Korean Job Discussion Forums

[Ya-ta Boy]

Here's a cheerful topic that hasn't really been discussed on this site. All of us have noticed higher gas prices and most of us have noticed higher food prices. The following excerpts are from an article for the general reader focusing on rising food prices. It's worth your time.

"The world now needs to focus not only on agricultural policy, but on a structure that integrates it with energy, population, and water policies, each of which directly affects food security.

But that is not happening. Instead, as land and water become scarcer, as the Earth's temperature rises, and as world food security deteriorates, a dangerous geopolitics of food scarcity is emerging. Land grabbing, water grabbing, and buying grain directly from farmers in exporting countries are now integral parts of a global power struggle for food security.

With grain stocks low and climate volatility increasing, the risks are also increasing. We are now so close to the edge that a breakdown in the food system could come at any time."

And this:

"And this rich country-poor country divide could grow even more pronounced -- and soon. This January, a new stage in the scramble among importing countries to secure food began to unfold when South Korea, which imports 70 percent of its grain, announced that it was creating a new public-private entity that will be responsible for acquiring part of this grain. With an initial office in Chicago, the plan is to bypass the large international trading firms by buying grain directly from U.S. farmers. As the Koreans acquire their own grain elevators, they may well sign multiyear delivery contracts with farmers, agreeing to buy specified quantities of wheat, corn, or soybeans at a fixed price.

Other importers will not stand idly by as South Korea tries to tie up a portion of the U.S. grain harvest even before it gets to market. The enterprising Koreans may soon be joined by China, Japan, Saudi Arabia, and other leading importers."

http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2011/04/25/the_new_geopolitics_of_food?page=0,0

This is a four page article that gives a good overview of the situation, mentioning the role of food prices in the current Middle East crisis, refering back to the 2007-2008 crisis, and going over some of the related problems like water shortages and climate change.

It paints a pretty bleak picture.

[Kuros]

Welcome to the agricultural commodity bubble. Brought to you partly by Fed Reserve shenanigans.

Here's a global breakdown for food expenditures as a function of income.

You'll notice the Anglo-American world is the richest according to this standard, although I don't think the infographic accounts for government subsidies. Notice that geographic advantage plays little role. Rocky and poor-soiled Greece and South Korea are safely under 20%, whereas the rich grain fields of America and the Ukraine are like night and day, 7% versus 42%. No doubt there are Americans who devote 42% of their income to food and other Americans who devote 4.2% of it to food. Access to food is about wealth and the legal systems that support efficient marketplaces.

But when there are commodity fluctuations, the poor suffer most.

[Ya-ta Boy]

Assuming this crisis is a crisis and not just media hype, I'd like to see some plans being considered on dealing short-term and long-term.

Michelle Chen, a blogger, has some interesting additional comments:

"World Bank President Robert Zoellick warned at a recent World Bank-IMF meeting that the planet was hurtling toward a food crisis, akin to the chaos that erupted in 2007-2008 across the Global South. The context this time is in some ways more daunting: a perfect storm of social and economic upheaval in North Africa and the Middle East, natural and nuclear disasters in Japan, debt crises in Europe and the U.S., and epidemic unemployment worldwide.

"In the past year, Zoellick said, soaring food prices have plunged some 44 million people into poverty. Another ten million would become impoverished with just a 10 percent further rise in the UN's food price index, which jumped by 25 percent last year. Poor regions hover on the brink of malnourishment due to depleted safety nets and broken emergency back-up resources...

"Despite poverty, desperation, and even revolt exploding around them, officials and finance ministers are gambling on putting off decisive action, maybe hoping the market will somehow correct itself. But as Zoellick cautioned, "In revolutionary moments, status quo is not the winning hand."

From the same article, Oxfam says, "The World Bank says we're one shock away from a full-blown crisis but makes no mention of the three things rich countries have done to cause it -- burning food for biofuels, gambling in commodity casinos, and subsidizing farmers in rich countries."

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/michelle-chen/global-food-crisis_b_852842.html

This is a newish issue for me, so what I'm interested in are the proposals being put forward to deal with it. I'm also interested in just how much food costs played in sparking the revolutions in the Middle East. I'm concerned that further political turmoil will result in other parts of the world in the coming months.

[visitorq]

This is a complicated global issue, but basically boils down to the US dollar (the world's reserve currency), as well as other currencies like the Euro being debased by our governments' ridiculous monetary policies. Wasting trillions on useless wars and banker bailouts, hurdling our countries into depression while the Goldman Sachs gang (who sold toxic derivatives around the world, fraudulently rated as pure gold AAA, knowing full well they were financial dynamite, and even bet against the markets as in the US sub-prime mortgage crisis) proposes austerity measures around the world as a so-called solution. It's the same old "let them eat cake" attitude as always.

The Euro has been in a serious crisis since 2008 as everyone knows, and most countries are now preparing to abandon the US dollar as a reserve currency (or in the case of China and Russia have already done so). This is an artificial monetary problem born of debt and inflation (caused by the utterly corrupt central banking warfare model used around the world), and not one of food production. With our technological capabilities we already massively overproduce food and have the resources to theoretically feed many billions more than we currently do. But none of that matters when governments can borrow unlimited amounts of money to fund wars and bail out their cronies in the financial sector; from the same private mega-banks that create said money out of thin air, lend to the rest of us at interest, and use it to buy up the whole world.

[wintermute]

MSNBC - Wall Street is behind high food-oil prices...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8HuhhxAGqN8&feature=player_embedded

This very interesting clip goes into more detail about the "gambling in commodity casinos", the massive printing of money for bailouts, and Goldman Sachs' leading role in removing protections against large scale commodity betting.

"It started in 1991 with, surprise, surprise, Goldman Sachs. Before then wall street speculators played only a minor role in food prices...

After the depression, FDR saw that speculators could drive up the price of wheat, corn or whatever, by betting on commodity futures, the way wall street later bet on dot coms...

FDR signed into law what are called position limits...

for decades the price of wheat was driven by fundamentals, like the weather...

In 1991 Goldman Sachs asked the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, the CFTC, to give them a waiver on those position limits. A CFTC appointee for the first president Bush said, "Sure." More than a dozen other firms followed suit. .."

See the link for more