a snail's pace.

Doom,
I agree, and If Obama gets in we all need to have a talk with David Rockefeller and the Rothschilds and the Bilderburger group.

Then if nothing gets done and Obama fails to even try, the revolution of necessity will make this corrupt system collapse totally and I will work for a new party to boot out the two party winner take all system.

I'm given them one more chance, and then it's Bye Bye American Pie.

When corporate hegemony over governments is evident starvation becomes evident. When corporate governance is accomplished starvation and death will become a growth industry and profit will be made from it. It will have become a Rockefeller world.

What year will we turn the corner on world population? McBushit killing his brothers around the world. But he's not killing people because anyone who doesn't agree with him and give him lots of money isn't human. That's why he can say he doesn't torture people. Since those dying from starvation and disease are not human it's perfectly OK. Since corporations are super-human and can't die they must be the next step in the evolution of life on the planet. So getting rid of all the humans by starvation, methane climate catastrophes and so on will let the corporations rule the world.

Oldsalt3,

Everything you said yesterday makes lots of sense but "Go nuclear".

Putting aside all the problems of mining and refining the material and the problem of safe storage and accidents in the shipping and trucking the waste around the country with all the accidents and possible uses of dirty bombs made from just one hijacked truck or one container lost from a truck, it takes more than a decade to build a nuke plant and that means the cost given in the planning stage will be a small fraction of the completed cost if the Human race even survives that long. The insurance costs will also skyrocket and all of these costs you are not considering will have to be paid by the poor future generations.

There are many alternatives that can be done safely now which can help the economy rebuild for the future now.

Just to make it clear why, as Andersdl correctly said up at the very top, exaberates the food crisis -- speculators find consumable commodities more attractive because they afford to have larger stocks. And, because the world food stocks are low in the first, this makes a bad situation worse.

Until humans can manage to stop pouring out way more offspring than are needed to sustain the species, this will continue to get worse. By any strict definition you'd care to use, humans are a parasitic infestation on the planet earth. Such an infestation will, when allowed to spread unchecked, ultimately destroy the host and then die off itself when its sustenance disappears. That's what we're seeing happen now.

Have a pleasant spring.

The more mouths to feed the worse the crisis is going to get! But, in the infinite wisdom of the Bush Administration all family planning that involves poor countries in this world is a thing of the past. Because in these people's sick little minds anything that stops the birth of another starving human being is considered abortion in their vocabulary. And heaven forbid we should stop the over-populating of the planet. So the populations are going to continue to rise and starve en masse as long as religion is running things. And for what???? A book that was written by man to govern man.

alexnosal, lizard, randolfski, and Ghawar (got to love that name - the premier oil field in the world, mother of mothers, in 2002 had 7.5 million barrels per day of water coming out of the well for every 4.5 mbd of oil as there have been approximately 3500 well heads drilled into Ghawar and salt water has been injected to put pressure and "pump" the oil out for decades...when they are in decline, they tend to do so abruptly...see Cantarell in Mexico) excellent comments all of you.

There's just too many people now
And too little land
Too much rage and desire
It makes you feel so feeble now
It's so out of hand-
Big bombs and barbed wire...
Can't you see
Our destiny?
We are making this Earth
Our funeral pyre!

Joni Mitchell If I Had a Heart (I'd Cry) 2007

"We're going to hell in a handbasket. Have a nice day!"

1) Annebrit: "too many people in the world?"

One of the best ways to bring the birth rate down is to give people a good education so they can increase their living standards.

Research shows a direct link between education/living standards and birth rates.

Too much money is spent on wars and too little on education and increasing living standards in poor countries.

2) Power_Slave

" Countries like Zimbabwe or North Korea which are in the grip of starvation have brought in on themselves. Blame their governments, no one else."

What about the world's largest democracy, India? It is also a capitalist country.

There are probably millions more people starving in India than in China which has a far bigger population.

Abuelito: Vandana Shiva is a grand woman who inspires people with her knowledge and experience.

I have a just and humane solution:

EAT THE RICH!

"...in a storage compartment full of grain, they starved to death..."

Science fiction or reality? You be the judge.

Look, poor people have got to accept that they will have to starve so that a few people in the world can have 100 metre long motor yachts. It's simply the law of the jungle in action.

This simple fact should be taught to them from birth onwards. Their sacrifice is expected given the current world order. It is their manifest destiny. And they should never consider rising up against the current world order either.

Just starve quietly.

Dangerous Creation

I remember the famines in China, India and Africa in the 50s, 60s, and 70s. However, something is different now.

Back then there was no world media, no internet, and no understanding in the impoverished countries of world of economics, capitalism and consumerism. Back then they hadn't watched re-runs of 'Dallas' and 'Dynasty', no one had tried to control seed, given them free samples of baby formula until women ceased to lactate, or forced the people to buy cloth dyed in the West. Some of them even managed to get an education.

We have watched the starving in Biafra or Somalia on TV and the assumption is that millions will starve if policies are not quickly altered. However, this same believe assumes that they will starve quietly. Don't bet on it.

Some South American and African countries have people starving NOW! Some live on rice only in South America and cannot afford but one meal a day, and some days they don't have the money to buy rice for the day! So they grow hungrier - and hungrier ----
As farm lands are turned into growing grains for biofuels that hunger will spread as more and more land will be taken over for fuel rather than food and the food that does get grown will cost so much many people can't afford it, etc. etc. etc.
People should get their heads together and begin NOW to think and plan for the future, don't wait until things like above happen! Go nuclear for energy and continue using the land for growing food - start victory gardens as we did in the war - get to THINKING about the situation that is already upon us - the politicians certainly won't think for us - God help my children and grandchildren!!!!

The more people, the more billionaires, the less food.

Missiles, bombs, ships and airplanes have all been vastly improved since WWII, and the strides in propaganda since the Nazi era have been truly fantastic. Genocide has not been left out, and major advances in the techniques of mass murder have rendered genocide not only far more efficient but nearly invisible as well. That's right, genocide in many forms is taking place right under our noses and only a few of us are aware of it. It's genocide with plausible deniability, and if it should be noticed it can be denied or attributed to the unpredictable.

Starvation amidst plenty is one of the several new techniques of genocide; several others are in effect as well. Bet you can't see them, though, because they don't depend on gas chambers or firing squads - all the deaths now are sad accidents of fate and circumstance, never part of a palpable plan - the intention to kill is now deniable. Progress.

MiMiCcS

You are very smart, how do you know all this. I have never seen anyone speak the truth as you do.

" During the past 50 years, world irrigated land has nearly tripled, expanding from 94 million hectares in 1950 to 276 million hectares in 2000. In other words, for the individual, the amount of cultivable land is shrinking by 1 percent every year."

Lets see, just doing some mental math, looks like the amount of land to grow food increased by 3 times.

Population in 1950 was 2.5 billion, 6 billion in 2000, 6.6 billion today. So the population increased 2.6 times from 1950 to 2007, and 2.4 times as of 2000.

This means cultivatable land per person has increased 11% over 57 years (assuming cultivatable land has not increased since 2000) but this writer says it has been shrinking 1 % per year.

Maybe it's me, but the world sure seems to be getting dumb.

Like the financial crisis, the oil "shortage" driving up prices, the manufactured war on terror, this manufactured food crisis is just another way to reduce population and give those who are driving us toward one world totalitarian government more control over people and nations, and get them to accept that government can dictate who has children and how many they can have.

The last Pope who was for birth control was Pope John Paul I in 1978. He was assasinated after 33 days, because we were unleashing HIV at the time, and no condoms meant better transmission of the virus. Pope John Paul II maintained his stance against birth control. Mission Accomplished. Sterilization is fine according to the Popes, so thats what we do in the 3rd world under US AID. In Brazil they found out in 1990 that we had sterilized 40% of their women between the ages of 15 and 44. So we met Kissingers target to reduce population by 500 million between 1974 and the 2000 forecast. Well done my man, the genocides he helped along in Bangledesh and East Timor helped. Food was just another tool. Disease. Civil Wars. So many wonderful tools we have.

http://www.larouchepub.com/other/1995/2249_kissinger_food.html

I went over to Costco the other day in my extremely small Scion, and noticed that most of the vehicles there are gas guzzlers. Why is that? In Europe they have vehicles that go 57 MPH and they won't sell them here. I walk around and notice people buying huge slabs of meat. Mind you these people are grossly obese. Our culture is one of pure consumption. No doubt about that. My guess is that the powers that be like overpopulation. It serves them well. They like lots of poor, desperate people who have tons of kids. They make good slaves. My guess is that this has been going on for awhile. Europeans overpopulated several continents North America, South America, Australia, New Zealand, etc. My guess is that the powers that be like goofy mind-narrowing religious beliefs. It doesn't matter which one really as long as they believe in destroying the earth and overpopulating and they are willing to kill people over some trivial aspect of their religion.

To end this rant, I would say that letting greedy corporate types run the world is not a good idea. They need to be put in their place or they will destroy our planet.

i don't think les brown can see or maybe can't bring himself to say "Global Capitalism". as long as we only think about stock portfolios and market economy and not about what is good for the people or the planet we are doomed.

please listen to Vandana Shiva

http://www.navdanya.org/earthdcracy/index.htm

Duh....

Some have touched briefly on the main reason food is higher. However....and this is quoteing from the article:
"The 2,500-page WFP report says the world produces enough food for every one, yet over 800 million people go hungry. Its authors say food is cheaper and diets are better than 40 years ago, but malnutrition and food insecurity threatens millions nonetheless."
Food is cheaper.....which it is in real dollars. I am a farmer, and as an example I will use wheat. The market price was so low that I couldn't afford to grow it. NO way no how. Every acre grown was a loss acre and that is NOT substainable in the long run.
The main reason cereals are higher is increased demand. Economics works well in the long run. As the price rises, production will ramp up until the production cost verses the selling price are in ratio with each other. We will get to a point of having plentiful food again, and then less food as the production is lowered because of the poor price.
A family that has limitless children should be responsable for those children. People do have brains....or at least they used to have them. IF you can't care for them, stop having sex and you won't have children. That is using ones brain isn't it?

I completly agree with Ulpian - the poor can blame them selves.

Not like us - who have the courtesy to kill our selves.

The problem is that many of the countries who are facing famine now, where net eksporters of food thirty years ago.

Back then famines ususally happened after war or natural disasters - locally.

Now it is the world prices who drives the famine - how come?

You might find the answer here:

http://www.counterpunch.org/

We're all on this train heading toward the bridge whose tressles have been sabotaged.
The train's going to go into the gorge and all will be killed. On board, the passengers
of the train are arguing over which movie to watch in the observation car.
If each one of us does just a little bit, it will turn into a tide. I heard on new dimensions,
sunday morning, riane eisler, defining the characteristics of dominator culture. DC, as it
is fondly referred to, is the MO of human civilization for 10,000 frigin years. We privileged
humans have enjoyed 150 years of cultural and environmental grace, which along with
a cheap gas card, has enabled our tiny blue planet to spawn billions of humans. Gasoline
is the cheap crack cocaine of the world. Many have quit crack but few quit gasoline. Want
to make a statement, stop supporting oil companies and their puppets which look like
g.w. bush and his puppet master, dick cheney. Get back to community because those who
are disconnected from their communities will do worse in the coming New World which is
coming whether we like it or not. We all have to learn to do with less. We have to use the
enormous wealth in the west to send technology to the third world countries which have
sacrificed this last century making the west rich. It is payback time. No free rides. We're
all on this tiny blue life boat circling the sun. Shine the light on all the dark places.

Sorry, but there are 6.5 billion people on this planet, and rising, fast. I saw a woman in a rice queue in the Philippines and she was smilingy complaining about how hard it was becoming to feed her twelve children. Now, blame the Pope, blame the anti-abortionists; blame who you like, but if people have stupid numbers of children can it be surprising if food, water and energy resources are put under pressure.
Larger forces are at play here of course, but we all have a personal duty to be sensible, and too many people are plain irresponsible.
I don't blame the West on this one. I blame the parents!

Dear lillulu - do the Pope or the evangicals really matter?

"I don't think the U.S. has realized the seriousness of the problem we are facing," he told OneWorld.

Wow, this statement could be used on Wikipedia to define the word "understatement."

Systems move toward equilibrium. There is cvompetition for grains. One of the biggest consumers is domestic animals. You will eat less meat wheteher you like it or not. The price will rise, the number of animals produced will decline and grain will be more available. Poverty will bring less meat consumption. You will switch to rice and beans because you have no choice. In the process you will lose wight and live longer. Congratulations on your new life, the one others have been living for a long time, which is why they are not fat.

Annebrit, "too many people in the world?" Not according to the Pope who forbids birth control -- and the evangelicals who are against abortion.

I guess there can't be enough poor people to join the military for them to send to fight their wars of imperialism.

The wealthy, ruling elite are just plain evil.

VIENNA (Reuters) - Global food price rises are leading to "silent mass murder" and commodities markets have brought "horror" to the world, the United Nations' food envoy told an Austrian newspaper on Sunday.

Jean Ziegler, U.N. special rapporteur on the right to food, told Kurier am Sonntag that growth in biofuels, speculation on commodities markets and European Union export subsidies mean the West is responsible for mass starvation in poorer countries.

This is going to be really bad karma for the Growing Red State menace.

the overwhelmingly dominant cause of the recent rise in food prices is the movement of speculative dollars out of the subprime market and into commodities. the author know this. why is he retailing a line convenient to the central banks?

SallyUUKent:

Sadly, shipping U.S. jobs to places like India and China did not have such a noble goal as helping the countries to westernize. The motive was the search for dirt cheap labor, as corporations in a globalized market learned they could pit well-paid U.S. workers against desperate, poor third-world workers who were willing to work for pennies just to struggle to get by. The wealthiest shareholders and people who run corporations benefit from starving masses desperate to work for nothing. We need to overhaul this entire heartless system.

rtdrury:

Very well said. That is exactly how we overhaul this entire heartless system! Move back to local economies and food independence among local populations. Everybody, please support such movements, such as the indigenous in southern Mexico who are struggling to stay on their land and cultivate it in the face of corporations who want to claim the vital resources and sell them as commodities. Start a garden if you can, and buy local as much as you can. Repeal NAFTA, and say no to the Security and Prosperity Partnership among the U.S., Mexico, and Canada. Business leaders have been planning this thing behind closed doors without public input for years.

It's not 'food insecurity'. It's hunger, goddammit.

Food grains under capitalist control only serve to create dependencies on the capitalist. Land, water, food independence, and more general independence for all people has to be priority number one. Failing to demand universal food independence, and instead demanding that capitalists "do better" at exploiting, plundering and controlling people and societies amounts to aiding the crime.

"Looming?"
It's not looming, it's here! Now!

There are too many people in the world, isnt't it?

As Henry Kissinger pointet out in the early 70's, this was a problem the elites had to adress.

Through IMF and the World Bank they made sure the third world countries (and everybody else) became totally dependet on imported food - now they can harvest what they sowed - killing by a worldwide famine.
The next step will probably be pests to kill off even more of the world population.

On the ABC news web site, it says, in a story about rising food prices,

"For most people in the West, who spend about 10 percent of their income on food, the increasing prices are just an inconvenience."

Oh, it's more than "just an inconvenience" to some of us. It's a major budget shift in trying to figure out how to feed ourselves when we can barely afford our weekly groceries along with other expenses like fuel, medication and others. It's not just the poorest of the poor in Third World economies who are suffering rising food prices, it's also people like me who don't make enough to make ends meet in this economy that is putting the squeeze on what used to be the "middle class" but are now considered to be "the working poor" (anyone in the $20,000 to $40,000 per year income category).

And it's all our own fault for sending all of our jobs to India and China in an attempt to create rising industrial powers of those countries and to completely westernize them and make them American friendly governments. As a result of that, fuel prices have skyrocketed, and when that happens, there is a domino effect that everything else has to go up as well, because it all starts with oil. As oil goes, so goes everything else.

Unless we can turn things around quickly (not damned likely, sadly), there will be major consequences to pay that will last for generations to come. This is just the tip of the iceberg, folks. It's going to get a lot worse before it gets better.....if, in fact, it can ever get better. And even if it does, it won't happen in our lifetimes.

Please read, "Environment, Power and Society" by H.T. Odum followed by "The Integral Urban House" which you can obtain at Alibris.com

The daily lifestyle of American consumers contributes greatly to this imbalance. Everything from buying useless products in a consumer driven society to purchasing gas-guzzling automobiles contributes to both the global food crisis and overpopulation. We are all collectively responsible to some degree.
No one is more guilty though than corporate America who through corporate controlled media continues to promote limitless consumerism, the rigging elections to ensure corporate friendly politicians and systematic dismantling of social programs to the benefit of the a few, wealthy sectors such as the military industrial complex, the medical industrial complex & Big Oil all in the name of the so-called 'War on Terror'.
Meanwhile our sophisticated corporate propaganda machine still manages to continually embed Milton Friedman's corporate friendly (but socially destructive) ideologies among the general populace. No easy solutions here simply because corporate America has been hugely successful indoctrinating Joe Citizen. The average American still harbours an unhealthy degree of racism, lacks knowledge about U.S. foreign policy and is apprehensive about blaming corporations for our collective ills.
No matter who is elected this November to replace the War Party's commander-in-chief, they will face an uphill battle against a well entrenched, well funded and dangerous, corporate sponsored, Congress.

The Canadian Government wants to pay farmers to cull thousands of pigs while millions of people starve. Where's the sense in that?

The government should be encouraging us (with financial insentives) that less is more as far as consumption is concerned.

They should tax the heck out of gas guzzlers and give out free bus passes to those that want to use public transit.

Grain should not be used to make fuel as long as people are going hungry, period!

Washington doesn't care about the food crisis because the people who run the U.S. are making big bucks on it.
The U.S. Federal Reserve is a major force in exacerbating the food shortage and the rapidly rising cost of energy and food.

Just as the Fed enabled the housing bubble by keeping interest rates low from 2002-2005, the Fed has been lowering interest rates since August 2007, allegedly to prevent people with bad mortgages from losing their houses.
Rather than helping the distressed mortgagees, the low interest rates are enabling the same speculators that made a killing on the housing bubble to speculate on commodities (like oil, ethanol, grain, etc.) and drive up the prices beyond the influence of supply and demand.

The Fed is planning another interest rate cut this week that will enable more big profits and result in more starving people.