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Hoarding on the rise
As fears grow about rising prices and possible international rice, flour, and oil shortages, many Americans are stocking their pantry shelves–while retailers like Wal-Mart and Sam’s Club are beginning to limit purchases. But UCLA law professor Stephen Bainbridge cautions against getting caught up in predictions of doom and gloom:
I do not see this as some Malthusian crisis portending the end of the world. In short order, markets will adjust. The rising prices of food will incentivize farmers to put more land in the production and to make greater use of a higher yield crop strains. There will probably also be a shift towards greater use of genetically modified grains that have higher yields and longer shelf lives.
It’s always important to remember in these sort of situations that we have heard predictions of doom and gloom in the past-probably even before Malthus himself-and the combination of technology and basic economics has always provided a solution. There is no reason to think the present food price inflation will prove any different.
Nonetheless, Bainbridge critiques government policies that contributed to the present economic situation–particularly the intense push for ethanol: “The U.S. government policy on subsidizing ethanol is bad economics, bad for the environment, and bad for hungry people everywhere.”
What are your thoughts on the possible food crisis, and are you among those stocking up?
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Sam’s Club and Costco stores are taking steps to limit the amount of rice and possibly other products that consumers can buy. Food riots are popping up all over the world. As usual, government is a big part of the problem—especially environmental mandates in Europe and America related to bio-fuels, particularly ethanol, which converts corn into gasoline. The global warming cult’s campaign to replace oil with ethanol is largely responsible for the recent food shortages and skyrocketing prices at the grocery store.
The global warming mania is actually doing damage to the Earth and human beings. This is just one of the many facts you’ll find in Iain Murray’s book, “The Really Inconvenient Truths: Seven Environmental Catastrophes Liberals Don’t Want You to Know About—Because They Helped Cause Them.” Murray, an environmental analyst, exposes seven of the all-time great environmental disasters caused by the tree-huggers, revealing the undeniable fact: environmentalists create more problems than they fix.
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I am a real ostrich. I prefer not to hear doom and gloom and so stick my head in the sand and don’t pay attention. Last night I went to the store and a package of spaghetti that is normally .45 cents was $1.09. What is going on?
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I’m not worried. I have plenty of stuff in my bunker left over from my Y2K experience.
Call me a cynic, but the fastest way to drive up the price of a commodity is to declare a shortage. The answer? Do what people have done throughout the centuries adjust your diet, be creative and cut corners until the market adjusts itself.
For example, my wife and I have committed ourselves to cut back on spending, gas usage, and our grocery bill by 10% for the next year.
Another example, live off of what you already have in your pantry, freezer and refrigerator. We’ve done that when finances are tight and it has always amazed us what we find stashed way in the back of the pantry that we forgot we bought.
BTW, it makes for some very interesting dishes if you only use what you have. But overall, we’ve weathered the storms and God has provided.
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Samuel at #3: environmental mandates in Europe and America related to bio-fuels, particularly ethanol, which converts corn into gasoline. The global warming cult’s campaign to replace oil with ethanol is largely responsible for the recent food shortages and skyrocketing prices at the grocery store.
The shortages are in rice, oil and flour. How do you imagine the use of corn for biofuel has anything to do with that?
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#4- SteveG, use your brain. If there is not enough corn because of making ethanol, then people will eat something else: rice, for example. Also, I imagine that since corn prices went up, more farmers are planting corn instead of other food grains, thereby causing shortages.
When will we ever learn?
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I bought flour sooner than I normally would have, because I heard about the increases in prices coming. I bake a lot, particularly bread. In fact, the price had increase substantially the next time I looked. Most people who shop at Sam’s Club and Costco are people who are interested in saving money. I’m not sure how many are hoarding rather than saving money. I certainly do not believe I am hoarding. I am being a smart consumer.
I have read that many farmers are now planting for ethanol instead of for food products. What else explains this sudden increase?
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My wife always stocks up when something goes on sale.
As for ethanol, see my comment on yesterday’s “Gop race” thread. We could have a man made crisis, as some of you have already mentioned.
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Peter L at #5: Well that’s a good point. If farmers are planting more corn to sell for ethanol, they’re planting less of other crops. That makes sense.
Still, given that we obviously do not have an infinite supply of petroleum, it’s hard to oppose efforts to find other fuel sources, and to do it now before it becomes a real crisis.
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I could have sworn I read in the past few weeks that the government was going to pay farmers NOT to plant as much corn this year, but I have no link. It as something I heard on the tv.
What is happening in my area is that restaurants are going to Sam’s Club, etc. and buying up the big bags of rice (it went from $9 to $16) and people are buying the big bags of rice to send to relatives in foreign countries.
If SteveG is referring to cooking oil, that would happen if less corn was produced, too.
As someone who views anything the liberals do cynically, maybe this is a ploy to make people feel so fearful they’ll vote Democrat!
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Let’s not forget that because of the rise in the price of oil it’s just plain more expensive to farm, feed cattle and ship farm products.
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The process for making bio-fuels actually uses more energy and produces more pollution than just continuing to use gasoline. There is plenty of petroleum on this continent but the environmentalists have successfully blocked new drilling sites and oil refineries.
Also don’t forget that our wise government pays farmers not to produce the full amount of food products they could grow. Right now, because of the government driven increase in corn prices, cattle ranchers are selling off their herds. This means that meat prices are ok now, but will skyrocket in a few months as the beef supply dwindles.
Government subsidized ethanol will make some people rich (farmers like money too) and some of us thinner with a lot less buying power.
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My husband said he heard recently that farmers are having to slaughter their livestock prematurely because it costs to much to feed them. Is this true?
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#12 Yes, it is becoming too expensive to feed them so they are selling them off now for slaughter before they lose any possible profits.
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The price of tortillas in Mexico has gone up 50%. Look for greater immigration at the borders and huge unreast in the interior of Mexico. People can only get so hungry before they act in desperation.
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Samuel at #11: There is plenty of petroleum on this continent but the environmentalists have successfully blocked new drilling sites and oil refineries.
And unapologetically so.
What sense does it make to spoil other natural resources for the sake of extracting a few more decades’ worth of a dirty fuel that is still of finite supply?
If ethanol is not a cost-effective, cleaner alternative, then the best courses are either either to improve the manufacturing process to make it more cost-effective and cleaner, or to explore other alternatives.
Just stretching the tether to oil a bit more accmplishes nothing of any lasting importance. The supply might last a little longer, but it will still eventually be exhausted, it will become prohibitively expensive to all but the richest before that, and it will still need to be superseded by something renewable.
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First off there is no shortage of rice in the USA of any kind. We don’t eat much rice and mist of our rice production is exported to places where people eat a lot of rice. There also isn’t much of a shortage of rice around the world either. There has not been a destruction of rice crops because of weather nor has the rice tons per acre fallen nor is there less rice acres being planted nor has there been huge explosion in the numbers of rice eating fanatics.
What is difficult to find is cheap rice that the bulk of the the developing world has always relied upon and needed to live on. There is no logical reason for rice futures be be 80% higher than last year – it is not being used to make ethanol. But, there is huge investor speculation going on in all commodities, including food, world wide that are creating bubbles of irrational exuberance as Greenspan used to say.
I will give you one example of what speculation does to futures prices of commodities. The world about 100 million barrels of oil a day. but each day the oil futures markets trade 1 billion barrels of oil a day – 10 times the actual usage. When commodities are are trade through 10 hands before actually being sold to the end user – what do think happens? Do you think all of the other 9 people who used to own this oil lost money owning it so that the end user gets the cheapest and lowest price possible from the original producer? And you wonder why oil futures prices are up 80% this year.
The huge rise in rice prices is due largely to investor speculation that creates huge price spikes. This is basically a bunch of speculating investors, raping the poor of the world to make a quick buck.
Cattlemen are selling their herds because they can’t afford to feed them with huge price increases for feed now being used to make ethanol. Since they are all selling at the same time, it is driving the price of beef to artificially low levels. Expect beef prices to skyrocket in 6 months or so but the futures markets for beef will be exploding shortly. Now might be a good time to buy these futures
We have seen these huge price increases in food before by the way. The last time this happened was in the early 1973. When the Arabs slapped the first oil embargo on the USA in October 1973 the day after the Yom Kipper War ended, their first act of economic terrorism against the USA by the way, the spike in oil prices in conjunction with high food prices caused the worst economic times of the USA since the great depression. Also the most left wing lefty socialists up to that point, Jimmy Carter and his gang, were in complete control. They raised taxes, became anti free trade, were anti war even as a treat, were isolationists and created the worst economic climate known to capitalism.
The next thing you know we fell of the economic cliff with 10% unemployment, the dollar crashing, interest rates of 20%, the housing market collapsed and the entire country went into a tailspin. The Japanese instead of the Chinese were their scapegoats then.
We have exactly the same thing happening today 35 year later. The only difference today is that Barak Obama is way more liberal being nearly a Marxist than Carter was then but, the left itself is way more left, more for high taxes, anti war and isolationist today – then ever before.
We have seen what happens with high energy, commodity and food prices when socialists are in control with housing markets collapsing, with higher taxes and isolationism just around the corner.
You haven’t seen anything yet. these idiots don’t even know what a recession is – thinking we have been in one for 5 years all ready.
Better hold on tight Martha
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With the Y2K concerns, we learned about places where we could buy in bulk inexpensively, those LDS are good for that. So we got ahead on pantry stocking and just yesterday had delicious fresh whole wheat bread from a bucket of wheat bought back then. By supplementing over the intervening years, we do not have a need to go out and buy now “just in case”. Overall, for us, that was a good learniing experience. Be prepared, not scared.
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Llama- There is a slight historical error in your post #16: in 1973, Nixon was still president, yet you make it sound like Carter blew it. He may have done so in 1978, when we had the second so-called shortage, but he cannot take the blame for the one in 1973.
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When He broke the third seal, I heard the third living creature saying, “Come.” I looked, and behold, a black horse; and he who sat on it had a pair of scales in his hand.
And I heard something like a voice in the center of the four living creatures saying, “A quart of wheat for a denarius, and three quarts of barley for a denarius; and do not damage the OIL and the wine.”
The Revelation 6:5-6
A denarius was equivalent to a day’s wages.
We haven’t seen anything yet.
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Samuel, SteveG, and anyone else knowledgeable on this: I’ve heard lots of folks (WMB commenters, talk-radio hosts) saying more energy is consumed in producing ethanol than is made available by burning it, but nowhere have I found the source of this claim.
Does anyone know a good link? I’m not disputing it, I would just like confirmation.
Also, re: alternative fuels. What does anyone think it would take to put the real “nuclear option” back on the table? We have not certified a single new plant since the Three Mile Island incident in the 70s, and I understand that the Ukrainian disaster in the 80s still has a lot of people scared. But are these fears justified?
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“Still, given that we obviously do not have an infinite supply of petroleum, it’s hard to oppose efforts to find other fuel sources, and to do it now before it becomes a real crisis.”
Oh. So we should create more of a shortage in petroleum, by making a fuel that that burns more fuel to create it than it produces, and that from a food source product to boot?
That make sense in a liberal environmental whacko kinda way.
Making ethanol solves absolutely nothing, and creates more problems. Find something else. I’m all for alternative sources, but ethanol is a disaster….
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Steve G.,
What doesn’t make sense is to say that oil is available, and a valuable resource, but we won’t use it. If we don’t need it anymore because we’ve found a legitimate alternative, that’s one thing. But so far we haven’t. So yes, we should be using our oil. Meanwhile people can be finding alternatives, and eventually we can use those. But the oil really is there for a reason–to be used. We might as well use it unless and until we find something better. It’s actually irresponsible not to.
Many families are struggling financially because of the high cost of gas (for cars and for heating homes) and the high cost of food. The small amount of damage to the environment doesn’t begin to compare–and from what I understand, these days oil companies make a point to do more good than harm, anyway, to gain better PR.
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Llama – Don’t forget Nixon’s wage and price control fiasco in the early 70s. That was a certainly a big help. {chortle}
Maybe that’s what we need now, Bush or McCain to go to the GOP economic playbook and suggest the government freeze prices. {stabbing myself in the cornea with a grain of long rice}
Whack jobs are everywhere!
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RR,
Here’s one I just googled:
http://www.slate.com/id/2122961/
I’ve seen others. The issues Slate addresses are just the tip of the iceberg.
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#19 … just thinking how quick humanity is to predict the end of the world.
“It’s an earthquake! (or famine or war or flood–whatever)” and thus we must be in the end times.
6And you will hear of wars and rumors of wars. See that you are not alarmed, for this must take place, but the end is not yet. 7Fornation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom, and there will be famines and earthquakes in various places. 8All these are but the beginning of the birth pains.
9″Then they will deliver you up to tribulation and put you to death, and you will be hated by all nations for my name’s sake. 10And then many will fall away[a] and betray one another and hate one another. 11And many false prophets will arise( and lead many astray. 12And because lawlessness will be increased, the love of many will grow cold. 13 But the one who endures to the end will be saved. 14And this gospel of the kingdom will be proclaimed throughout the whole world as a testimony to all nations, and then the end will come.”
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MIM at #21: Oh. So we should create more of a shortage in petroleum, by making a fuel that that burns more fuel to create it than it produces, and that from a food source product to boot?
That make sense in a liberal environmental whacko kinda way.
Your sarcasm would be more effective if it bore some resemblance to what I actually said.
To repeat in simpler words: IF the production of ethanol does more harm than good, then we might look for a way to improve the manufacturing process to change that. And/or, we might look at other possible alternatives.
Either of those would make sense.
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Llama is absolutely correct on most of his points. Peter L is correct on the Carter issue. Nixon and Ford were in until ‘77 but Nixon did cap the beef prices when they rose above $1# for the first time ever in 1973. This spurred a big futures trading scandal with the Hunt Brothers who had to sell all their commodities to cover margins. This, in turn, caused a major drop in commodities and futures, which broke alot of farmers who had been instructed by their bankers to trade commodities for price protection.
Enter Jimmah Cahtah in 1977 and watch interest rates skyrocket to over 20%. This was disastrous for borrowers but anybody who could scrounge together a few bucks to invest made a killing for awhile. If I remember correctly, a 5 year CD could earn up to 18%/year! Unfortunately taxes were so high that the government took a big cut of any real earnings. Of course the current food and oil prices are a whole other kernel of corn!
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Kimberly – I was implying that we have not seen anything compared to how bad it’s going to get when the time comes.
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Samuel #1 (sorry for the slow, I just found time to drop by) — “revealing the undeniable fact: environmentalists create more problems than they fix.”
The Colorado Mountains, particularly around Summit County where Breckenridge, Keystone, Copper Mountain and Vail ski areas are located, have a very serious tree problem caused by the Pine Beetle. These beetles kill lodgepole pine trees, the predominate tree in Summit County, and entire mountain sides of trees are now infected and dying. This has been allowed to happen over the past 25+ years because the environmentalist mantra of “leave the forest alone” prevented removing infected trees when the number was small and manageable. Because cutting the tree down is the only remedy, the forests needed to be selectively logged or thinned requiring vehicle access and other “destructive” acts abhorred by those hugging trees.
It’s quite possible that the next time you ski Colorado you will see vast areas of denuded, mostly treeless mountains, except for Aspen trees and other varieties unaffected by the beetle.
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Rond – A few years ago there was a huge storm in the Boundary Waters area in Minnesota/Canada. The environmentalists wouldn’t allow the blown-down trees to be harvested for lumber. So, they were left to rot instead of being used for something useful. Last summer, during the drought conditions much of the nation suffered, these trees and brush dried out. Huge wildfires were the result, which burned cabins, resorts, homes, etc. So, to recap: Nature blew trees down during a storm. We cannot use them for anything useful, since it might ruin the environment. Now, they are not only unusable, but the livlihoods and homes of many people are lost. Seems reasonable to me.
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Klasko–
I got it; I’d just been thinking in general about a tendency (even in me) towards Apocalypse thinking, and this particular thread–esp. your quote–reminded me of it.
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and thus I was NOT implying that your quote necessarily demonstrated such a pattern of thinking.
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Thanks, Kimberly. We’re good.
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Here in Western Montana the pine beetle is a problem also. Harvest in affected areas is the only way to assure that it does not spread. The last 5 years fires have taken many acres of forest. When looking at the fire reports last summer, most all of the burns were in areas of pine beetle kill. Our valleys fill with smoke in August and September from the fires all around. We can enjoy the beauty of our landscape through smoke filled eyes during those months. Then there is no removal of the dead falls in those areas. It is a vicious circle of bugs, burns, and smoke.
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Peter L,
Correctomundo. It was the second oil embargo that Jimmy couldnt handle in the least.
And yes =after Nixon’s idiotic idea that he could;d put in [price controls no economist, except lefties of course, would ever think of the government controlling any markets pricing like the socialists want to do with oil , drug and health care or what ever other business they hate and want to scapegoat at the time.
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There is a line in the “Trudeau” movie where Trudeau in discussing wage and price controls brings up OPEC and asks, words to the effect “What are you going to say to them? Zap! You’re frozen!?”
I worked in a federal judge’s chambers after Three Mile Island, but we often discussed it. Well, actually, we often heard the judge tell us that the authorities wanted to put the radioactive water in railroad cars and leave it the tracks. Then he would shake his head and laugh about what happens when the railroad cars rust…..
I’m with MakeItMan and Cheryl — find another way. Use the oil. Why starve people because you want to “prove” your point about global warming?
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TL,
We’ve seen what they do with a blow-down too — in the Mt Zirkel wilderness area. Millions of board-feet of choice lumber left to rot because roads and logging couldn’t happen. Result: I buy lumber imported from New Zealand.
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Part of being a decent human being is to be empathetic and being able to put yourself in someone else’s shoes when testing the assumption of an idea you might have.
One of the goals of capitalism is to have a proper economic system that allows all people to prosper and to avoid economic situations that cause those who can afford it least among us to be hurt the most. This altruistic idea is what is behind the basic reasoning of the feds main objective – to keep inflation within check.
In short capitalists are forced to protect the least among us. Why? Because inflation is the absolute worst economic thing that could happen to a poor person and there is little worse in the world for a poor person getting poorer. It is wrong and inhumane. Capitalism was invented to be the most humane economic system man could devise that would ensure that the least among us would have the freedom and opportunity to to become one with the most among us.
No socialist has ever been able to answer any economic question in a way that is more satisfactory than the capitalist answer to the same question.
Here is but one example. Can a socialist out there explain to me how raising the taxes of a rich person ever helped a poor one? How about this one.
If the poor are hurt the most by inflation and the goal is to keep from hurting poor people economically, why do you want to increase gasoline taxes or artificially raise the price of gasoline?
If the rich supply almost all the jobs that the poor, and everyone else has, and the reason the rich can supply jobs is because they have a limited amount of disposable income they invest in businesses that create these jobs, why would anyone increase the income tax or capital gains tax on the rich – when this will always lead to poor people losing their jobs first? You know which jobs I am talking about. The ones they live, rather than die, paycheck to paycheck on.
Never forget no matter what your station in life. You can never trust your life or economic well being to a socialist – especially if you are poor.
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Llama, You see it and I see it but so many cannot see that it is industry and business that create wealth whether for the entrepreneurs or for their employees. Both need to properly manage their resources to succeed in the long term. So many look at the evil rich and blame them for “the poor”. It just isn’t so!
I remember reading a story about an old man who was a janitor in a school for many years. By the way he lived everyone thought he lived hand to mouth. When he died he left something like 3 million bucks to the school for a scholarship fund.
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Llama, while we’re explaining, get someone to explain how raising the minimum wage raises the income of anyone (except union bosses) in real terms.
An interesting comment in USN&WR, Apr, 26-May 5,2008, p.22.
“…farmers from Brazil to Indonesia are razing rain forests and wilderness to grow crops to feed the global demand for biofuels.”
I’ll bet they aren’t buying carbon credits either.
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Capitalism was invented to be the most humane economic system man could devise
Thanks for pointing out/admitting that capitalism like socialism is merely a human invention and not the natural order of things. As a human invention, its structure is then is open to adaptation and changes.
Because inflation is the absolute worst economic thing that could happen to a poor person
Tight monetary policy usually benefits the rich and those with excess cash. With high interest rates and low inflation, the rich maintain their wealth and can increase it through bonds, T-bills etc ie the safest form of investing. On the other hand, high inflation with low interests creates incresed risks for the moneyed classes. Safe forms of investment (t-bills, bonds etc) provide little to no return and inflation whittles away at their wealth. Thus high inflation especially with loose monetary policies threatens those with excess cash.
The older middle class who are finished or almost finished with their mortgage are the least affected by a return of high inflation and subsequent high interest rates. Already in possession of one of the most stable and practical forms of investment, the family home, they need only practice good financial restraints. The younger middle class will only lose out if the moneyed class succeeds in tightening the money supply to safeguard their own cash. Since high interest rates are the easiest way to tighten monetary supply, mortgage rates will increase and put the young middle class in a tough position of losing the one investment people need to maintain their position in the middling classes.
As for the poor… they have the least to lose in any economic situation. The worst scenario is low inflation combined with high interest rates such as in the late 80’s and early 90’s. The rich and corporate world relied on the easy money provided by high real interest rates and didn’t invested in job creating sectors. The present situation (which looks to change) of low inflation and low interest rates is probably the best the poor could have. Basic food and shelter rates don’t rise and hence any increase in wages is real and the economic climate in this situation is stable providing for investment.
I’m more optimistic than most here since apart from an increase in bread prices announced today, food prices have either gone done or remained the same in the last two years. Interest rates were cut by half a point and now sit at 3%. Inflation has remained stable at 3%, providing the rich incentive to seek a return outside the bond and t-bill market. Of course, this is the Canadian outlook buoyed by a high dollar and a high foreign demand for our resources.
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Can a socialist out there explain to me how raising the taxes of a rich person ever helped a poor one?
Tax policy has several functions. Most importantly it raises revenue to allow the state to function. Taxes collected should match the expenditure of the state. Secondly, taxes are a tool of public policy allowing the state to encourage some behaviors and discourage others (sin taxes fall under this category — gas tax)and finally taxes can be used as a redistributive tool moving money from one group to an other group in what the gov’t deems to be the best interest of the state. As no one economic system is perfect, the state should be motivated by pragmatism not ideology when debating the use of tax policy and the above three functions.
If the rich supply almost all the jobs that the poor, and everyone else has, and the reason the rich can supply jobs is because they have a limited amount of disposable income they invest in businesses that create these jobs, why would anyone increase the income tax or capital gains tax on the rich
The rich don’t supply the jobs. The economic structures and policies encourage particular from different self motivated groups. If the state wishes to motivate the rich to invest, a climate which discourages keeping cash as an investment and tax policy which directs the rich to invest in certain sectors can easily keep the rich investing. We don’t have to nor should we have to stand idly by while waiting for the rich to invest or spend. Investment income is not limited by tax policy but by monetary policy — a tight monetary policy will keep money away whereas a stable low interest policy will encourage investments. Taxes only work as a temporary fix to direct investment in a particular sector or geographical area. And since tax policy unlike monetary policy can change overnight its not nearly as reliable for an investment decision.
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get someone to explain how raising the minimum wage raises the income of anyone (except union bosses) in real terms.
Chas the union boss comment is a red herring as minimum wage earners are seldom unionized. If they were unionized I doubt they would be working for minimum wage.
Raising the minimum wage works if the level of minimum wage earners is a low ratio in comparison to the total work force. Thus the increase in labor expenditure has a minimal effect in inflation and basic food and shelter prices stay the same. This is generally the case in most modern western economies. Secondly your argument assumes that an increase in wages will immediately be passed onto consumers and not absorbed elsewhere in the distribution chain. A very poor respect for capitalism as competitive forces generally result in the increased wage costs being absorbed elsewhere — supplies, mangerial pay and benefits, lower profits etc.
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#41 As for the poor… they have the least to lose in any economic situation.
That is a comment that could have only been made by someone who has never been poor. The poor have nothing they can afford to lose. So when they do lose anything it is everything. The least? No wonder we have so many poor and homeless in this vast rich country with that attitude.
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Here is a real life example of how the working poor in this country live… Single mother in her 40’s with two children. One teen who works, one pre-teen who doesn’t. Mom makes a little over double the minimum wage in our state. Not enough to get rich off of but enough to pay her bills, buy food for her children and clothing for the one who doesn’t work with maybe a little left over to see a movie once a month. She lives in an older home she is buying because it’s cheaper than renting and makes some improvements with the extra she borrowed with the house. Now we have fuel prices increasing.. it now costs her more to get to work at the job she lives paycheck to paycheck on, her gas heating bill goes up, her electricity bill goes up because the fuel used to generate the electricity goes up, her food costs increase because of shipping costs. These increases she lives with by cutting costs..sharing rides to work, shopping only at discount food stores, and no more movies, and picking up overtime hours when she can. She gets a 3% wage increase which amounts to roughly $700 year. Now we have the sub-prime fiasco enter her environment and she has an ARM on her house. Her house payment goes up by almost $200 a month. She has already cut costs where she can. Nothing left to cut. She loses her house.. for $200 a month she lost everything. She is now living with her 70 yo mother with her pre-teen. Her 17 yo daughter has just moved in with her boyfriend. Can you see the circle starting over with that one? The least to lose? And this is the working poor. Those who make too much to receive any assistance but not enough to live on succesfully, just in case you needed a definition. I don’t think hoarding had even entered her thoughts. She barely had the money to buy what groceries she needed until her next paycheck let alone extra for if she “might” need it.
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mjrk – 45
Two hundred dollars a month to lose a home? —- ten hours of work at McDonald’s per week and you have your 200.00 after taxes. So the problem could have been solved, perhaps not the way anyone would have liked, but the mother would have kept her home.
How many women have more than one job, being single, even two counting Saturday. I’m not saying its an ideal situation, but sometimes EMERGENCY situations require extra work.
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victoria.. She worked the night shift at her job so she wouldn’t have to pay a babysitter and it paid more than day shift. She picked up day shifts when available while her son was in school. She worked on average 70 hrs a week. I understand what your saying about emergency situations. But those are usually short termed in a matter of a few months being beyond that point and back on track. What do you do in a situation that seems to have no end in sight and seems to be getting worse with gas prices alone being close to $4 a gallon now and going up almost daily? She was already working basically two full time jobs, and trying not to be sick from being run into the ground, and spend some time with her child so he wasn’t left parentless.
My point is there are a lot of these people out there and these are getting to be desperate times for them. And that comment about how the poor have the least to lose, frankly irritated me. Their least is their everything. Some of us can afford to pay double what we did last year to fill our gas tanks, some of us can’t. And the trickle down effect is going to affect all of us. People who are desperate do desperate things to survive. Not to just keep their investment portfolio increasing, but to survive.
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Unfortunately I live in a place where the rising cost of food will have disastrous effects. Already many families in my village eat once a day and maybe not every day. Last year’s peanut and millet crops were ruined by a long dry spell in the middle of the rainy season. Now the price of rice is going up, but people do not have the money to buy the amount that they need to feed their families. Hunger traditionally gets worse during the rainy season which is still a few months away.
Even in good years I have people at my door every day asking for money for food. I can’t imagine what this year will be like as we get closer to the rainy season and prices continue to rise. Of course my frustration is compounded by the fact that my dollar doesn’t go as far so I can’t do as much to help as I used to be able to. People think I’m lying when I say that, because they imagine that I have much more money than I really do. (They certainly can’t fathom that in my own country my income is close to poverty level.) It’s all in your perspective. To Americans I would be considered poor, but to Africans I am wealthy.
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MJRK at #47: Some of us can afford to pay double what we did last year to fill our gas tanks, some of us can’t.
According to some of the loving Christians who post here, if they have cars at all they must not be really poor.
Or a “color TV” (that seems to be one of the key indicators of being “really” poor vs. just an irresponsible person.)
It doesn’t seem to register with some that having a car and the ability to put fuel in it is one of those things that can make the difference between working at all, even a low-paying job, or having no choice but to stay at home and live completely on the dole instead of just needing a bit of help here and there.
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“IF the production of ethanol does more harm than good, then we might look for a way to improve the manufacturing process to change that. And/or, we might look at other possible alternatives.”
There’s not much of a way to improve the process of manufacturing ethanol. And there’s not much point either. Your fuel mileage with it absolutely sucks. So it takes more fuel to produce it, it gets worse mileage, uses tons of water, uses up food supplies, and it’s very corrosive stuff. Anything it touches has to be modified to suit.
I don’t see much point in continuing with ethanol. It’s an unmitigated disaster.
Find something else.
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“I’m more optimistic than most here since apart from an increase in bread prices announced today, food prices have either gone done or remained the same in the last two years.”
Meh.. someone hasn’t been paying attention…
What part of an increasing grocery bill haven’t you noticed. Prices of everything in the store seems to have increased. And didn’t we just have a thread not too long ago on how food prices were “rocketing” up?
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HRW,
If food prices haven’t increased then why has the CPI increase been called “the highest annual increase since 1990″?
From the USDA briefing website:
http://tinyurl.com/5pncvg
I’m not trusting what you say at all…
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#44 — That is a comment that could have only been made by someone who has never been poor.
Actually, I’ve lived in poverty for most of my 20s living on some form of assistance and subsidized housing. Once you are at this level, you have nothing to lose.
#51 and 51 MIM, I thought you knew I was Canadian. According to the Bank of Canada inflation calculator, the rate of inflation in the last year was 1.82%. I realize that it will change but Canada has been sheltered from increasing food prices by the increase in the Canadian dollar, the increased price of commodities, and the low government debt and lack of deficit (allows for low interest rates).
On a previous thread about high food prices, I mentioned the price stability in Canada but no one picked up on it. Prices are starting to rise in grain based foods but since our family eats more fruit, vegetables and soup, we haven’t noticed anything. The fall harvest from the southern hemisphere just arrived and there area some bargains in fruit and vegetables from Chile, Argentina, and South Africa. With a complete lack of tariffs on imported foods, prices are much lower than in counties with high protective tariffs.
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