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| Why Has the Price of Food Shot Up and What Does It Portend?
Posted: 4/18/2008 9:53:32 AM | | BECAUSE GAS AND FOOD COMPANIES ARE GREEDY ****S!!! couldnt think of a polite way to say that. Energy companies are apparantly making record profits AT OUR EXPENSE!! Same for the government increasing taxes. Why do we have to suffer for the greed of others? It pisses me off. | |
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| Why Has the Price of Food Shot Up and What Does It Portend?
Posted: 4/19/2008 5:56:12 AM | anti-idiotarian, apparantly you seem to espouse a philosophy of rugged individualism, eh? I'm not sure which disasters inherent in socialism you are referring to ....but many countries, including France, that you might call "nanny states" are very successful societies that use their taxes to TAKE CARE of people rather than make war on other people.
Let's imagine for a minute that 200 multi-nationals grow, process, distribute and own all the food that is sold in the world....all the fruit, vegetables, meat and fish .... and that their economies of scale ......mile-wide fishing nets and floating factories, thousands of fattened animals packed into small enclosures and butchered along assembly lines at a cow per minute, millions of acres of corn, soy, wheat, etc. sown and harvested with little human labor, etc. ... and they do these so efficiently that they put small ranchers, fishermen and farmers out of business who cannot compete with their prices .... with the help of governments, the IMF, World Bank, etc. and others who expand their markets and further the demise of the small rancher or farmer .....
...and then let's say that when they have a sufficnet monopoly, they make their move, holding food or starvation in their hands for whole countries...feast or famine ...and even those governments are helpless because these multinationals are too powerful for them, so all the governments can do is buy from them at a slightly reduced rate ....
....squeezed by the price of gas and food, are the families who can afford only the basic necessities now in our Midwest rugged? the old who have to scrimp on food, too? the kids in Haiti who have two teaspoons of rice a day and some days nothing, rugged? All over the world, a lot of which is hungry or starving already due to economics, life worsens.......more hunger, starvation, disease and death ....all for the profits of the few, smart, rich, merciless profiteers and the money-hungry that surround and work for them.
Maybe once upon a time you could grow a garden, hunt a wild boar, skin a deer for clothes, etc. but now we live in a global economy and also in a time when most wages are stagnant but prices are going up .......that means fewer jobs. Global means that these multi-nationals are often more powerful than governments, governments are simply their clients, often their partners because there is a frequent change of places for people from government positions to private consulting, back and forth, all the time.
So, we are reaching a point where all of us are going to be held hostage on the basic necessities of life by private companies that will siphon off untold billions of people.
Withouth government intervention, we arent rugged individuals, we are just fish in a barrel. Period. | |
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| Why Has the Price of Food Shot Up and What Does It Portend?
Posted: 4/19/2008 8:00:09 PM | Steven,
There's a country song by Hank William's Jr. that I think you should listen to.
There are still a lot of folks in this country and a round the world who make at least a portion of their living doing the things you list as "rugged individualists". I"m one of them. I'm also still a member of the national and world economy. I do grow a large portion of my own food. My meat isn't from wild game but domestic livestock I have raised and I do butcher most of it myself. I heat my house with fire wood which I cut and essentially get for free. My pickup is 30 years old I take care of it and it lasts. My farm, house and buildings are all paid for. I bought everything cheap because it's all fixer uppers. Work which I'm doing when I have time and resources. Much of the lumber I use is salvaged from old buildings.
I think this has been a great forum. There have been a lot of well thought out posts as well as a few silly ones. Such as the gentleman who wants "to stock up on cats because they are good to stir fry". However I am having trouble understanding what it is you want. We live in a republic, a democracy if you prefer, our officials are elected members of the citizenry. All residents of the US born here or naturalized are citizens. Any American can get on the phone and call, write, or email their elected representatives with their concerns. I have done so personally. I have talked one on one with Congressman and Senators on several occasions.
The corporations aren't nameless and faceless entities. They are owned and operated by the stock holders. Most, but not all, Americans own a share in a number of corporations through their retirement funds. With ownership, stock, comes voting rights in those corporations. Even without being a stock holder you can still write to these corporations with your concerns.
I for one am proud to be a member of a free Republic and I would gladly bear arms to defend those freedoms against any enemy as my ancestors before me have.
I tend to go out of my way to avoid giving offense but Steven I think it is time you do some research on your opinions and then stand up and be counted one way or another. In addition, just because you may personally lack the aptitude for "rugged individual" tasks doesn't mean it should be dismissed. That is not a criticism. I'm able to make a living doing the things I want to do because others would rather not do those very things.
-Chris | |
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| Why Has the Price of Food Shot Up and What Does It Portend?
Posted: 4/19/2008 8:47:24 PM | Love that song and a country can survive. Btw I shoot 60-80% of all my own meat every year.
But Steve right too in his own way. What we have to do is become Americans again and stop this crazy world of Global coroprations telling our Government what treaties to sign. We have the best Government money can buy. This needs to be fixed. | |
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| Why Has the Price of Food Shot Up and What Does It Portend?
Posted: 4/19/2008 9:01:37 PM |
This needs to be fixed.
Yup, and here is how to do it:
Everyone from the middle-class down stockpiles one months worth of food and water for their families. Stockpile extra for those with less.
Then stop. Do not go to work. Park your car for the month and stay home. Do not pay any bills. Do not spend ANY money on ANYTHING. Go on strike. Stop being ripped off by our Government and the Rich.
People like to complain, but to actually do something about it is to inconvenient; so they do nothing - just keep paying. Just get poorer and poorer while the Rich and the Government shoves it to you again and again. | |
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| Why Has the Price of Food Shot Up and What Does It Portend?
Posted: 4/19/2008 9:20:41 PM | Someone cries "global warming">>>>>>someone answers "bio-fuel is a must!">>>>>farmers plant corn (for bio-fuel) rather than other foods such as rice and wheat>>>>>>studies reveal bio-fuel is more polluting than current fuel>>>>>>we have lots of corn but are short on things like wheat and rice.
Also, the price of fuel to transport food is a major cause of rising prices.
Also, free trade is allowing poorer countries to become richer. This results in these countries entering food markets where they were previously too poor to get into. Supply and demand stuff.
When America gets hungry enough, it will wake up and see what a crock of political BS much of the environmental movement is. | |
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| Why Has the Price of Food Shot Up and What Does It Portend?
Posted: 4/19/2008 9:58:55 PM | | Has anyone else thought that the problem may have nothing to do with mega-corporations, weaken governments, or poorly thought out alternative energy plans? I would thought that since most of the world's wealth is sent to the US and US foreign policy has a negative impact on most of the world, that maybe the world is just getting sick of it. OPEC is a group of countries that supply most of the world's oil but some of the key members did not like the US invasion of Iraq, an action that was not santion by the UN which was establish to help prevent such things. Iran is taking steps to develop nuclear power but is using an US/Soviet design reactor which can irradiate weapons grade plutonium. Yet there is talk of attacking them instead of offering to replace such reactors with Canadian Candu reactors which cannot make radioactive weapons. So let's look at it so far. The US with the help of Britian, attacks one OPEC country and threatens another. None of these countries spend billions of dollars on their military. (Got to keep those $1 million/day carriers going.) So how would you respond. By increasing the price and decreasing the production of the one thing that the US needs. And the response is exactly as expected. Energy crisis and food crisis, stuff that can be avoided. Governments have more power then expected. But it takes the people to push it. Want to save money on gas but still need to drive daily? Look into all avenues for options. Electric cars are still out of reach for most people as well as hybrid but other countries have found solutions. (Look at the European Smart Car or the Japanese Kei cars.) If you own your own home, look into solar panels to offset your power consuption. Worry about your city's tap water. Buy a water filtration system and install it either just on one sink or on your main line in. Or even a filter jug. Most people tend to forget about the chemicals used to make the bottle for their bottle water or the power consumption needed, plus the shipping. And bring about the biggest change, force the mega-corporations to fight for your business. Avoid Wal-Mart, Shell, Mobil, Texaco. Find that small no name gas station or store. Yes you will pay a little more with everything I stated but the dividends will be such that it will help the enviroment, cut your energy costs, and make everyone out there realize that global war and profit mongering won't be tolerated. And vote for someone that WILL cut some of the worst spenders in the world. The Pentagon's budget. Forcing the world to do what the US wanted caused this problem. Take away the method to do that will go along way to reversing this current problem with food prices and fuel costs. | |
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| Why Has the Price of Food Shot Up and What Does It Portend?
Posted: 4/19/2008 10:22:52 PM |
When America gets hungry enough, it will wake up and see what a crock of political BS much of the environmental movement is
I have to agree, free trade potentially makes a poor country wealthier.
An example is Canada.
We've been funneling money there ( jobs, corporate move, $ass kissing$ ) to the North and South of both borders for years until in way of 'jobs' until we, the people have had enough.
Bottom line, it's sucking us from both ends and it's draining.
Then, the arrogant bas*tards have the gall to call us evil , at least Mexico gives us a smile and handshake in the end. | |
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| Why Has the Price of Food Shot Up and What Does It Portend?
Posted: 4/19/2008 10:36:50 PM | anokgrassland, some places in the world, people spend 80% of their $2 a day on food and when the price of rice, their main staple goes up, because of collusion among greedy corporations, they starve. Maybe you see the world through your own situation, but what you see isn't it, what you see is YOU.
And only a small percent of people own and control stocks, bonds, or other capital investments and if they are lucky, the equity in their homes is about it; although, for many even that is leveraged. Americans have a NEGATIVE SAVINGS RATE, unless many other western and also eastern countries ........so when we get squeezed ..........guess where that hedge fund managers made his $2.2 BILLION IN ONE YEAR from? Or the other hedge fund managers making an average of $650 million a year.
the truth is that multinationals have overtaken governments in their power, monopolized, and control what we EAT so they can put the squeeze on wherever and to whomever they wish. There is an incredible amount of dirty pool being played now.
It's wrong. People are going HUNGRY and will starve TO DEATH in places in this world because of other people's GREED. It's wrong. | |
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| Why Has the Price of Food Shot Up and What Does It Portend?
Posted: 4/19/2008 10:39:14 PM | | Those people could always eat snakes, bugs, and wild edibles. People now a days are way to reliant on "easy foods" that are ready to eat. If it came down to survial for me anyways, I'd eat ants, grasshoppers, maggots, frogs, dogs, snakes, and other wild edibles. If a person really wants to keep your grocery bil down..Well then do something about it. Dont buy all of the packed puddings, candy bars, ice cream, name brand creals, and other useless foods. Instead buy whole grains. They fill you up faster. Also buy things like corn bread mix. You can get alot of food out of a package of corn bread mix. Food is about energy. Taste is just a pleasure. Insects actually offer more protein then red meat and without the nasty fats! The cheapest way to go is to buy foods you have to cook and not pop in the microwave. A big ole ham will cost around $16.00. While a premade sandwich in a vending machine will go for $1.50. The ham will feed you for a longer time then pre made goodies. But omg with our american attitude, how dare we cook. Right now I am a single guy and I spend around $80 to $90 dollers a week on all of my groceries. Thats around $12 dollars a day. Not to bad in my book I'd say. | |
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| Why Has the Price of Food Shot Up and What Does It Portend?
Posted: 4/20/2008 12:47:16 AM |
Those people could always eat snakes, bugs, and wild edibles.
Easy for you to say! We're talking rice here...the basic staple of the vast majority of the population! They only dream of a morsel of ham.
We've been funneling money there ( jobs, corporate move, $ass kissing$ ) to the North and South of both borders for years until in way of 'jobs' until we, the people have had enough.
It's not you funneling the money...it's the corporations...we're not taking your job...they are, and their taking it elsewhere. At the same time, their buying up our corporations and taking some of those jobs elsewhere.
As far as ass kissing is concerned, many Canadians call our present Prime Minister....
Vice President Harper. Letting the US gov. and the corporations keep 4 of the 5 billion $ that every single legal judgment in the softwood lumber dispute found in Canada's favor...
is just one example.
I would thought that since most of the world's wealth is sent to the US...
Not sent to the US...but to US based multinationals....and the bottom line to them is profit...no matter which denomination it comes in.
>>>>>someone answers "bio-fuel is a must!"
Bush is a great promoter....as many other corporate controlled types...
farmers plant corn (for bio-fuel) rather than other foods such as rice and wheat
...and then subsidizes the farmer to grow it....
studies reveal bio-fuel is more polluting than current fuel
surprise, surprise...
we have lots of corn but are short on things like wheat and rice.
corn for fuel....so you'll be short on that too...it's "edible price" will surely rise too...
A perfect storm invented by multinationals and futures speculators to drive up the price of the second most basic necessity of life in order to increase wealth and consolidate power...which includes letting millions die of starvation in the process.
Their next target will be potable water.
Those that control the flow of water...control life... | |
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| Why Has the Price of Food Shot Up and What Does It Portend?
Posted: 4/20/2008 5:48:08 AM | in addition to growing ones' own food, people should learn to forage. find out about edible wild plants and how to find, identify and consume them.
i feel lucky because i just got a job on an organic vegetable farm. i may not bring home a big paycheck, but you can't put a value on what i'll learn. plus, i won't starve. or go broke paying for food, and neither will my closest friends. | |
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| Why Has the Price of Food Shot Up and What Does It Portend?
Posted: 4/20/2008 6:18:19 AM |
Have you ever wondered why Mr Gore, Mr Global Warming himself, still holds stock in Oil Companies??? Because he is making a ton of money from them.
Is there something wrong with that? making money or making money in oil investments?
Is there something wrong with staying engages with things that need changing?
Is there something wrong with looking far into the future and considered the effect of our foot prints~ we make today?
I'll bet on a winning horse even if it's owner squanders money on hookers and drugs.
It is a conflicting thing to consider ~ but we do make these choices everyday. Al of us do, with every dollar you spend ~ you are voting. ~dar | |
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| Why Has the Price of Food Shot Up and What Does It Portend?
Posted: 4/20/2008 6:45:00 AM | @anokagrassland
The corporations aren't nameless and faceless entities. They are owned and operated by the stock holders. Most, but not all, Americans own a share in a number of corporations through their retirement funds. With ownership, stock, comes voting rights in those corporations. Even without being a stock holder you can still write to these corporations with your concerns.
I'm guessing that we will not agree regarding this, but I've begun to suspect this is part of the problem. That the workingman has been co-opted by being sold on the notion that a rising tide lifts all boats, to hitch their stars to the investment class, and being convinced by the rationale , they believe their prosperity is insured by their participation in and defense of stock ownership. This creates the climate wherein the working man then champions the arguments of the rich.
In theory, if all elements were equal, these rationales would probably hold true, but in practice in the real world, that is not actually how things work. First off, within a corporate charter, the small investor may have the privilege of voting, but in vastly unequal proportion, and second, he will generally not disadvantage himself nor the value of his stock, when confronted with the conflicting interests of maximizing profits balanced against the general welfare of the common good.
The two cases where this is most currently true, the energy sector, and medicine, are prime examples wherein the creation of personal wealth is derived by disadvantaging the general population as a whole.
I'm sure Enron's investors were delighted with the profits generated by manipulation of markets, and one must remember this manipulation was not a part of Enron's downfall, (that was due in dishonestly reporting market value to their shareholders); the general business model survived Enron's fall, that artfully limiting supply as strategy for maximizing profits lives on; and has become the de facto standard that guides the energy sector as a whole.
The lesson taught by Enron, has now been widely embraced; and one would be blind not to see the deleterious effects of that policy on society as a whole; but as it generates profit for investors it is sacrosanct and deemed morally defensible. I see the same dilemmas within the medical sector. What incentive does a drug company or the medical industry have in pursuing cures when the lifetime management of disease is so much more profitable?
Extrapolate those business models to genetically modified seed and the privatization of water and we can see the results, not that we need imagine, as these are now common practices in the third world.
Lastly, I have a lot of respect for the lifestyle and practices you seem to embrace, sustainable farming, free range grazing , and you offer a lot of common sense in your practical recommendations on how to weather the financial storms, but I disagree that it all boils down to simply a formula of rewarding personal industriousness and incentive, or every man for himself. Those values on the personal level cannot be abstracted onto financial markets as though they serve the same ends , they don't.
On the political level while every man has a vote and might contact his congressional representatives, policy is enacted not so much by who is elected than by who has the most power to influence that politicians vote. The 35,000 K Street lobbyists, who have teams of business professionals, lawyers, and government insiders, going after the minutia and detail in law, work full time to create a climate of law that advantages their particular business model have much more effect in the real world than the individual voter. This seems to be a serious flaw in the system, one I am hard pressed to account remedy for without seeking limits to investors, corporate (or special interest PACs) ... power.
darjeeling | |
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| Why Has the Price of Food Shot Up and What Does It Portend?
Posted: 4/20/2008 6:58:14 AM | | A couple of years ago when grain prices were at break even levels for farmers,the cost of the wheat that went into a loaf of bread was 3 or 4 cents. Now that wheat has doubled in price, the cost of the wheat in a loaf of bread is 6 or 8 cents. Why has bread prices gone up 50 to 75% in some cases? The world has become detached from the people that actualy raises their food,they wouldn`t buy from a local bakery because they were a few cents higher on price. Now big huge business bakes the bread and they are reaping their profits because they can. My point is that people have let their food production out of their control and will have to start paying dearly for it now. | |
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| Why Has the Price of Food Shot Up and What Does It Portend?
Posted: 4/20/2008 7:10:28 AM | I heard Wal-Mart is buying up the futures of the worlds food sources. They already market chickens & pigs in crates overseas. They are buying up staples like corn, wheat & rice. Then the Monsanto corporation is buying all the patents for genetically modified organisms, which means when the regular crops cross-polinate with the GMOs through wind or birds or water, Monsanto owns that too. Basically, we're either all screwed, or they will be kind to us and sell the food at what we can afford....NOT! They will hold us hostage to our basic needs, and we'll start lookin alot like the African people, all repressed & scrounging for a bite.
This is serious, folks. But maybe some flag waving will make it all better. | |
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| Why Has the Price of Food Shot Up and What Does It Portend?
Posted: 4/20/2008 7:26:36 AM | excellent , thought provoking post (65) , darjeeling
in summary ~ the correct for this eludes me as well ~
but we will never be a Nation, "For the people and by the people"
until we come to grips with the issue of sperical interest. ~dar | |
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| Why Has the Price of Food Shot Up and What Does It Portend?
Posted: 4/20/2008 7:30:11 AM | http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=7735
From William Engdhal's Seeds of Destruction:
""Early in the 1970s, agribusiness producers controlled US food supplies. They'd now go global on a scale without precedent. The goal - "staggering profits" by "restructur(ing) the way Americans grew food to feed themselves and the world." Ronald Reagan continued Carter's policy and let the top four or five monopoly players control it. It led to an unprecedented "concentration and transformation of American agriculture" with independent family farmers driven off their land through forced sales and bankruptcies so "more efficient" agribusiness giants could move in with "Factory Farms." Remaining small producers became virtual serfs as "contract farmers." America's landscape was changing with people trampled on for profits.
Engdahl explained a gradual process of "wholesale merger(s) and consolidation....of American food production....into giant corporate global concentrations" with familiar names - Cargill, Archer Daniels Midland (ADM), Smithfield Foods and ConAgra. As they grew bigger, so did their bottom lines with annual equity returns rising from 13% in 1993 to 23% in 1999. Hundreds of thousands of small farmers lost out for it as their numbers dropped by 300,000 from 1979 to 1998 alone. It was even worse for hog farmers with a drop from 600,000 to 157,000 so 3% of producers could control 50% of the market.
The social costs were staggering and continue to be as "entire rural communities collapsed and rural towns became ghost towns." Consider the consequences:
-- by 2004, the four largest beef packers controlled 84% of steer and heifer slaughter - Tyson, Cargill, Swift and National Beef Packing;
-- four giants controlled 64% of hog production - Smithfield Foods, Tyson, Swift and Hormel;
-- three companies controlled 71% of soybean crushing - Cargill, ADM and Bunge;
-- three giants controlled 63% of all flour milling, and five companies controlled 90% of global grain trade;
-- four other companies controlled 89% of the breakfast cereal market - Kellogg, General Mills, Kraft Foods and Quaker Oats;
-- in 1998, Cargill acquired Continental Grain to control 40% of national grain elevator capacity;
-- four large agro-chemical/seed giants controlled over 75% of the nation's seed corn sales and 60% of it for soybeans while also having the largest share of the agricultural chemical market - Monsanto, Novartis, Dow Chemical and DuPont; six companies controlled three-fourths of the global pesticides market;
-- Monsanto and DuPont controlled 60% of the US corn and soybean seed market - all of it patented GMO seeds; and
-- 10 large food retailers controlled $649 billion in global sales in 2002, and the top 30 food retailers account for one-third of global grocery sales.
At the dawn of a new century, family farming was decimated by corporate agribusiness' vertically integrated powers that surpassed their earlier 1920s heyday dominance. The industry was now the second most profitable national one after pharmaceuticals with domestic annual sales exceeding $400 billion. The next aim was merging Big Pharma with Big food producing giants, and the Pentagon's National Defense University took note in a 2003-issued paper - "Agribusiness (now) is to the United States what oil is to the Middle East." It's now considered a "strategic weapon in the arsenal of the world's only superpower," but at a huge cost to consumers everywhere.
Engdahl reviewed the "revolution" in animal factory production that EarthSave International founder and Baskin-Robbins heir, John Robbins, covered honestly, thoroughly and compassionately in two explosive books on the subject - "Diet for A New America" in 1987 and "The Food Revolution" in 2001. They were both stinging indictments of corporate-produced foods - horrifying animal cruelty, unsafe foods, unsanitary conditions, rampant use of anti-biotics humans then ingest, massive environmental pollution, and new unknown dangers from genetic engineering - all allowed by supposed government watchdog regulatory agencies that ignore public health concerns.""" | |
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| Why Has the Price of Food Shot Up and What Does It Portend?
Posted: 4/20/2008 7:35:44 AM | Maybe the governments of the world have checked out the gambling that is going on and thought hey these people got too much disposable income and decided its time to put up taxes and cost of food and fuel to stop us gambling so much a week.
I personally last bought a lottery ticket a month ago for a quid, won ten and am £9 up - dont tell the government or they will be taxing that. | |
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| Why Has the Price of Food Shot Up and What Does It Portend?
Posted: 4/20/2008 8:14:28 AM | LozHunter, I am sure that whatever the governments and the corporations are doing, they are doing it for you.........because they care about you. They are honestly interested in your happiness and well-being. So yes, you are quite right, they want to have all of your disposable income so you won't gamble it away.  | |
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| Why Has the Price of Food Shot Up and What Does It Portend?
Posted: 4/20/2008 9:16:30 AM | Anyone ever heard of "V gardens" of world war 2? V gardens or victory gardens were grown all across america and everywhere and anywhere plants could grow(backyards, vaccant lots, roof tops etc). Americans planted crops all over so they could have food for themselves, as large amounts of food were being sent to allied and communist troops in WW2. Food from V gardens actually made up a large amount of food consumed in the USA at the time. We did this once, why not again? Or are we just to used to our Whopper and fries these days? Maybe we just don't have any time..right? But always enough time to sit or extra large butt on the couch to watch american idol..right? We americans are excellent at one thing. And that's making up excuses on why we can't do things. | |
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| Why Has the Price of Food Shot Up and What Does It Portend?
Posted: 4/20/2008 9:22:06 AM | It would seem that some do think money in the hand of some of us is wasteful.
like a 300.00 tatoo of Ginji Turtles ~ on ones arm ~~~ You want to shoot em.
so money does change hands ~ from the foolish or the needing or the wanting ~ to who knows whom.
Over simplified , the problem is three fold as I see it, it's purchasing power is being deminished and the flow of it ~ is slowed, restricted and the most damaging of all, ~ a lot of it , is going into pockets of a few, never to be seen again only to show up in some distance country, I don't know the name of.
Guess we 've all been told , to pay yourself first! ~ put back a min. of 10% ~ this you are suppose to keep for ever. ~ From this egg, you borrow and leverage.
Sounds easy enough ~ and I've personally done so for months at a time. ~ gives one a comfortable feeling to have it.
But seems rainy days come and stay too long ~ and leave you flat again. ~ The rainy days is what kills me. ~
Seems I am a rainy day child, I do love the rain ~ but it's mixed blessing.
~dar | |
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