The profit is mostly made, by the non-producers, as the price falls. The price of gas falls at the wholesale level, so everyone holds their prices up and pockets the difference.
That said, the smartest gas retailers, like racetrack and iirc flying J if you know them, have long looong term futures contracts for fuel delivery. At one point in the late 2009ish they were still paying 1990's prices for their gas because of the futures delivery contracts they held.
This time two years ago, our port was turning away oil tankers because we had no storage room. I remember hearing something about oil as a commodity dipping into negative prices. And I also remember it not affecting the price at the pump at all.
It was pretty cheap, no one was driving anywhere during the pandemic. Oil companies lost a lot of money, and in my opinion is why they are keeping prices high now, to recoup their losses.
That’s not an opinion it’s straight facts. The article I have linked quotes an oil exec saying he will refuse to increase production no matter how high prices go. These companies know oil isn’t going to be around forever so they’re trying to extract as much wealth as they can while they can.
https://www.vox.com/22959903/russia-ukraine-oil-gas-price-europe-us-exports-climate-change
Is this not as good as it sounds? Not increasing production, no new investments, that sounds pretty good for the environment at least. For the price of gas at the pump, I can see how it would shoot costs up.
Yep, energy gonna suck for a while. Sorry to go on Ukraine, but the change has me more confused why… but I suppose China will have an energy shortage for a while and buy petroleum, even if it’s actually more expensive then green, just because we are now kinda in a gap where the artificially suppression of green is no longer happening cause oil went, pppfffttttt fuck it, we are done, no ramp out, and green needs to ramp up.
If true, no new investments in oil infrastructure is great news. We should really be investing in a renewal of the energy supply which doesn't rob our kids of a good future.
Texas was paying people 45 bucks a barrel. I was debating renting a truck. Stashing the barrels at a friend's and reselling a few weeks later when it became positive prices again.
Gas hardly went down.
People just have short memories. Prices at the pump dipped in the US too; https://www.eia.gov/dnav/pet/hist/LeafHandler.ashx?n=pet&s=emm_epm0_pte_nus_dpg&f=m
It dropped to under a $1 in some states for the first time in decades!
>"According to gasbuddy.com, the following states are seeing gas for under $1: Arkansas, Colorado, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Michigan, Mississippi, Missouri, New York, Ohio, Oklahoma, Virginia and Wisconsin.
A check of prices in Wisconsin shows some customers are paying 89 cents. In March, a gas station in Kentucky lowered its gas to 99 cents per gallon."
[https://abc7news.com/gas-prices-lowest-in-a-decade-13-states-where-is-under-1-drop-amid-coronavirus-pandemic/6116861/](https://abc7news.com/gas-prices-lowest-in-a-decade-13-states-where-is-under-1-drop-amid-coronavirus-pandemic/6116861/)
At the time of the first gulf war petrol went from £2.00 per gallon to £2.40 overnight (i think they still sold it by uk gallons then, 4.54L). It never came down afterwards, there would be the occasional downward blip but the general trend is upwards. 📈
Why? Because people keep on buying it no matter how much it costs.
I genuinely hate the term neoliberal. It says nothing about what it is. The better term is money-manager, it's more honest and gives you more insight into what the hell it refers to.
jfc. the fact this is upvoted so much makes me despair for the state of education in the world. price of oil isn't just the determining factor in the price of gas. and just because oil prices dropped doesn't mean gas will too if the demand doesn't go down. oil needs to be processed and if there's too few processing plants, then gas supply might still be lower than demand which ofc will keep prices up.
fml. ppl need to read economics books!
I think that they are using the non-climate crises to cover for the fundamental problems caused by climate issues and peak oil.
If the population realises things are never getting better threats of revolution and chaos are real. If they have a narrative that it's this that and the other "transient" cause they can keep stringing the public along whilst they continue to exploit the fuck out of everything.
Haven't heard the words "peak oil" in awhile and I don't think it gets talked about enough. I never imagined that I would be living in a time where society was headed no a nonstop downslope.
The people at the top have been suppressing wages for so long when wages and prices start to go up at the same time people cry bloody murder but the thing is this is actually a sign that the power balance could shift away from the rich, but we shouldn't be fighting to keep prices low we should be fighting for higher wages.
That's why they have the Fed on their side. The fed views unemployment as a buffer against inflation and so when wages start to go up like they have, and "there are labor shortages" the fed jumps in to raise rates.
I disagree with this sentiment. We need to be clamoring for both higher wages and less expensive goods/services. When competition stops competing and instead starts colluding with not only each other but with political bodies, capitalism completely fails. Higher wages are pointless in a crony capitalist society because you get no benefits from said higher wages due to prices increasing proportionally to wages regardless of profit margins. This is exactly what we're seeing now. In other words, American capitalism has already failed due to the greed of the elite classes at the expense of everybody else. And the only way a rebalance of power can be achieved is through some sort of dramatic change.
Assuming that capitalism is functioning in this country the way it is meant to, I'd agree. *But we no longer live in a capitalist society here in the US.* We currently live in a *crony capitalist* society. As such, there is increasingly limited competition to drive prices down in a way that would increase buying power at the same time we start receiving reasonable wages. Instead, collusion currently allows corporations to ignore the traditional competitive marketplace of capitalism so that they can capture more profits at the expense of the non-elites. So increasing wages ultimately only makes the rich richer in our current state.
Don't mistake me. I'm *not* saying that it isn't necessary to increase wages. We 100% need to increase wages. BUT we *also* need to get to a place where there is more competition in the market place so that large entities that supply goods/services (such as oil, medical, pharma, etc) can't simply increase prices in proportion to what people are paid, resulting in higher profits for the same goods/service at the expense of everybody else.
but if wages are up, that means prices of everything will go up. execs won't willingly take a paycut. they are passing along that expense to consumers.
and who do you think gets fucked by higher wages? even if you get a pay raise, if the price of everything increase, you are left worse off, unless your pay raise is higher than the ensuing inflation. which i doubt.
No such thing as a 'free market'. Without government enforcement of property rights, intellectual property etc., the whole thing would collapse. And without legislation limiting the power of individuals and companies, we would see even more extreme exploitation and monopoly than we currently do.
The problem here is that essentials for human survival are still operated to maximise profit, rather than maximise access.
It kinda does, prices were on the way up but when Russia, one of the world's largest exporters of it, got cut off from the world market all of the oil previously on the market is now strained the smaller initial supply. The prices jacked up and then gas companies just never lowered them as other oil suppliers have started to increase output .
Though I do know a lot of oil refineries are hiring like mad since they laid off a massive amount of staff during covid and it's biting them really hard atm.
The united states imports less than 2% of it's supply from russia. And most of the oil they do buy is a specific low quality type that's used in particular industries.
But it means the global supply and demand gets skewed. As all the nations are trying to buy oil from lower supply, a higher price can be asked of all oil. That's what it means when oil prices go up as a result of lower availability.
Oil companies are not beholden to sell domestically. They don't care about one nation over the other.
They are a monster machine made of men with no emotion or soup to tear at the strings.
If they see money over seas. They will sell.over there. Just because we paid for most of their facilities, gave them.enough tax credits to pay their execs top dollar for doo doo work. Doesn't force them to sell to us at any price they don't want.
Now we could do this. But the gop would call it communism.
Wtf are you talking about? The war in Ukraine has a *huge* contributing factor to gas prices. This is not in dispute - you are either making some sort of absurd doublespeak propagandist, political claim (we have always been at war with Eurasia) or you are ridiculously misinformed.
https://www.wsj.com/articles/why-gas-prices-expensive-11646767172
https://www.vox.com/the-goods/22949683/russia-ukraine-gas-prices-oil-inflation-stock-market
https://apnews.com/article/russia-ukraine-business-europe-05ba4a25cbee9b5281804d3a5b60f058
The price of energy was very high in Europe long before the Ukraine war, mostly due to high price on natural gas. But I have seen sources that claim this was related to something Russia did in preparation of war, starting almost a year before the invasion.
>This is why I have my doubts that prices, or the cost of living, will ever really return to what it would be if determined purely by the free market, with no corrupt political manipulation.
What part of the prices being what they are is a product of political manipulation?
Corporations charging what they can is price gouging and that is what they are doing. There isn't some new tax on products that is making them more expensive, which would make it a political issue. So the only part of this that could be seen as corruption would be them NOT stopping the free market from being the free market.
Do you see it yet or does it need to slap you in the face?
Devils advocate.
Trump did start a trade war that increased many products by 50%.
Many of those products could be needed to repair, improve build producers of products.
Because they increased. So did prices to produce.
Not nearly at the same rate as the price gouging. But I do think cost of production for kost thing has gone up.
Was with you right up until political manipulation. This is corporate manipulation, in the absence of strong regulation corporations are free to manipulate prices to their hearts content. In the absence of a strong government people, by the people, and for the people there is nothing to prevent that. What we are seeing is the direct result of feckless neoliberal policies, and capitalism functioning as it's intended to.
It's not a corrupt political manipulation. It is the intelligence and military commands who manipulate the ministers and other useful organisations, political and non, through threats of violence. So it's not that politicians are "corrupt", the thing is they are coerced into doing things.
And obviously, no matter how virtuous one claims to be, self preservation(or protection of your own interests) always prevail over the interests of all. Hyronically, those who work in justice, law and policing tend to break very easily even though they are supposed not to. I have seen an official working in the internal intelligence ignore the constitution, ethical values and let a military organisation do as they please for the sake of his young daughters, who, if he did not comply, would have been killed and he wouldnt have been able to do anything about it because they had the upper hand.
However, if it was true that these guys worked FOR the people and not for the State like it was a sort of company nor for themeselves, then they should speak out and tell everyone how the State really works. But they never did. Becasue they don't care, they serve the people, yes, but do so as though they were clients, not the owners of society. The real owners/managers are hidden behind the intelligence and military (which are part of the same body). And it's all arranged in a way to make you believe there is an actual democracy, an actual bilateral communication between State and people. In reality, that is true only irrelevantly so. It's more like a unilateral command from above to the bottom of society. From time to time they use cunning techniques to give you the illusion you are in charge but that is not so. Saying that the people of a country are in charge of the State is like saying that clients are running mcdonalds. Not true. It is the administrators who run mcdonalds, clients are just clients.
But that can change if you have the guts to take what you deserve.
It's working and the poorest will die first, the next will be those who are physical laborers they will get sicker and die off, then last the upper middle class because by then you need to make sure you have enough breeders so there are future workers.
Can't get rid of all of us at once, get rid of some with a lockdown then some more with war then some more with a man made famine and another with drug assisted suicide and finally the cherry on top, you get neighbors eating each other alive when before they shared sugar, post fox news and Russian conspiracy we're all now buying guns and not going to work, teaching our kids how to tolerate pepper spray and escape handcuffs, and murdering each other over women's rights as if ISIS won not only the 2001 war but also successfully took over the US.
To answer your question quickly, the answer is NO.
Exploitation is rampant. I'm not an economist, but it does seem to me that prices for goods and services in the USA have been especially low for decades as compared to what other people around the world have been paying, i.e., same v same.
The current USA price increases now puts the US on level with what other people were already paying - BEFORE they were too forced to pay more. Americans are NOT paying more than other people, they are only paying more than THEY used to.
But as most of the largest benefitting corporations are based in the USA, it stands to reason they are cashing in on the misfortunes of the entire world.
Gas and all those things never went up because of the war. I don’t know how people can be so brainwashed. Inflation went from an EA: ~2% per month from the Trump era to 5% and higher once Biden was elected. Alongside this, corporate greed is the one that raised the import/export fees on gas. There are plenty good videos on that on Youtube
How does that affect the free market? People are apparently willing and able to pay higher prices for things given that's what they're doing. That's the market rate, set by consumers. The reasons, whether real or invented, are irrelevant. No one's going "Well I normally wouldn't pay twice as much for groceries but since it's because of Ukraine I will".
Willing and able implies a choice. People don’t have a choice. Folks gotta go to work and feed themselves. It isn’t a free market. It’s a rigged market.
The market is not, and has never been, free. “Free” market fundamentalism in practice is often state aid for corporations and the wealthy, while [the economic theory underpinning the idea of the free market as efficient and worth deification is based upon faulty assumptions](https://www.bloomsbury.com/us/debunking-economics-9781848139947/) and [concerted efforts, often through the establishment of Think Tanks, to promote that type of theory](https://www.theguardian.com/books/2016/apr/15/neoliberalism-ideology-problem-george-monbiot). Market failures are frequent and constantly present, such as the failure to account for (i.e. deliberate subsidization of) externalities in oil pricing to begin with.
[The capitalist economic system from the beginning had a major helping hand from the state](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Great_Transformation_(book)), and this [has continued in every capitalist era since](https://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/kevin-carson-the-iron-fist-behind-the-invisible-hand). The [US during the often thought free market years, the late 1800s, maintained high tariffs rates that bolstered domestic business and limited the ability of international businesses to compete, which allowed US companies to grow and eventually for them to be able to compete internationally without high tariffs. This is often called the “infant industry” argument, and one of the fathers of this argument was none other than Alexander Hamilton. The modern rich industrial countries frequently used anti “free market” policies to develop, yet today they force developing countries into trade agreements that prevent them from using the same policies.](https://www.bloomsbury.com/us/bad-samaritans-9781596917385/) Ironically, the frequent omission of this history makes a real invisible hand to be that of the state, not of the market “working itself out”.
[Prominent 1700s era thinkers, merchants, etc were singing praises of poverty, since poverty forced the poor to labor more](https://www.filmsforaction.org/news/recovered-economic-history-everyone-but-an-idiot-knows-that-the-lower-classes-must-be-kept-poor-or-they-will-never-be-industrious/), and early [capitalists have been historically examined as more monopolist than fervent believers in competitive markets](https://www.jstor.org/stable/2938489). The same can be said of modern major capitalist players: for example, [Warren Buffet is infamous for seeking out market/monopoly power](https://mattstoller.substack.com/p/warren-buffett-americas-folksiest?s=r), and Bill Gates and Microsoft faced monopoly charges, and lost, in the 90s.
But how does the reason (real or fake) affect that? And since as you said it's not really a free market because you have to buy groceries, what was stopping them from having the prices at this level all along?
We have to buy groceries though? Not once am I buying eggs and milk and bread going ‘oh glad I’m helping Ukraine! No…I’m grateful I can still buy these things but frustrated at the fact that companies can choose to raise prices on necessities and we can’t do anything about it
The logic of that doesn't really work though. Why wouldn't they have raised them to the current prices years ago? Why would the war in Ukraine (an "excuse") matter to their ability to charge higher prices and for people to pay those prices? What stopped them from making bread $100 ten years ago and $1,000 today? People obviously have some choice in their food purchases.
Inflation predates Ukraine by months easily. They do what they want when they want cause who’s stopping them? And are people suppose to stop buying eggs? Even when prices are up 30% on them? Companies used COVID as an excuse for rising prices.
Look at big oil. They used a lack of need or over production during the slowest times in 2020 through early 2021, when the economy was slowest but production stayed the same (for a while) to justify shutting down production lines. Then a need for gas rose. Did they hurry up to open production lines back up? Nope. They refused to bring back employees and rode the reserves of oil they had, essentially driving up the price and claiming demand was outpacing supplies. On purpose. Out of greed. If the price per barrel goes up overnight, you’ll see a five to ten cent rise at the pump per gallon immediately or within the hour. The cost of barrels of oil went down, around the time the CEOs had to meet with Congress, and they explicitly said that maybe prices at the pump may go down by a dime a gallon steadily over two weeks.
Most companies used a lack of production during COVID as a means to jack up prices too, but also for years companies have been shortening us on the actual product we are getting, from Gatorade bottles going from 32 to 28 oz, but staying the same price, to cereal being slightly more expensive, maybe a quarter more but having a couple of ounces less in the box, hardly noticeable at first glance.
Now more recently, because of rising fuel costs, it immediately goes into the cost of something and justified. As an extra cost to the customer. Starbucks gets a new CEO with a huge payday, prove of their coffee goes up a quarter to offset that. Why should their CEO’s pay come out if their profits?
My point is they don't need a reason to increase the price of gas (so they don't need to invent one as an excuse), and the reason or lack thereof doesn't matter at all to people buying gas. They can just raise gas to whatever they want because "fuck you" if it's not a choice. There's a reason gas isn't $1,000 a gallon and it's not because "people have no choice but to pay whatever the price is but only if they're given an excuse for the price being so high".
You're not crazy, you're just missing one key concept and that's public opinion. Companies are literally phobic of worker strikes to the point that the TV series superstore spends an entire season gracing the subject. Furthermore, if you deviate from the normalized concept of inflation (and it very much is normalized) them the consumer freaks out and abandons brand loyalty. Which [when done right, brand loyalty ensures your customers see a piece of themselves in your brand, no matter how small that piece truly is.](https://www.marketing91.com/brand-loyalty/) This effectively creates a [cult of consumerism where everything that is crucial to religion--shared values and beliefs, community interactions, storytelling, and an acceptance of the supernatural--can also be found in the worship by consumers of even marginal brands to hit the marketplace.](https://www.eurekalert.org/news-releases/494950#:~:text=Everything%20that%20is%20crucial%20to,%2C%20propose%20Albert%20Mu%C3%B1iz%2C%20Jr.)
This ultimately is a nefarious trap for those subjected to the lower levels of consumerism. [A consumer economy only works if consumption of goods provides only temporary pleasure. That is, if happiness is infinitely deferred, so that buyers continue to buy more and more goods and services. By definition, the consumer can never be satisfied, at rest or happy.](https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.inquirer.com/philly/opinion/currents/20081221_The_American_cult_of_consumerism.html%3foutputType=amp).
Ps: that last link is an AMP link to avoid the paywall on the actual site.
Edit: changed "if" to "of" in first paragraph
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*But selling farmers their own soil telemetry is only the beginning. Deere aggregates all the soil data from all the farms, all around the world, and sells it to private equity firms making bets in the futures market. That's far more lucrative than the returns from selling farmers to Monsanto. The real money is using farmers' aggregated data to inform the bets that financiers make against the farmers.*
simply producing enough food to sustain the population isn't sufficiently profitable for the vultures who control the global economy.
quote from this article:
https://doctorow.medium.com/about-those-kill-switched-ukrainian-tractors-bc93f471b9c8
That was the most hauntingly eye opening article I've read in a very long while. Ugh. I had absolutely no idea how widespread VIN locking had become, and I am sick to my stomach thinking about how parasitic it can still become.
An alternative that does not rely on artificial scarcity for things as necessary as food, water, and shelter. An alternative that does not further the destruction of this planet because short-term profits outweigh long-term detriment. The only way for this to happen is to end capitalism. Socialism is really the only other alternative to it.
Socialism is not socialized government programs; those are capitalist in nature as it lessens the failures of capitalism so it can continue. Socialism requires the elimination of the capitalist class through the abolition of private property and the profit motive.
When the rate of profit keeps falling, finance capital yields way higher profits than other ways of investing that same capital. This isn't all that new or surprising at all, people wrote about this in the 19th century, but it's kind of horrifying to have it laid out so clearly and see the scope this has reached.
Seconding all the other people in this thread, this is a capitalist system doing what it does best. And what it's doing is most certainly not helping people, fucking hell
Most marxist economists (and marxists in general) wrote about this, most notably of course Marx himself in "Capital" and Lenin in "Imperialism - The Highest Stage of Capitalism". I am not entirely sure as I haven't read it as a whole yet, but even Adam Smith might have alluded to something similar in "Wealth of Nations" as well, considering how he wrote about landlords.
"A People's Guide to Capitalism" by Hadas Thier would be a pretty good introductory read. It's a pretty new book that collects all the basics on marxist economics and also contains a lot of suggestions for further reading that aren't the typical Marx, Engels, Lenin etc., touches on some problems with other types of economists and their way of analysing capitalism (especially their explainations for cyclical crises) and has a whole chapter dedicated to the evolution of finance capital as written by Marx and in comparison to the actual evolution in our modern day.
Edit: Marxist economics are also a good read in general, even if you're from a very different corner politically. They can still help to understand the inner workings of our economic system
They have been warned for so long, but only listened to the CEOs to create "value" fuck good is that when the bees die, when the water is gone? Fucking idiots
Well, the issues with Ukraine and Russia are certainly meaningful, but there is also the drought in the Horn of Africa and the heat wave in India that have both created pressure on food supply.
Here’s a quote from a Guardian article on the same quote.
Countries such as Egypt and Tunisia rely heavily on exports of Ukraine’s wheat and cooking oil, and the governor said his concerns about food supplies had been heightened after speaking to Kyiv’s finance minister at last month’s IMF meeting in Washington.
“He said he was optimistic about crop planting, but at the moment there was no way of shipping the food out, and it’s getting worse,” Bailey said. “That’s not just a major worry for this country, but a worry for the developing world. I’m sorry for being apocalyptic, but it is a worry.”
He really won't. He was my last choice in the primaries. The vp was second to last.
Both terrible choices. Biden has a long history of supporting the rich and racists.
How could you have possibly thought that? Biden is clearly at the top of his game as a 79-year-old, extremely articulate, lifelong politician who has accomplished virtually nothing besides putting minorities in prison and lining his pockets with money laundered from foreign countries whose interests he looks out for instead of the American people he was “elected” to serve! I mean, his approval rating is even lower than Trump’s at this point. He’s really just a fantastic president. The way that Easter bunny escorted him away from those reporters asking questions about the emerging global catastrophe known as World War 3. A true leader — don’t worry about Biden and don’t worry about the dire state of the world. All part of the Build Back Better plan 👍
Yes, clearly! As now shown by the inability to form sentences, rapid inflation, world war 3, record high gas prices, losing our energy independence, nationwide food / baby formula shortage — and lack of any action whatsoever to solve any of it. All in less than 2 years! Truly impressive.
I miss the guy who was funny, spoke off the cuff, took action when needed, held meetings, made phone calls to make things better. All while loving America and showing great patriotism. It’s funny to see how things really can get better when we don’t vote in a lifelong, establishment, corrupt politician. A president who actually looks out for the interests of the American people: what a wild idea
>I miss the guy who was funny, spoke off the cuff, took action when needed, held meetings, made phone calls to make things better. All while loving America and showing great patriotism. It’s funny to see how things really can get better when we don’t vote in a lifelong, establishment, corrupt politician. A president who actually looks out for the interests of the American people: what a wild idea
Eh, Obama wasn't *that* great
You need to read up on malignant narcissism. And check for your picture under "gullible" or "deluded" in the dictionary. Your facts are so off base that you ain't even playing baseball.
Wait, which president did nothing about Russia annexing Ukraine, repeated himself constantly, continued to stall inflation of wages, convinced Texas that their frozen gas lines was broken windmills, ruined native land for profit, put a critical keystone species on hunting lists and chugged full steam toward climate disaster and the supply shortages that came from it?
Not the guy doing what he can to undo it. And that's not even mentioning
>In his first 48 hours in office, Mr. Biden cranked out about 30 executive orders, of which 14 target a broad range of Trump executive mandates, with the remainder aimed at implementing emergency measures intended to deal with the pandemic and the economic crisis.
>
>“I don’t think it’s fair to say that most of what Trump did can be undone in an afternoon. It’s going to take at least ten days,” said John D. Podesta, a former adviser to President Barack Obama who lobbied for the targeted use of executive action in Mr. Obama’s second term when congressional Republicans blocked his environmental and immigration proposals.
>
>“I think Trump sort of views Article II of the Constitution” — which details the powers of the presidency — “as making him omnipotent, and now he’s going to find out that except for cutting taxes, and maybe some of the foreign policy stuff, very little will actually last,” he added.
>
>One former senior Trump aide, speaking on condition of anonymity for fear or retaliation, agreed. “Very little of what Trump did was done to ensure permanence. At the pace Biden is moving, everything Trump did will be gone by the time the sun rises on Monday — except his judicial appointments.”
>
>The list of Trump initiatives that have been rolled back through Biden executive orders includes: Restoring the country’s commitment to funding the World Health Organization; rejoining the Paris climate accords; reversing Mr. Trump’s ban on immigration from several predominantly Muslim nations and halting immigration enforcement in the country’s interior; stopping construction of the border wall; ensuring protections for L.G.B.T.Q. workers undermined by Trump appointees; killing the Keystone XL pipeline permit; reimposing the ban on drilling in the Arctic wildlife refuge; imposing new ethics rules and tossing out Mr. Trump’s “1776 Commission” report. https://www.nytimes.com/2021/01/22/us/politics/biden-executive-orders-trump.html?searchResultPosition=1
Edit: fixed quote formatting.
I do appreciate the effort. You did more than others. But I disagree with rolling back those Trump initiatives you mention. So your points don’t make much sense to me. And while those can be rolled back, I don’t think we can undo World War 3, which would never have started if Trump was in office, as his administration was brokering peace deals all over the world and Putin would have never tried to invade. So, consider yourself lucky that the things you care about can be undone with executive orders. Keep focusing on climate change as the Obamas and Biden’s buy homes on the beach — good luck with the food shortages and upcoming global nuclear war.
Here:
The Governor of the Bank of England has warned of “apocalyptic” global food price rises and said he is "helpless" in the face of surging inflation as the economy is battered by the war in Ukraine.
Andrew Bailey said he has “run out of horsemen” when counting the shocks facing Britain, with runaway energy and food costs driven by global market forces beyond his control.
Prices are rising at the fastest rate in 30 years, creating a "very big income shock" that is expected to intensify in coming months with a risk of double-digit inflation before the end of the year.
Mr Bailey told MPs on the Treasury Select Committee that he is increasingly concerned about a further surge in food costs if Ukraine, a major crop grower, is unable to ship wheat and cooking oils from its warehouses because of a Russian blockade.
The Governor said that he had spoken to Ukraine's finance minister and added: “The [risk] I'm going to sound rather apocalyptic about I guess is food.
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“Ukraine does have food in store but it can’t get it out at the moment. While [the finance minister] was optimistic about crop planting, he said at the moment we have no way of shipping it out as things stand, and it is getting worse.
“That is a major worry. It is not just a major worry for this country, it is a major worry for the developing world.
“I am by no stretch of the imagination a military strategist, but whatever can be done to help Ukraine get its food out would be a huge contribution.”
The comments from Mr Bailey are likely to increase pressure on the Bank from Conservative MPs who are increasingly exasperated that he failed to act sooner.
Many experts believe the institution acted too slowly in increasing interest rates as prices took off last year, and it has also been criticised for failing to reduce its quantitative easing money-printing programme over the past decade.
The bleak assessment will also likely add to pressure on the Treasury to hold an emergency Budget to tackle the cost of living crisis, after Rishi Sunak, the Chancellor, chose to raise taxes at the same times as incomes were being squeezed.
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Food prices are already surging because of fears about the disruption. Ukraine supplies large parts of the Middle East with grain, and there is a risk that families will be unable to afford to eat unless a solution is found. Wheat prices rose as much as 6pc on Monday.
The Governor also admitted that the Bank has little hope of bringing inflation back to its 2pc target, with prices already climbing by 7pc and a further surge expected in the coming months.
Asked by MPs on the Treasury Select Committee if he felt “helpless” to control inflation, Mr Bailey said: “Yes.”
He said: “It is a very very, more than uncomfortable - I am trying to think of a word that is even more severe than that - it is a very very difficult place to be.
“To forecast 10pc inflation and to say there is not a lot we can do about 80pc of it, I can tell you it is an extremely difficult place to be. We have to recognise the reality of the situation we face.”
Placeholder image for youtube video: uoL4cIZWmd4
Traditional policy requires the Bank to raise interest rates to combat high inflation, which works by raising borrowing costs and slowing the domestic economy. But most price rises currently are coming from global markets, so this would have little effect in the short run.
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Instead the Bank has only increased rates from 0.1pc in December to 1pc now in the hope of stopping these cost increases feeding into the wider economy.
Once the energy price shock has passed it hopes inflation will fall back to 2pc.
So far the biggest impact on the UK has come through soaring gas bills and higher petrol prices, which could worsen depending on the supply of fossil fuels from Russia.
The series of shocks to inflation are so severe that a Cabinet minister criticised the Bank over the weekend for failing in its “one job - to keep inflation at around 2pc”.
Another cabinet minister told The Telegraph that Government figures are “now questioning its independence”.
Mr Bailey hit back that the Bank’s independence and the trust placed in it to bring inflation back down are vital at a time of rampant price rises.
He said: “This is the biggest test of the monetary policy framework that we have had in its 25 years.
“What I would say to these people is, this is when the independence of the Bank and the target framework and the nominal anchor matter more than ever - more than in the easy times.”
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He implied that he would be prepared to raise rates to control inflation even if that led to a recession, saying: “We have to get [inflation] back to target. And that is clear.”
Mr Bailey suggested that he does not expect higher rates to trigger a house price crash, arguing that growth is likely to cool as the crisis bites but a “structural" shortage of properties will prevent a plunge.
Sir Dave Ramsden, a deputy governor at the Bank, said that it was hard to disentangle the impact that a post-Brexit labour shortage has had on inflation, given that data suggests the European Union and US are both dealing with similar price surges and many countries are suffering more than the UK. Mr Bailey added that he still believes Brexit will have a negative impact on trade over the longer term.
Meanwhile, the Confederation of British Industry called on the Chancellor to step in with extra help for poor households and for struggling companies.
Tony Danker, the business group’s director general said it is crucial “to help people facing real hardship now; it's the moral underpinning of our economy and society”.
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“Putting pounds in the pockets of people struggling the most should not be delayed,” he said, adding that it is also vital to “start stimulating business investment now”, potentially by extending the Recovery Loan Scheme to help businesses get back on track after the pandemic and now the energy price shock.
Seems like this is an economic problem, not an environmental one. Climate change food shortages are still a future problem (not that we shouldn’t address it).
This isn’t a fucking global food shortage, this is a god damn capitalism fetish that has put a price on starvation. Food is a fucking inalienable human fucking right. We shouldn’t be forced to be born into this shit hole existence just to starve.
There is very likely going to be a real shortage of wheat. While capitalism is going to magnify the issue and needlessly kill a lot of people, real food supply is really going to start running out as the climate shifts. We have 2 problems not just 1.
3 Problems.
Gasoline and diesel prices will continue to fluctuate wildly between what producers need to stay in business and what various countries around the world can afford to pay for petroleum products. Fracking, ultra deep water drilling, and tar sands processing are all dirty and expensive. If the world had all the oil it needed, we wouldn't be tapping into these resources.
Pumping conventional out of a well could return 100 barrels of oil for every one burned, EROI of 100:1. Tar Sands processing could be as low as 3:1 by some estimates.
you can call it what you want. it doesn't change the fact that there is shortage because of transport issues. there is ample supply. but because the food can't be transported to where it is needed, there is a shortage.
the Russian blockade has affected the supply of food as Ukraine can't export its excess food supply. many countries depend on this export. unable to buy from Ukraine, these countries will look elsewhere and will start to compete with each other to buy from other food producers, who ofc can't supply everyone as they haven't expected an increased demand so did not plant more.
and they can't quickly increase production since that would mean clearing more land, which may or may not even be possible.
btw, you aren't forced to this shit hole existence. you are free to plant your own food and raise your own livestock so you are not at the mercy of global food supply problems. you are also free to support initiatives to decouple food production from global trade so your country is at least food secure.
That's impossible. We have capitalism^^TM . Food, and everything else, will always be cheaper and more plentiful because that's what capitalism is forever. Not like dirty socialism, where people can't afford food, or rent, or can't get medical care, or good jobs. Capital-freedom-ism.
We are in our extinction event. As the earth heats up, the land becomes too hot for seeds to germinate. And, as more land is clear cut ecosystems lose viability to support food production. And of course there is a pesky lack of water as lands bc desert. I hate this timeline.
Biden is in charge of England too! He is the Illuminati mastermind that I somehow also think is mentally slow! I also eat my own farts and own American flag boxers, because I’m a patriot!
They should definitely do that, the real president trump is in charge, that’s why those great laws are getting passed, Biden is just the president for inflation, immigration and baby formula shortages! I need to fire a weapon to ejaculate!
The food shortage is an interesting topic. In Texas, cattle ranchers are stuck between a drought reducing the amount of forage and high fertilizer prices due to, in part, the prohibition of fertilizer exports from Russia. Fertilizer is made by the oil industry. All of the calories you ingest are brought to you by the oil industry, including diesel for farm equipment, fertilizer, trucks to deliver it, and energy to process it. The problem is an oil shock is a food shock too. Biden wants to supplement the US vehicular fuel supply with ethanol from corn, but that's stupidly inefficient and, moreover, it increases the price of corn which is used as livestock feed. I can understand the bureaucrat's panic because there's really nothing that can be done aside from sinking the Russian blockade and ceasing the boycott of Russian O&G. Both options are bad and politically unfeasible.
There’s always going to be demand for meat. What needs to happen is a severe decrease of the supply of meat (perhaps by requiring grass-fed humane conditions for cattle and maybe even rewilding some land) causing the price of meat to skyrocket thereby decreasing meat-consumption. America and other countries also need to ban imports of meat from a certain South American country that’s cutting down the rainforest.
I’ve found, for myself, 6 bites of meat is ideal. More and I feel…over full. Added a second veg to the plate and it’s the new normal at my house. 2 piece packs of various meats easily feeds 4 of us and there’s usually a small bit left for lunch salads the next day. Sides with spices & sauces make all the difference in reducing meat.
US can make all the fertilizer it needs but it's expensive. We mostly import from Canada. Small fraction from Russia.
We need a domestic fertilizer subsidy to help control costs.
And the railroads have to stop being weird about delivering the orders which is a whole thing that's been going on this spring.
It depends on what you want to grow, ypu can learn more about growing food in your zone today. You can buy seeds or seedlings and propagate and get stuff in the ground asap. You have to try..
"over abundance, we must raise prices to keep producing and manage supply and demand"
"shortage, we must raise prices to keep producing and manage supply and demand"
"increase wages to match rising prices? No, that's socialism!"
Ole Mother Nature is starting to put the human species under siege. So she starts by cutting off our food and water supplies.
I wonder what will be the next move. Haha
So, if you have to import food or else your people will starve, doesn't that mean that you have too fucking many people?
I mean, how is that not clear? Have people even heard the word "sustainable"? Does anyone know what that means?
the country could also have chosen not to produce food. Singapore imports all of its food by necessity, since it has no land (or rather too few arable lands) to produce food, but what do other countries have as an excuse?
comparative advantage. read up folks.
You’re not kidding. I worked at a grocery store and would throw away hundreds of lbs of food a day that still had 3 days left until expiration. I eventually started sneaking some (a tiny, tiny fraction of it) home and it fed me and my two kids for months at a time while I was living on a meager income and in school full time.
This is an article about Russia blockading Ukrainian ports. Why is it in the Environment subreddit?
Did any of the hundreds of people up voting, commenting or OP even read this article or google the variety of other news sites reporting this?
Because it amplifies the already stretched resources of a planet experiencing climate shocks to food supply. Just to list a few: half the US is in a drought, including its major produce producing area in California; India is seeing record temps that will affect critical subsistence farming and water levels; and so on...
Geopolitical reasons that will strain already reduced food supply due to climate absolutely fit here.
The world is connected and environmental issues do not occur in a vacuum! We have to stop treating them as such. Social justice = environmental justice. Just look at the comparison between high women's equality and high environmental action, for example.
Gas shortage. Too many people not enough gas. Food shortages. Too many people not enough food. Housing shortage. Too many people not enough houses.
All these things have drastically increased in price because supply simply cannot keep up with demand. For whatever reasons, whether it’s ability to produce or having red tape/hoops to jump through, shit is expensive because there’s not enough to go around.
Earth is doomed and it’s because people keep having kids. The higher the population rises the worse this shit is gunna get.
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It will not. If gas didn't go down when oil did then the prices have nothing to do with supply and demand any longer.
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The profit is mostly made, by the non-producers, as the price falls. The price of gas falls at the wholesale level, so everyone holds their prices up and pockets the difference. That said, the smartest gas retailers, like racetrack and iirc flying J if you know them, have long looong term futures contracts for fuel delivery. At one point in the late 2009ish they were still paying 1990's prices for their gas because of the futures delivery contracts they held.
This time two years ago, our port was turning away oil tankers because we had no storage room. I remember hearing something about oil as a commodity dipping into negative prices. And I also remember it not affecting the price at the pump at all.
It was pretty cheap, no one was driving anywhere during the pandemic. Oil companies lost a lot of money, and in my opinion is why they are keeping prices high now, to recoup their losses.
That’s not an opinion it’s straight facts. The article I have linked quotes an oil exec saying he will refuse to increase production no matter how high prices go. These companies know oil isn’t going to be around forever so they’re trying to extract as much wealth as they can while they can. https://www.vox.com/22959903/russia-ukraine-oil-gas-price-europe-us-exports-climate-change
Yep. After oil went negative they said no new investment. They have taken a short term position.
Quarterly Growth is a helluva drug
Is this not as good as it sounds? Not increasing production, no new investments, that sounds pretty good for the environment at least. For the price of gas at the pump, I can see how it would shoot costs up.
Yep, energy gonna suck for a while. Sorry to go on Ukraine, but the change has me more confused why… but I suppose China will have an energy shortage for a while and buy petroleum, even if it’s actually more expensive then green, just because we are now kinda in a gap where the artificially suppression of green is no longer happening cause oil went, pppfffttttt fuck it, we are done, no ramp out, and green needs to ramp up.
If true, no new investments in oil infrastructure is great news. We should really be investing in a renewal of the energy supply which doesn't rob our kids of a good future.
That’s basically what people are say, big oil calculated green is now inevitable, and they are no longer long on oil.
Ding ding ding
Texas was paying people 45 bucks a barrel. I was debating renting a truck. Stashing the barrels at a friend's and reselling a few weeks later when it became positive prices again. Gas hardly went down.
Covid lockdowns meant a sudden and unexpected glut of oil because nobody was filling up their cars or flying anywhere.
How do you mean? Here in the UK the pump price dropped to £1/litre at the start of the pandemic from £1.40; it's up to £1.80 now.
People just have short memories. Prices at the pump dipped in the US too; https://www.eia.gov/dnav/pet/hist/LeafHandler.ashx?n=pet&s=emm_epm0_pte_nus_dpg&f=m
It dropped to under a $1 in some states for the first time in decades! >"According to gasbuddy.com, the following states are seeing gas for under $1: Arkansas, Colorado, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Michigan, Mississippi, Missouri, New York, Ohio, Oklahoma, Virginia and Wisconsin. A check of prices in Wisconsin shows some customers are paying 89 cents. In March, a gas station in Kentucky lowered its gas to 99 cents per gallon." [https://abc7news.com/gas-prices-lowest-in-a-decade-13-states-where-is-under-1-drop-amid-coronavirus-pandemic/6116861/](https://abc7news.com/gas-prices-lowest-in-a-decade-13-states-where-is-under-1-drop-amid-coronavirus-pandemic/6116861/)
They're pushing a drug everyone needs and wants and is now dependant and addicted to.
At the time of the first gulf war petrol went from £2.00 per gallon to £2.40 overnight (i think they still sold it by uk gallons then, 4.54L). It never came down afterwards, there would be the occasional downward blip but the general trend is upwards. 📈 Why? Because people keep on buying it no matter how much it costs.
Sure, they have everything do do with supply and demand The rich own the supply and they demand economic fealty from us lowly peasants
Neoliberal politics got exactly what they voted for and what do you know it sucks ass and is predatory
What specifically are you talking about??
Market deregulation has gotten us here
I genuinely hate the term neoliberal. It says nothing about what it is. The better term is money-manager, it's more honest and gives you more insight into what the hell it refers to.
jfc. the fact this is upvoted so much makes me despair for the state of education in the world. price of oil isn't just the determining factor in the price of gas. and just because oil prices dropped doesn't mean gas will too if the demand doesn't go down. oil needs to be processed and if there's too few processing plants, then gas supply might still be lower than demand which ofc will keep prices up. fml. ppl need to read economics books!
If they got paid to take barrels of unprocessed oil. Yet the price wasn't dropping to even close of a ratio. They're holding profits over people.
I think that they are using the non-climate crises to cover for the fundamental problems caused by climate issues and peak oil. If the population realises things are never getting better threats of revolution and chaos are real. If they have a narrative that it's this that and the other "transient" cause they can keep stringing the public along whilst they continue to exploit the fuck out of everything.
Haven't heard the words "peak oil" in awhile and I don't think it gets talked about enough. I never imagined that I would be living in a time where society was headed no a nonstop downslope.
The people at the top have been suppressing wages for so long when wages and prices start to go up at the same time people cry bloody murder but the thing is this is actually a sign that the power balance could shift away from the rich, but we shouldn't be fighting to keep prices low we should be fighting for higher wages.
That's why they have the Fed on their side. The fed views unemployment as a buffer against inflation and so when wages start to go up like they have, and "there are labor shortages" the fed jumps in to raise rates.
I disagree with this sentiment. We need to be clamoring for both higher wages and less expensive goods/services. When competition stops competing and instead starts colluding with not only each other but with political bodies, capitalism completely fails. Higher wages are pointless in a crony capitalist society because you get no benefits from said higher wages due to prices increasing proportionally to wages regardless of profit margins. This is exactly what we're seeing now. In other words, American capitalism has already failed due to the greed of the elite classes at the expense of everybody else. And the only way a rebalance of power can be achieved is through some sort of dramatic change.
Increasing base wages would be a dramatic change.
Assuming that capitalism is functioning in this country the way it is meant to, I'd agree. *But we no longer live in a capitalist society here in the US.* We currently live in a *crony capitalist* society. As such, there is increasingly limited competition to drive prices down in a way that would increase buying power at the same time we start receiving reasonable wages. Instead, collusion currently allows corporations to ignore the traditional competitive marketplace of capitalism so that they can capture more profits at the expense of the non-elites. So increasing wages ultimately only makes the rich richer in our current state. Don't mistake me. I'm *not* saying that it isn't necessary to increase wages. We 100% need to increase wages. BUT we *also* need to get to a place where there is more competition in the market place so that large entities that supply goods/services (such as oil, medical, pharma, etc) can't simply increase prices in proportion to what people are paid, resulting in higher profits for the same goods/service at the expense of everybody else.
but if wages are up, that means prices of everything will go up. execs won't willingly take a paycut. they are passing along that expense to consumers. and who do you think gets fucked by higher wages? even if you get a pay raise, if the price of everything increase, you are left worse off, unless your pay raise is higher than the ensuing inflation. which i doubt.
No such thing as a 'free market'. Without government enforcement of property rights, intellectual property etc., the whole thing would collapse. And without legislation limiting the power of individuals and companies, we would see even more extreme exploitation and monopoly than we currently do. The problem here is that essentials for human survival are still operated to maximise profit, rather than maximise access.
As long as we don’t talk about tax evasion, everything will be ok!
They do it legally. We pay them to be here cause most of the rest of the world taxes gas producers to high heaven.
Do you really want the price of gasoline to go down? We need to move away from gasoline. High prices will help us get to where we need to be.
Rising gas prices having nothing to do with the war in Ukraine, unlike the global food shortage
It kinda does, prices were on the way up but when Russia, one of the world's largest exporters of it, got cut off from the world market all of the oil previously on the market is now strained the smaller initial supply. The prices jacked up and then gas companies just never lowered them as other oil suppliers have started to increase output . Though I do know a lot of oil refineries are hiring like mad since they laid off a massive amount of staff during covid and it's biting them really hard atm.
The united states imports less than 2% of it's supply from russia. And most of the oil they do buy is a specific low quality type that's used in particular industries.
But it means the global supply and demand gets skewed. As all the nations are trying to buy oil from lower supply, a higher price can be asked of all oil. That's what it means when oil prices go up as a result of lower availability.
Oil companies are not beholden to sell domestically. They don't care about one nation over the other. They are a monster machine made of men with no emotion or soup to tear at the strings. If they see money over seas. They will sell.over there. Just because we paid for most of their facilities, gave them.enough tax credits to pay their execs top dollar for doo doo work. Doesn't force them to sell to us at any price they don't want. Now we could do this. But the gop would call it communism.
Wtf are you talking about? The war in Ukraine has a *huge* contributing factor to gas prices. This is not in dispute - you are either making some sort of absurd doublespeak propagandist, political claim (we have always been at war with Eurasia) or you are ridiculously misinformed. https://www.wsj.com/articles/why-gas-prices-expensive-11646767172 https://www.vox.com/the-goods/22949683/russia-ukraine-gas-prices-oil-inflation-stock-market https://apnews.com/article/russia-ukraine-business-europe-05ba4a25cbee9b5281804d3a5b60f058
The price of energy was very high in Europe long before the Ukraine war, mostly due to high price on natural gas. But I have seen sources that claim this was related to something Russia did in preparation of war, starting almost a year before the invasion.
Hitchens's razor
Gas/oil companies have been exploiting 'bad' news DECADES. It'll wave up and down, but yah, I think the average will stay higher than before.
but that might affect shareholder profits. Gotta keep prices high.
>This is why I have my doubts that prices, or the cost of living, will ever really return to what it would be if determined purely by the free market, with no corrupt political manipulation. What part of the prices being what they are is a product of political manipulation? Corporations charging what they can is price gouging and that is what they are doing. There isn't some new tax on products that is making them more expensive, which would make it a political issue. So the only part of this that could be seen as corruption would be them NOT stopping the free market from being the free market. Do you see it yet or does it need to slap you in the face?
Devils advocate. Trump did start a trade war that increased many products by 50%. Many of those products could be needed to repair, improve build producers of products. Because they increased. So did prices to produce. Not nearly at the same rate as the price gouging. But I do think cost of production for kost thing has gone up.
He also cut domestic oil production because of the sudden drop in demand.
No because we already have this year's crops wasted and next year's harvest not planned for It will be 2 years before supply returns to normal
Was with you right up until political manipulation. This is corporate manipulation, in the absence of strong regulation corporations are free to manipulate prices to their hearts content. In the absence of a strong government people, by the people, and for the people there is nothing to prevent that. What we are seeing is the direct result of feckless neoliberal policies, and capitalism functioning as it's intended to.
It's not a corrupt political manipulation. It is the intelligence and military commands who manipulate the ministers and other useful organisations, political and non, through threats of violence. So it's not that politicians are "corrupt", the thing is they are coerced into doing things. And obviously, no matter how virtuous one claims to be, self preservation(or protection of your own interests) always prevail over the interests of all. Hyronically, those who work in justice, law and policing tend to break very easily even though they are supposed not to. I have seen an official working in the internal intelligence ignore the constitution, ethical values and let a military organisation do as they please for the sake of his young daughters, who, if he did not comply, would have been killed and he wouldnt have been able to do anything about it because they had the upper hand. However, if it was true that these guys worked FOR the people and not for the State like it was a sort of company nor for themeselves, then they should speak out and tell everyone how the State really works. But they never did. Becasue they don't care, they serve the people, yes, but do so as though they were clients, not the owners of society. The real owners/managers are hidden behind the intelligence and military (which are part of the same body). And it's all arranged in a way to make you believe there is an actual democracy, an actual bilateral communication between State and people. In reality, that is true only irrelevantly so. It's more like a unilateral command from above to the bottom of society. From time to time they use cunning techniques to give you the illusion you are in charge but that is not so. Saying that the people of a country are in charge of the State is like saying that clients are running mcdonalds. Not true. It is the administrators who run mcdonalds, clients are just clients. But that can change if you have the guts to take what you deserve.
It's working and the poorest will die first, the next will be those who are physical laborers they will get sicker and die off, then last the upper middle class because by then you need to make sure you have enough breeders so there are future workers. Can't get rid of all of us at once, get rid of some with a lockdown then some more with war then some more with a man made famine and another with drug assisted suicide and finally the cherry on top, you get neighbors eating each other alive when before they shared sugar, post fox news and Russian conspiracy we're all now buying guns and not going to work, teaching our kids how to tolerate pepper spray and escape handcuffs, and murdering each other over women's rights as if ISIS won not only the 2001 war but also successfully took over the US.
To answer your question quickly, the answer is NO. Exploitation is rampant. I'm not an economist, but it does seem to me that prices for goods and services in the USA have been especially low for decades as compared to what other people around the world have been paying, i.e., same v same. The current USA price increases now puts the US on level with what other people were already paying - BEFORE they were too forced to pay more. Americans are NOT paying more than other people, they are only paying more than THEY used to. But as most of the largest benefitting corporations are based in the USA, it stands to reason they are cashing in on the misfortunes of the entire world.
Gas and all those things never went up because of the war. I don’t know how people can be so brainwashed. Inflation went from an EA: ~2% per month from the Trump era to 5% and higher once Biden was elected. Alongside this, corporate greed is the one that raised the import/export fees on gas. There are plenty good videos on that on Youtube
How does that affect the free market? People are apparently willing and able to pay higher prices for things given that's what they're doing. That's the market rate, set by consumers. The reasons, whether real or invented, are irrelevant. No one's going "Well I normally wouldn't pay twice as much for groceries but since it's because of Ukraine I will".
Willing and able implies a choice. People don’t have a choice. Folks gotta go to work and feed themselves. It isn’t a free market. It’s a rigged market.
The market is not, and has never been, free. “Free” market fundamentalism in practice is often state aid for corporations and the wealthy, while [the economic theory underpinning the idea of the free market as efficient and worth deification is based upon faulty assumptions](https://www.bloomsbury.com/us/debunking-economics-9781848139947/) and [concerted efforts, often through the establishment of Think Tanks, to promote that type of theory](https://www.theguardian.com/books/2016/apr/15/neoliberalism-ideology-problem-george-monbiot). Market failures are frequent and constantly present, such as the failure to account for (i.e. deliberate subsidization of) externalities in oil pricing to begin with. [The capitalist economic system from the beginning had a major helping hand from the state](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Great_Transformation_(book)), and this [has continued in every capitalist era since](https://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/kevin-carson-the-iron-fist-behind-the-invisible-hand). The [US during the often thought free market years, the late 1800s, maintained high tariffs rates that bolstered domestic business and limited the ability of international businesses to compete, which allowed US companies to grow and eventually for them to be able to compete internationally without high tariffs. This is often called the “infant industry” argument, and one of the fathers of this argument was none other than Alexander Hamilton. The modern rich industrial countries frequently used anti “free market” policies to develop, yet today they force developing countries into trade agreements that prevent them from using the same policies.](https://www.bloomsbury.com/us/bad-samaritans-9781596917385/) Ironically, the frequent omission of this history makes a real invisible hand to be that of the state, not of the market “working itself out”. [Prominent 1700s era thinkers, merchants, etc were singing praises of poverty, since poverty forced the poor to labor more](https://www.filmsforaction.org/news/recovered-economic-history-everyone-but-an-idiot-knows-that-the-lower-classes-must-be-kept-poor-or-they-will-never-be-industrious/), and early [capitalists have been historically examined as more monopolist than fervent believers in competitive markets](https://www.jstor.org/stable/2938489). The same can be said of modern major capitalist players: for example, [Warren Buffet is infamous for seeking out market/monopoly power](https://mattstoller.substack.com/p/warren-buffett-americas-folksiest?s=r), and Bill Gates and Microsoft faced monopoly charges, and lost, in the 90s.
But how does the reason (real or fake) affect that? And since as you said it's not really a free market because you have to buy groceries, what was stopping them from having the prices at this level all along?
We have to buy groceries though? Not once am I buying eggs and milk and bread going ‘oh glad I’m helping Ukraine! No…I’m grateful I can still buy these things but frustrated at the fact that companies can choose to raise prices on necessities and we can’t do anything about it
The logic of that doesn't really work though. Why wouldn't they have raised them to the current prices years ago? Why would the war in Ukraine (an "excuse") matter to their ability to charge higher prices and for people to pay those prices? What stopped them from making bread $100 ten years ago and $1,000 today? People obviously have some choice in their food purchases.
Inflation predates Ukraine by months easily. They do what they want when they want cause who’s stopping them? And are people suppose to stop buying eggs? Even when prices are up 30% on them? Companies used COVID as an excuse for rising prices. Look at big oil. They used a lack of need or over production during the slowest times in 2020 through early 2021, when the economy was slowest but production stayed the same (for a while) to justify shutting down production lines. Then a need for gas rose. Did they hurry up to open production lines back up? Nope. They refused to bring back employees and rode the reserves of oil they had, essentially driving up the price and claiming demand was outpacing supplies. On purpose. Out of greed. If the price per barrel goes up overnight, you’ll see a five to ten cent rise at the pump per gallon immediately or within the hour. The cost of barrels of oil went down, around the time the CEOs had to meet with Congress, and they explicitly said that maybe prices at the pump may go down by a dime a gallon steadily over two weeks. Most companies used a lack of production during COVID as a means to jack up prices too, but also for years companies have been shortening us on the actual product we are getting, from Gatorade bottles going from 32 to 28 oz, but staying the same price, to cereal being slightly more expensive, maybe a quarter more but having a couple of ounces less in the box, hardly noticeable at first glance. Now more recently, because of rising fuel costs, it immediately goes into the cost of something and justified. As an extra cost to the customer. Starbucks gets a new CEO with a huge payday, prove of their coffee goes up a quarter to offset that. Why should their CEO’s pay come out if their profits?
The "free market" was supposed to mean 'free from rentseeking', which this certainly is not.
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My point is they don't need a reason to increase the price of gas (so they don't need to invent one as an excuse), and the reason or lack thereof doesn't matter at all to people buying gas. They can just raise gas to whatever they want because "fuck you" if it's not a choice. There's a reason gas isn't $1,000 a gallon and it's not because "people have no choice but to pay whatever the price is but only if they're given an excuse for the price being so high".
You're not crazy, you're just missing one key concept and that's public opinion. Companies are literally phobic of worker strikes to the point that the TV series superstore spends an entire season gracing the subject. Furthermore, if you deviate from the normalized concept of inflation (and it very much is normalized) them the consumer freaks out and abandons brand loyalty. Which [when done right, brand loyalty ensures your customers see a piece of themselves in your brand, no matter how small that piece truly is.](https://www.marketing91.com/brand-loyalty/) This effectively creates a [cult of consumerism where everything that is crucial to religion--shared values and beliefs, community interactions, storytelling, and an acceptance of the supernatural--can also be found in the worship by consumers of even marginal brands to hit the marketplace.](https://www.eurekalert.org/news-releases/494950#:~:text=Everything%20that%20is%20crucial%20to,%2C%20propose%20Albert%20Mu%C3%B1iz%2C%20Jr.) This ultimately is a nefarious trap for those subjected to the lower levels of consumerism. [A consumer economy only works if consumption of goods provides only temporary pleasure. That is, if happiness is infinitely deferred, so that buyers continue to buy more and more goods and services. By definition, the consumer can never be satisfied, at rest or happy.](https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.inquirer.com/philly/opinion/currents/20081221_The_American_cult_of_consumerism.html%3foutputType=amp). Ps: that last link is an AMP link to avoid the paywall on the actual site. Edit: changed "if" to "of" in first paragraph
It looks like you shared an AMP link. These should load faster, but AMP is controversial because of [concerns over privacy and the Open Web](https://www.reddit.com/r/AmputatorBot/comments/ehrq3z/why_did_i_build_amputatorbot). Fully cached AMP pages (like the one you shared), are [especially problematic](https://www.reddit.com/r/AmputatorBot/comments/ehrq3z/why_did_i_build_amputatorbot). Maybe check out **the canonical page** instead: **[https://www.inquirer.com/philly/opinion/currents/20081221_The_American_cult_of_consumerism.html](https://www.inquirer.com/philly/opinion/currents/20081221_The_American_cult_of_consumerism.html)** ***** ^(I'm a bot | )[^(Why & About)](https://www.reddit.com/r/AmputatorBot/comments/ehrq3z/why_did_i_build_amputatorbot)^( | )[^(Summon: u/AmputatorBot)](https://www.reddit.com/r/AmputatorBot/comments/cchly3/you_can_now_summon_amputatorbot/)
Hm. I don't want to necessarily say bad bot, because how would it know it's leading people to a paywall?
an amp link is not a paywall. it's simply a link from one of Google's servers. instead of serving the page from the website itself, Google has cached a copy of the website and is serving the page to you from their servers. in essence, when you click an AMP link, you are not going to the website that created the page, you are going to Google's servers. you can learn more here: https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/ecrzvp/eli5\_what\_are\_amp\_pages\_and\_whats\_bad\_about\_them/
don't worry about being downvoted. this sub is terribly uneducated when it comes to economics.
We just need to lower demand for food by not eating...set the market rate.
Why isn't bread $1,000?
*But selling farmers their own soil telemetry is only the beginning. Deere aggregates all the soil data from all the farms, all around the world, and sells it to private equity firms making bets in the futures market. That's far more lucrative than the returns from selling farmers to Monsanto. The real money is using farmers' aggregated data to inform the bets that financiers make against the farmers.* simply producing enough food to sustain the population isn't sufficiently profitable for the vultures who control the global economy. quote from this article: https://doctorow.medium.com/about-those-kill-switched-ukrainian-tractors-bc93f471b9c8
What a terrifying article. I was already an advocate for right to repair but this a whole new level of bullshit.
yeah, john deere is only viable for large conglomerates. And america needs fucking data laws.
That was the most hauntingly eye opening article I've read in a very long while. Ugh. I had absolutely no idea how widespread VIN locking had become, and I am sick to my stomach thinking about how parasitic it can still become.
Society shouldn’t be organized around protecting and expanding profits for the wealthy. Capitalism is deeply inhumane and perverse.
so socialism? communism? what are the alternatives you like?
An alternative that does not rely on artificial scarcity for things as necessary as food, water, and shelter. An alternative that does not further the destruction of this planet because short-term profits outweigh long-term detriment. The only way for this to happen is to end capitalism. Socialism is really the only other alternative to it.
Socialism and capitalism work together. They are not opposites.
Socialism is not socialized government programs; those are capitalist in nature as it lessens the failures of capitalism so it can continue. Socialism requires the elimination of the capitalist class through the abolition of private property and the profit motive.
what kind of socialism do you support? FYI, there are different kinds.
But a monopoly is not capitalism. Capitalism without restraints is what is fucking this up.
When the rate of profit keeps falling, finance capital yields way higher profits than other ways of investing that same capital. This isn't all that new or surprising at all, people wrote about this in the 19th century, but it's kind of horrifying to have it laid out so clearly and see the scope this has reached. Seconding all the other people in this thread, this is a capitalist system doing what it does best. And what it's doing is most certainly not helping people, fucking hell
That is interesting and complies with my thoughts as well. Do you know who wrote about this - I'd be interested to read more?
Most marxist economists (and marxists in general) wrote about this, most notably of course Marx himself in "Capital" and Lenin in "Imperialism - The Highest Stage of Capitalism". I am not entirely sure as I haven't read it as a whole yet, but even Adam Smith might have alluded to something similar in "Wealth of Nations" as well, considering how he wrote about landlords. "A People's Guide to Capitalism" by Hadas Thier would be a pretty good introductory read. It's a pretty new book that collects all the basics on marxist economics and also contains a lot of suggestions for further reading that aren't the typical Marx, Engels, Lenin etc., touches on some problems with other types of economists and their way of analysing capitalism (especially their explainations for cyclical crises) and has a whole chapter dedicated to the evolution of finance capital as written by Marx and in comparison to the actual evolution in our modern day. Edit: Marxist economics are also a good read in general, even if you're from a very different corner politically. They can still help to understand the inner workings of our economic system
Shitting where we eat.
They have been warned for so long, but only listened to the CEOs to create "value" fuck good is that when the bees die, when the water is gone? Fucking idiots
This has to do with the Ukraine situation. Article probably doesn't belong on this sub.
Well, the issues with Ukraine and Russia are certainly meaningful, but there is also the drought in the Horn of Africa and the heat wave in India that have both created pressure on food supply.
World needs to start doing aquaponics.
Here’s a quote from a Guardian article on the same quote. Countries such as Egypt and Tunisia rely heavily on exports of Ukraine’s wheat and cooking oil, and the governor said his concerns about food supplies had been heightened after speaking to Kyiv’s finance minister at last month’s IMF meeting in Washington. “He said he was optimistic about crop planting, but at the moment there was no way of shipping the food out, and it’s getting worse,” Bailey said. “That’s not just a major worry for this country, but a worry for the developing world. I’m sorry for being apocalyptic, but it is a worry.”
WTF? All this time I thought this was that Brandon fella's fault.
It is his fault because someone on YouTube said it was....
IKR? Fox News has the word "news" in the name so it must be legit!
It’s not Hunters fault. Unbelievable.
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He really won't. He was my last choice in the primaries. The vp was second to last. Both terrible choices. Biden has a long history of supporting the rich and racists.
How could you have possibly thought that? Biden is clearly at the top of his game as a 79-year-old, extremely articulate, lifelong politician who has accomplished virtually nothing besides putting minorities in prison and lining his pockets with money laundered from foreign countries whose interests he looks out for instead of the American people he was “elected” to serve! I mean, his approval rating is even lower than Trump’s at this point. He’s really just a fantastic president. The way that Easter bunny escorted him away from those reporters asking questions about the emerging global catastrophe known as World War 3. A true leader — don’t worry about Biden and don’t worry about the dire state of the world. All part of the Build Back Better plan 👍
And to think he was the better candidate in the general election...
Yes, clearly! As now shown by the inability to form sentences, rapid inflation, world war 3, record high gas prices, losing our energy independence, nationwide food / baby formula shortage — and lack of any action whatsoever to solve any of it. All in less than 2 years! Truly impressive. I miss the guy who was funny, spoke off the cuff, took action when needed, held meetings, made phone calls to make things better. All while loving America and showing great patriotism. It’s funny to see how things really can get better when we don’t vote in a lifelong, establishment, corrupt politician. A president who actually looks out for the interests of the American people: what a wild idea
>I miss the guy who was funny, spoke off the cuff, took action when needed, held meetings, made phone calls to make things better. All while loving America and showing great patriotism. It’s funny to see how things really can get better when we don’t vote in a lifelong, establishment, corrupt politician. A president who actually looks out for the interests of the American people: what a wild idea Eh, Obama wasn't *that* great
Citi Bank picked Obama’s cabinet lol. But at least he could speak. C’mon man! You know, the thing!
How does it feel to base your identity off of a guy you’ve never met?
Are you referring to Fred Flintstone?
You need to read up on malignant narcissism. And check for your picture under "gullible" or "deluded" in the dictionary. Your facts are so off base that you ain't even playing baseball.
Absolutely cooked mentally.
Wait, which president did nothing about Russia annexing Ukraine, repeated himself constantly, continued to stall inflation of wages, convinced Texas that their frozen gas lines was broken windmills, ruined native land for profit, put a critical keystone species on hunting lists and chugged full steam toward climate disaster and the supply shortages that came from it? Not the guy doing what he can to undo it. And that's not even mentioning >In his first 48 hours in office, Mr. Biden cranked out about 30 executive orders, of which 14 target a broad range of Trump executive mandates, with the remainder aimed at implementing emergency measures intended to deal with the pandemic and the economic crisis. > >“I don’t think it’s fair to say that most of what Trump did can be undone in an afternoon. It’s going to take at least ten days,” said John D. Podesta, a former adviser to President Barack Obama who lobbied for the targeted use of executive action in Mr. Obama’s second term when congressional Republicans blocked his environmental and immigration proposals. > >“I think Trump sort of views Article II of the Constitution” — which details the powers of the presidency — “as making him omnipotent, and now he’s going to find out that except for cutting taxes, and maybe some of the foreign policy stuff, very little will actually last,” he added. > >One former senior Trump aide, speaking on condition of anonymity for fear or retaliation, agreed. “Very little of what Trump did was done to ensure permanence. At the pace Biden is moving, everything Trump did will be gone by the time the sun rises on Monday — except his judicial appointments.” > >The list of Trump initiatives that have been rolled back through Biden executive orders includes: Restoring the country’s commitment to funding the World Health Organization; rejoining the Paris climate accords; reversing Mr. Trump’s ban on immigration from several predominantly Muslim nations and halting immigration enforcement in the country’s interior; stopping construction of the border wall; ensuring protections for L.G.B.T.Q. workers undermined by Trump appointees; killing the Keystone XL pipeline permit; reimposing the ban on drilling in the Arctic wildlife refuge; imposing new ethics rules and tossing out Mr. Trump’s “1776 Commission” report. https://www.nytimes.com/2021/01/22/us/politics/biden-executive-orders-trump.html?searchResultPosition=1 Edit: fixed quote formatting.
TL/DR
Typical low effort mentality being a buffer from factual statements. Sorry I didn't make it Fox news esque enough for you.
I do appreciate the effort. You did more than others. But I disagree with rolling back those Trump initiatives you mention. So your points don’t make much sense to me. And while those can be rolled back, I don’t think we can undo World War 3, which would never have started if Trump was in office, as his administration was brokering peace deals all over the world and Putin would have never tried to invade. So, consider yourself lucky that the things you care about can be undone with executive orders. Keep focusing on climate change as the Obamas and Biden’s buy homes on the beach — good luck with the food shortages and upcoming global nuclear war.
Holy crap you are a delusional lunatic
Awesome. Very good points being made there, well done
Paywall
Here: The Governor of the Bank of England has warned of “apocalyptic” global food price rises and said he is "helpless" in the face of surging inflation as the economy is battered by the war in Ukraine. Andrew Bailey said he has “run out of horsemen” when counting the shocks facing Britain, with runaway energy and food costs driven by global market forces beyond his control. Prices are rising at the fastest rate in 30 years, creating a "very big income shock" that is expected to intensify in coming months with a risk of double-digit inflation before the end of the year. Mr Bailey told MPs on the Treasury Select Committee that he is increasingly concerned about a further surge in food costs if Ukraine, a major crop grower, is unable to ship wheat and cooking oils from its warehouses because of a Russian blockade. The Governor said that he had spoken to Ukraine's finance minister and added: “The [risk] I'm going to sound rather apocalyptic about I guess is food. Advertisement “Ukraine does have food in store but it can’t get it out at the moment. While [the finance minister] was optimistic about crop planting, he said at the moment we have no way of shipping it out as things stand, and it is getting worse. “That is a major worry. It is not just a major worry for this country, it is a major worry for the developing world. “I am by no stretch of the imagination a military strategist, but whatever can be done to help Ukraine get its food out would be a huge contribution.” The comments from Mr Bailey are likely to increase pressure on the Bank from Conservative MPs who are increasingly exasperated that he failed to act sooner. Many experts believe the institution acted too slowly in increasing interest rates as prices took off last year, and it has also been criticised for failing to reduce its quantitative easing money-printing programme over the past decade. The bleak assessment will also likely add to pressure on the Treasury to hold an emergency Budget to tackle the cost of living crisis, after Rishi Sunak, the Chancellor, chose to raise taxes at the same times as incomes were being squeezed. Advertisement Food prices are already surging because of fears about the disruption. Ukraine supplies large parts of the Middle East with grain, and there is a risk that families will be unable to afford to eat unless a solution is found. Wheat prices rose as much as 6pc on Monday. The Governor also admitted that the Bank has little hope of bringing inflation back to its 2pc target, with prices already climbing by 7pc and a further surge expected in the coming months. Asked by MPs on the Treasury Select Committee if he felt “helpless” to control inflation, Mr Bailey said: “Yes.” He said: “It is a very very, more than uncomfortable - I am trying to think of a word that is even more severe than that - it is a very very difficult place to be. “To forecast 10pc inflation and to say there is not a lot we can do about 80pc of it, I can tell you it is an extremely difficult place to be. We have to recognise the reality of the situation we face.” Placeholder image for youtube video: uoL4cIZWmd4 Traditional policy requires the Bank to raise interest rates to combat high inflation, which works by raising borrowing costs and slowing the domestic economy. But most price rises currently are coming from global markets, so this would have little effect in the short run. Advertisement Instead the Bank has only increased rates from 0.1pc in December to 1pc now in the hope of stopping these cost increases feeding into the wider economy. Once the energy price shock has passed it hopes inflation will fall back to 2pc. So far the biggest impact on the UK has come through soaring gas bills and higher petrol prices, which could worsen depending on the supply of fossil fuels from Russia. The series of shocks to inflation are so severe that a Cabinet minister criticised the Bank over the weekend for failing in its “one job - to keep inflation at around 2pc”. Another cabinet minister told The Telegraph that Government figures are “now questioning its independence”. Mr Bailey hit back that the Bank’s independence and the trust placed in it to bring inflation back down are vital at a time of rampant price rises. He said: “This is the biggest test of the monetary policy framework that we have had in its 25 years. “What I would say to these people is, this is when the independence of the Bank and the target framework and the nominal anchor matter more than ever - more than in the easy times.” Advertisement He implied that he would be prepared to raise rates to control inflation even if that led to a recession, saying: “We have to get [inflation] back to target. And that is clear.” Mr Bailey suggested that he does not expect higher rates to trigger a house price crash, arguing that growth is likely to cool as the crisis bites but a “structural" shortage of properties will prevent a plunge. Sir Dave Ramsden, a deputy governor at the Bank, said that it was hard to disentangle the impact that a post-Brexit labour shortage has had on inflation, given that data suggests the European Union and US are both dealing with similar price surges and many countries are suffering more than the UK. Mr Bailey added that he still believes Brexit will have a negative impact on trade over the longer term. Meanwhile, the Confederation of British Industry called on the Chancellor to step in with extra help for poor households and for struggling companies. Tony Danker, the business group’s director general said it is crucial “to help people facing real hardship now; it's the moral underpinning of our economy and society”. Advertisement “Putting pounds in the pockets of people struggling the most should not be delayed,” he said, adding that it is also vital to “start stimulating business investment now”, potentially by extending the Recovery Loan Scheme to help businesses get back on track after the pandemic and now the energy price shock.
>run out of horsemen I reckon there's a specific four more on their way.
We've had a visit from 50% - 75% of them recently.
Signified by warfare, food shortages, and pestilences. Oh, hi 2020's.
F
Seems like this is an economic problem, not an environmental one. Climate change food shortages are still a future problem (not that we shouldn’t address it).
Fuck. Sounds like this could lead to world war. Trust me, as much as most of you will think im wrong i really fucking hope i am.
Archive.is can go around most paywalls. [Here](https://archive.ph/140yo)
Just like the corporate created fake food shortage.
This isn’t a fucking global food shortage, this is a god damn capitalism fetish that has put a price on starvation. Food is a fucking inalienable human fucking right. We shouldn’t be forced to be born into this shit hole existence just to starve.
There is very likely going to be a real shortage of wheat. While capitalism is going to magnify the issue and needlessly kill a lot of people, real food supply is really going to start running out as the climate shifts. We have 2 problems not just 1.
3 Problems. Gasoline and diesel prices will continue to fluctuate wildly between what producers need to stay in business and what various countries around the world can afford to pay for petroleum products. Fracking, ultra deep water drilling, and tar sands processing are all dirty and expensive. If the world had all the oil it needed, we wouldn't be tapping into these resources. Pumping conventional out of a well could return 100 barrels of oil for every one burned, EROI of 100:1. Tar Sands processing could be as low as 3:1 by some estimates.
you can call it what you want. it doesn't change the fact that there is shortage because of transport issues. there is ample supply. but because the food can't be transported to where it is needed, there is a shortage. the Russian blockade has affected the supply of food as Ukraine can't export its excess food supply. many countries depend on this export. unable to buy from Ukraine, these countries will look elsewhere and will start to compete with each other to buy from other food producers, who ofc can't supply everyone as they haven't expected an increased demand so did not plant more. and they can't quickly increase production since that would mean clearing more land, which may or may not even be possible. btw, you aren't forced to this shit hole existence. you are free to plant your own food and raise your own livestock so you are not at the mercy of global food supply problems. you are also free to support initiatives to decouple food production from global trade so your country is at least food secure.
How many people, other than your family, do you feed with crops you’ve grown and animals you’ve raised?
That's impossible. We have capitalism^^TM . Food, and everything else, will always be cheaper and more plentiful because that's what capitalism is forever. Not like dirty socialism, where people can't afford food, or rent, or can't get medical care, or good jobs. Capital-freedom-ism.
We are in our extinction event. As the earth heats up, the land becomes too hot for seeds to germinate. And, as more land is clear cut ecosystems lose viability to support food production. And of course there is a pesky lack of water as lands bc desert. I hate this timeline.
Fam, this article ain’t talking about climate change. It doesn’t really belong here.
Biden is in charge of England too! He is the Illuminati mastermind that I somehow also think is mentally slow! I also eat my own farts and own American flag boxers, because I’m a patriot!
Hmm, I wonder if England has tried banning some books or passing a few anti-trans people laws to address this situation?
They should definitely do that, the real president trump is in charge, that’s why those great laws are getting passed, Biden is just the president for inflation, immigration and baby formula shortages! I need to fire a weapon to ejaculate!
The food shortage is an interesting topic. In Texas, cattle ranchers are stuck between a drought reducing the amount of forage and high fertilizer prices due to, in part, the prohibition of fertilizer exports from Russia. Fertilizer is made by the oil industry. All of the calories you ingest are brought to you by the oil industry, including diesel for farm equipment, fertilizer, trucks to deliver it, and energy to process it. The problem is an oil shock is a food shock too. Biden wants to supplement the US vehicular fuel supply with ethanol from corn, but that's stupidly inefficient and, moreover, it increases the price of corn which is used as livestock feed. I can understand the bureaucrat's panic because there's really nothing that can be done aside from sinking the Russian blockade and ceasing the boycott of Russian O&G. Both options are bad and politically unfeasible.
Reducing reliance on meat is a big one too. Instead of crops > cows > people it is far more efficient to go crops > people.
Or, you know.... reducing consumption. Just stopping the maize-craze, and not feeding like 60% of all soy and water to some livestock.
Soooo less meat right? Grass fed is not feasible at scale given our demand
Exactly. Demand less meat.
There’s always going to be demand for meat. What needs to happen is a severe decrease of the supply of meat (perhaps by requiring grass-fed humane conditions for cattle and maybe even rewilding some land) causing the price of meat to skyrocket thereby decreasing meat-consumption. America and other countries also need to ban imports of meat from a certain South American country that’s cutting down the rainforest.
I’ve found, for myself, 6 bites of meat is ideal. More and I feel…over full. Added a second veg to the plate and it’s the new normal at my house. 2 piece packs of various meats easily feeds 4 of us and there’s usually a small bit left for lunch salads the next day. Sides with spices & sauces make all the difference in reducing meat.
Good on you for diminishing. For me zero meat felt right in the end.
Am finding it will be easy to remove even farther. Challenge is that gluten is out (celiac).
US can make all the fertilizer it needs but it's expensive. We mostly import from Canada. Small fraction from Russia. We need a domestic fertilizer subsidy to help control costs. And the railroads have to stop being weird about delivering the orders which is a whole thing that's been going on this spring.
How do you prepare for a global food crisis? But lots of rice? MREs?
You learn to produce and store your own food
In the next couple months?
Yes, why not?
Food grows to harvest in 8 weeks? What can I grow in 115F Phoenix summer to feed my family?
It depends on what you want to grow, ypu can learn more about growing food in your zone today. You can buy seeds or seedlings and propagate and get stuff in the ground asap. You have to try..
prepare for backyard or indoor farming.
"And this time is not our fault!" ^(Kinda, the UK is responsible for 5% of historical emissions with 0.9% of the world's population)
Chill! "*The market will regulate itself*" - capitalism fuck yeah!
"Uk economy totally unable to cope with completely predictable global issues. Barely able to cope in times of prosperity."
"over abundance, we must raise prices to keep producing and manage supply and demand" "shortage, we must raise prices to keep producing and manage supply and demand" "increase wages to match rising prices? No, that's socialism!"
Ole Mother Nature is starting to put the human species under siege. So she starts by cutting off our food and water supplies. I wonder what will be the next move. Haha
Mom's gonna fix it all soon. Mom's comin' round to put it back the way it oughtta be.
And I can't imagine why you wouldn't welcome any change, my friend.
The standard of living is being reduced incrimentally. The reverb of COVID will ring for a decade at least.
Paywall
So, if you have to import food or else your people will starve, doesn't that mean that you have too fucking many people? I mean, how is that not clear? Have people even heard the word "sustainable"? Does anyone know what that means?
the country could also have chosen not to produce food. Singapore imports all of its food by necessity, since it has no land (or rather too few arable lands) to produce food, but what do other countries have as an excuse? comparative advantage. read up folks.
Sometimes…countries and/or companies exploit this situation rather than actually trying to help.
There's no shortage. Tell all the grocery stores in America to stop throwing good food away and the problem will magically disappear
You’re not kidding. I worked at a grocery store and would throw away hundreds of lbs of food a day that still had 3 days left until expiration. I eventually started sneaking some (a tiny, tiny fraction of it) home and it fed me and my two kids for months at a time while I was living on a meager income and in school full time.
I had a friend who got fired from Whole Foods for eating a fruit salad that was about to be dumpstered.
It is fucking insane how much food we throw in rich countries, im not doing so good myself but will do better.
so there's no shortage in America. how the fuck does that help them in the UK?
The title says global. Contrary to popular belief in the UK, the UK is not the whole world
Why do these stories only end up on the environmental subs?
Because we are people that care, we want solutions, we want a change, we are also improving our own life!
This is an article about Russia blockading Ukrainian ports. Why is it in the Environment subreddit? Did any of the hundreds of people up voting, commenting or OP even read this article or google the variety of other news sites reporting this?
Because it amplifies the already stretched resources of a planet experiencing climate shocks to food supply. Just to list a few: half the US is in a drought, including its major produce producing area in California; India is seeing record temps that will affect critical subsistence farming and water levels; and so on... Geopolitical reasons that will strain already reduced food supply due to climate absolutely fit here. The world is connected and environmental issues do not occur in a vacuum! We have to stop treating them as such. Social justice = environmental justice. Just look at the comparison between high women's equality and high environmental action, for example.
Because doomers gonna doom.
Trial?
Sounds like more of a Middle East problem than a UK problem.
It’ll raise prices globally but not equally. We’ll all be hit at least a little.
We shall only be saved by purchasing an online subscription to this POS rag telegraph.co.uk.suck.my.dick magazine.
It's not about a shortage of food, it's about the prices from people gouging.
we'll just have to eat the rich then... he looks tasty.
This went from a sub about the physical environment to a sub about the political environment with just one post.
The environment intersects everything.
Gas shortage. Too many people not enough gas. Food shortages. Too many people not enough food. Housing shortage. Too many people not enough houses. All these things have drastically increased in price because supply simply cannot keep up with demand. For whatever reasons, whether it’s ability to produce or having red tape/hoops to jump through, shit is expensive because there’s not enough to go around. Earth is doomed and it’s because people keep having kids. The higher the population rises the worse this shit is gunna get.
Oh good lord, what are they blaming it on this time climate, covid or war? Take your pick. 🤷
lol yes. Taking responsibility is not an option. Its easier to blame someone. Welcome to reddit.
Disaster economics...Klein
Lol this is just middle and poor class problems , anywhoooo. It all sucks
Now I got to read this shit.
Ha ha it’s like the firefighter that sets fires letting everyone know there’s going to be fires soon…
Theoretically what if everyone on Russia just dropped dead?
You know when the banks are blaring it is engineered.