Comments on: Food Inflation Escalating http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2007/12/food-inflation-escalating.html Sun, 22 Nov 2009 18:20:39 -0500 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.8.4 hourly 1 By: Anonymous http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2007/12/food-inflation-escalating.html#comment-2494 Anonymous Tue, 18 Dec 2007 03:31:00 +0000 http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2007/12/food-inflation-escalating/#comment-2494 A Corner in Wheat is a little meditation on capitalism, derived from Frank Norris, weaving together narrative fragments linked by their relation to wheat. The film begins with farmers sowing grain and taking their meager harvest to market. Capitalist speculators engineer the "corner in wheat" of the title, establishing full control over the world's supply. We see, intercut with this coup and the main capitalist's ensuing celebrations, the effects on others: another speculator is ruined, the farmers return home empty-handed, the urban poor go hungry and begin to riot when bread becomes unaffordable. The riot is squelched, but the "Wheat King" meets with his just desserts, inadvertently buried under an avalanche of grain, while the farmers continue to toil. A Corner in Wheat is a little meditation on capitalism, derived from Frank Norris, weaving together narrative fragments linked by their relation to wheat. The film begins with farmers sowing grain and taking their meager harvest to market. Capitalist speculators engineer the “corner in wheat” of the title, establishing full control over the world’s supply. We see, intercut with this coup and the main capitalist’s ensuing celebrations, the effects on others: another speculator is ruined, the farmers return home empty-handed, the urban poor go hungry and begin to riot when bread becomes unaffordable. The riot is squelched, but the “Wheat King” meets with his just desserts, inadvertently buried under an avalanche of grain, while the farmers continue to toil.

]]> By: newsman http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2007/12/food-inflation-escalating.html#comment-2492 newsman Tue, 18 Dec 2007 03:28:00 +0000 http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2007/12/food-inflation-escalating/#comment-2492 When wheat hits $100 a bushel, a lot of people are going to be starving to death. We tend to worry about oil shortages and power brownouts, because we have had (small) tastes of those, but the idea of a food shortage--hunger!!!--is beyond our comprehension in North America (Europeans likely heard about it from their parents and grandparents...)<br/><br/>But when you see stats like a nine-week supply of wheat and a seven-week supply of corn, you realize that the wolf of hunger is getting much too close to the door. <br/><br/>At least we can fuel our cars with corn ethanol to allow us to drive from supermarket to supermarket in hopes of finding one that is open and stocked with bread or cornflakes.<br/><br/>It hit me this weekend when I was trying to find some beef for an inexpensive supper of stew, and the stew meat was over $3 a pound everywhere. When wheat hits $100 a bushel, a lot of people are going to be starving to death. We tend to worry about oil shortages and power brownouts, because we have had (small) tastes of those, but the idea of a food shortage–hunger!!!–is beyond our comprehension in North America (Europeans likely heard about it from their parents and grandparents…)

But when you see stats like a nine-week supply of wheat and a seven-week supply of corn, you realize that the wolf of hunger is getting much too close to the door.

At least we can fuel our cars with corn ethanol to allow us to drive from supermarket to supermarket in hopes of finding one that is open and stocked with bread or cornflakes.

It hit me this weekend when I was trying to find some beef for an inexpensive supper of stew, and the stew meat was over $3 a pound everywhere.

]]> By: a http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2007/12/food-inflation-escalating.html#comment-2470 a Mon, 17 Dec 2007 08:18:00 +0000 http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2007/12/food-inflation-escalating/#comment-2470 I would love to see OPEC's face when wheat hits $100 a bushel. (I'd feel bad for the rest of the world, but not for OPEC.) I would love to see OPEC’s face when wheat hits $100 a bushel. (I’d feel bad for the rest of the world, but not for OPEC.)

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