Food prices could hit tipping point for global unrest

[GliderGuider]

Food prices could hit tipping point for global unrest

"When you have food prices peak, you have all these riots. But look under the peaks, at the background trend. That's increasing quite rapidly, too," said Yaneer Bar-Yam, president of the New England Complex Systems Institute. "In one to two years, the background trend runs into the place where all hell breaks loose."

Bar-Yam and his colleagues are hunters of mathematical signals in social data: market trends and economic patterns, ethnic violence, Hollywood movies. In their latest expedition, described 11 Aug in the prepublication online arXiv, they focus on the 2008 food riots and the Arab Spring, both of which followed year-long surges in basic food prices.

The researchers are hardly the first to portray food problems as a spark that inflames social inequality and stokes individual desperation, unleashing and amplifying impulses of rebellion. The role of food prices in triggering the Arab Spring has been widely described. Their innovation is a pair of price points on the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization's food price index: about 215 in current prices, or 190 when corrected for inflation.

It's at those points where, on a graph of food prices and social unrest between 2004 and 2011, unrest breaks out. But whereas they were crossed by price jumps in 2008, Bar-Yam and colleagues calculate that the underlying, steady trend -- driven primarily by commodity speculation, agricultural crop-to-fuel conversion and rising prices of fertiliser and oil -- crosses those points between 2012 and 2013. "Once we get there, the peaks aren't the problem anymore. Instead it's the trend. And that's harder to correct," said Bar-Yam.

[Donnachaidh]

1. When you're broke with family, all you try to do is keep them fed

Here in the States we have foodbanks. And we utilized them when DH was out of work. But if the pukes cut more food aid (stamps) to the poor and the food banks get overwhelmed - we stand a very real chance of having a major shitstorm in this country.

[Ship of Fools]

2. Would you agree that they know this? And the sooner it would happen,

the better? That their objective of rallying hatred for the purpose of destroying PBO is so great that ...? THIS is what I truly believe. Break it down and then rebuild it in your own image ...

just one woman's opinion

[Ghost Dog]

4. Yes. This appears to be part of the plan.

[Donnachaidh]

6. honestly, I don't think this is some *grand plan* to take out the president

That's far too tinfoilish imo.

GREED is causing the problems -- unfettered greed. When you have one party that is rushing to de-regulate everything, to gut ALL protections - and another party that does NOT fight back -- you have the makings of a shitstorm.

GREED has driven the agenda for over 3 decades. This is not *suddenly* happening because of one president.

[OKIsItJustMe]

7. You’re right. This is just the fruit of 30 years of work

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Starve_the_beast#History

…

History

---

Prior to being elected as the President, then-candidate Ronald Reagan foreshadowed the strategy during the 1980 US Presidential debates, saying "John Anderson tells us that first we've got to reduce spending before we can reduce taxes. Well, if you've got a kid that's extravagant, you can lecture him all you want to about his extravagance. Or you can cut his allowance and achieve the same end much quicker."

It appears the earliest use of the term "starving the beast" to refer to the political-fiscal strategy was in a Wall Street Journal article in 1985 where the reporter quoted an unnamed Reagan staffer.

…

[bananas]

3. 48% of Americans Think Spending Cuts Could Trigger Violence

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=439x1755853

http://georgewashington2.blogspot.com/2011/08/48-think-spending-cuts-could-trigger.html

48% of Americans Think Spending Cuts Could Trigger Violence: Poll

The link between austerity and violence is pretty well-documented.

So it's not entirely surprising that a new Rasmussen poll finds that 48% of Americans think that spending cuts could trigger violence.

[OKIsItJustMe]

5. The headline seems to be missing the word “soon”

(As in, “Food prices could hit tipping point for global unrest soon.”)

http://www.un.org/apps/news/infocusRel.asp?infocusID=137&Body=food+crisis&Body1
http://www.un.org/issues/food/taskforce/

[bhikkhu]

8. True, but in the US its not so bad

I know there's no shortage of general malaise here, and real problems, but the price of food vs income is still at historic lows. We are fortunate to be one of the few countries with very large food surpluses.

Of course, the number of people without income is growing, and charity isn't something that makes people happy when they must rely on it, but, at least in my area, there are plenty of good ways for people who can't afford food to acquire it. I imagine there are many well-managed programs in most areas.

I'm not sure I see a tipping point myself here, in the foreseeable future (unless a crazy repug takes the WH) - just more of a long grind toward zero growth.

[GliderGuider]

9. Yes, thank god the American end of the ship isn't sinking...

The "tipping point" is of course in the rise of global outbreaks of food riots and civil unrest. I'm sure that the USA, and maybe Luxembourg, will be just fine.

[bhikkhu]

10. Of course, I could easily be wrong

...and regardless of its relative cheapness or its absolute abundance, we do have a pretty screwy distribution here.

Mainly my point was that the problems we have to deal with here - now and at any point in a general collapse scenario - are much more easily solved than those the vast majority of nations will deal with. Its hard to fix anything if you have a starving population, and most countries are dependent on the few large exporters.

[NickB79]

11. So long as we have access to cheap oil to run the farm machinery

Add a long-term oil price spike, or even worse an actual oil shortage, and you could easily see US food production take a nosedive, being as heavily dependent on industrial farming as it is.

[Karenina]

12. The tipping point may well be dependent on

the weather. ;-)