People are going to start worrying about food right here in Australia. They already look worried in the supermarkets. Now is the time to point out to them that the government is responsible for this and that population growth must be restrained, through downsizing our huge immigration program and cutting off this supply of ready customers to our incredibly greedy property development and finance industry.
On the subject of 'mortgage delinquencies': Rate of Mortgage delinquencies rises, by Ruth Simon, Market Watch, http://www.marketwatch.com/, 4/10/2008 12:01:00 AM
"The latest increases in delinquencies are being driven in part by falling home prices and rising unemployment. The U.S. economy lost 80,000 jobs last month, according to the Labor Department, the biggest drop in five years. Meanwhile, some
8.8 million borrowers had mortgages that exceeded the value of their homes in the first quarter, with the number expected to increase to 10.6 million in the second quarter, according to Moody's Economy.com."
On the subject of food riots:
Global Food Crisis, In some countries, food inflation is turning violent, with Divya Reddy, Eurasia Group; Victor Lespinasse, GrainAnalyst.com; and CNBC's Erin Burnett., http://www.cnbc.com/id/15840232?video=707473516&play=1
Note the contrast between the ads that precede this program and the program's contents.
"High food prices, a nuisance in America ... It may amaze Americans who are upset at high food prices to see the pictures... peoples' lives at stake ...As food prices, rice prices have increased dramatically over the last month ... 40% of the population in Egypt lives at or below the poverty line ... governments saying they won't export wheat or rice because they are worried about shortages at home ... This is increasing the prices of those commodities globally and making it worse for importing countries..."
This is exactly what Malthus warned about in his second essay on the Corn Laws, on the danger of importing staples. He said that if cheap food were imported, farmers would lose the incentive to produce food. (Of course no-one was trying to grow ethanol in England at the time he wrote.) He also pointed out that if a country were at war, or its currency was low-value, it would not be able to purchase food on the world market. All these situations are prevailing around the world right now.
The comments from some of the market commentators are pitifully naive.
"I think for the time being prices are likely still headed higher .. [but] if we have normal weather ... I think that a year from now they could be considerably lower... Farmers will respond the way they always do to high prices... they will increase production sharply..."
Note the faith an economic commentator on the show places in higher prices causing more food to be grown - if we have normal weather!
"There is some speculative interest in the market because they are just going where the market is trending higher... not just grains but energy... all the commodities are doing well... and finally they've got ... biofuel, which is using a lot of grain which in the past would have been for food..."
High prices are causing major exporters like the US to grow corn for ethanol! And the poor don't have any money to buy from farmers who have to make huge profits.
You can see here how Marie-Antoinette was able from her cocoon of comfort to suggest that starving Parisiens eat cake if they did not have bread.
The religious faith these traders have in the stock market is pitiful. And the complacency of some commentators on discomfort in the US (and France, and Australia ...) about high food prices. They really don't get it; that quite a lot of the 'richworld' populations are not very far from the breadline - and therefore from rioting - either.
State Premiers and the Prime Minister must cut the property lobby (mainstream media and finance are part of it) loose from the public purse. Their grip on the press is threatening democracy. Their industry is causing huge inflation of vital resources - food, water, land, shelter - in our own and other exporting countries, like Canada, Brazil, and the USA. Affecting us at home and those we export to abroad. People cannot be expected to starve in order to keep the property and finance marketeers rich.
In Australia the property, finance and mainstream media, who are made up of related corporate institutions, is becoming like some monstrous bloated leech, draining our society of resources in order to provide for the customers it insists we import in greater and greater numbers to an economy riding on a massive, fragile, high-tension housing and engineering development bubble. And it gets worse every day. Right at this moment, at extraordinary expense, Port Phillip Bay is being dredged in anticipation of an economy four times as large! Four times as many houses! Four times as many widgets! Four times as many mouths to feed! Yet we are running out of water, food, and oil!
One way to end the real-estate parasite economy would be to simply give people the houses they cannot pay for and put the marketeers on the dole. Does anyone have a better suggestion?
Time to take back democracy. Time to make our votes mean something. Time to make our voices heard by our economically deluded 'leaders', including Rudd with his description of Australia as a 'robust democracy'. Yeah, where we can say anything, but we won't get heard unless we are rich. Time to contact your local member of parliament, and take a few neighbours with you.
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