Scariest thing I've read in a while

Monday, April 21, 2008

During my usual morning routine of coffee and news I came across an article in the New York Sun entitled "Food Rationing Confronts Breadbasket of the World." The opening sentences are:
"Many parts of America, long considered the breadbasket of the world, are now confronting a once unthinkable phenomenon: food rationing.

Major retailers in New York, in areas of New England, and on the West Coast are limiting purchases of flour, rice, and cooking oil as demand outstrips supply. There are also anecdotal reports that some consumers are hoarding grain stocks."

That is a little disturbing but retailers deciding to ration sales on their own doesn't set off too many alarms. It is when governments start calling for price controls and rationing that we have a serious problem. In the last week or so I posted a blog in which I stated that I felt it wouldn't be long before a politician got on the bandwagon and started calling for price controls and/or rationing.

While not (yet) calling for price controls and rationing as a method to solve the problem, the chief dog washer at the U.N. had this to say about the current global food problem:
"We must make no mistake, the problem is big. If we offer the right aid, the solutions will come." Okay, that give me pause but that could mean anything. But it was his follow-up comment that made the hair on my neck stand up:
"We need a real world (solution) and not the world of economic theories..."

Ignore economics at your peril, Chief.