Comments on: Thomas Malthus and the Global Food Crisis

By: mike

mike — Sat, 19 Apr 2008 16:16:00 +0000

...what humans like i need, is two stomachs just like a cow...or a genetically modified stomach that could digest rust or something...then i could eat a wider range of material...the question is...where would it be placed along my digestive tract...well...i'll leave that up to american doctors to fathom....

By: Smack MacDougal

Smack MacDougal — Fri, 18 Apr 2008 18:36:31 +0000

Food supplies? Global Food Crisis?

These phrases express Collectivist Indoctrination.

Armies have supplies that they dole to their soldiers. We do not live with One Government Over the World, yet, thankfully.

As there is no such thing as a Global Climate, there's no shortage of food globally. All climates are local. All food buying and selling is local.

Food and money are commodities. One gets traded for the other. We show this swap with the ratio of money to food. We call this value a price.

Food prices rise when the rate of increase in the numerator (money) rises faster than the rate of increase in the denominator (food).

Food can get to markets only as quickly as nature will allow. If men do not plant more land, they cannot gain more food.

However, under Paper Money Schemes, men can make more money and force holding of the Commodity Money.

Sellers sell to the highest bidder. When folks have more money bidding for a fixed amount of food, prices rise.

Those folks whose income of money is flat or falling lose Buying Power. Since most folks have falling income, they cannot buy food as before.

Hence, you accept a false belief, an illusion of "global supply shortage" of food when there exists a Global Glut of Money -- about the only global thing that can exist.

By: christina

christina — Fri, 18 Apr 2008 16:15:32 +0000

Why cant they use solar energy as fuel, instead of biofuel?

By: Colin

Colin — Fri, 18 Apr 2008 15:38:17 +0000

I saw a Phillipino woman on the news, in rice queue, complaining about the shortages and smilingly saying how difficult it was for her to feed her twelve children.
I was born fifty years ago when there were three billion people on the planet, now there are six and a half billion, and we are told to expect nine or ten within thirty years. The planet is full already. We are behaving like the overcrowded rats of the model already, what with our declining mental health and increasing personal aggression; add in real and irreversible commodity shortages (sorry economists) and you have a toxic mix.
Oil and gas, and water, are the crucial components here, and we are greedily depleting them all.
Any ideas on where to go and live to escape for the few remaining years of my life...please?

By: Ross

Ross — Fri, 18 Apr 2008 09:19:14 +0000

Globally we eat more on average than we ever have. Prove this wrong and you might have a shot at proving Malthus right. Otherwise, after giving him at tick on the quantum of global population growth, he is proved wrong.

Given the relatively poor productivity in farming caused by the food trade barriers and price supports, the connection this has in underwriting population growth in desperate hot spots should not be underestimated.

By: Jean Brenzi

Jean Brenzi — Fri, 18 Apr 2008 06:53:06 +0000

Hi,
Interesting article - how about investigating the selling off of Western Australian farms to China also they are buying up big in shares of our mining companies etc.
Thanks