“We’re not calling it a food crisis” – September 14
-UN to hold crisis talks on food prices as riots hit Mozambique
-U.N. Raises Concerns as Global Food Prices Jump
-Sowing Seeds of Fear
Staff
Rearranging the deck chairs – Part II
In yesterday’s post Rearranging The Deck Chairs, I alluded to the surreal quality of the current debate about Obama’s proposed stimulus program to rebuild America’s roads and highways infrastructure. But the debate about letting the Bush tax cuts expire is even more bizarre. The entire discussion is taking place without its proper context—the grotesque wealth and income inequality in the United States. Instead, the arguments center around future deficits, stimulating spending to achieve economic growth, the economic effects of taxes, etc. Talk about rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic!
Elitist growth by cheap labor policies
A front-page story in the Washington Post might have considered other reasons why growth has not led to more employment, besides simply claiming that growth has been “too slow.” First, the jobs that workers would have gone back to have largely been off-shored as employers sought cheap foreign labor. Second, cheap foreign labor by way of illegal immigration seems to have been welcomed by U.S. employers trying to fill the remaining jobs at home. And third, jobs have been “outsourced” to the consumer (the ultimate source of cheap labor), who is now his own checkout clerk, travel agent, baggage handler, bank teller, gas station attendant, etc.
Class interests and the future of inflation
The threat of inflation comes not from any conscious policy on the part of central bankers or even most central governments who have already made their iron-clad allegiance to the wealthy classes abundantly clear. Rather the threat of inflation comes from the eventual exhaustion of government credit in the face of an intractable and unstoppable deflation brought on by continuous deleveraging of companies and households.
Why words matter
So long as we see ourselves standing on a cliff’s edge, we’ll keep swinging unproductively between visions of full spectrum catastrophe and wishful thinking—a kind of circular paralysis—while real opportunity goes unnoticed. It feels a little like motion, but never gets us anywhere.
Crop to Cuisine: Food Corps, help with the harvest, and From the ground up
This week on Crop To Cuisine. We speak with Curt Ellis of the award winning documentary, King Corn, about his new projects, Food Corps and Truck Farm. Carol O’Meara joins us to help with the harvest. And Aubrey White is with us for another installment of From The Ground Up, our exploration of the adventures facing the New American Farmer. All that, headlines in food and farming, and more.
Rearranging the deck chairs
Listening to the “news” and reading the usual sources on the internet has become surreal as the summer winds down. The key word lately is infrastructure. The President and the Democrats launched some initiatives that have no chance of being approved by Congress because they have to run for re-election on something, especially with underemployment the highest it’s been since World War II.
Shovels and ballots… Getting to work on 10/10/10
After major disappointments in Copenhagen and Washington D.C., millions of us concerned about the climate crisis have been left wondering "what now?". The stakes couldn’t be higher, and the political and infrastructural challenges so large and complex, that it’s no surprise to see soul-searching and disagreements over the best course of action. Especially when legislative and diplomatic efforts to date have fallen flat. When folks like Dave Roberts — who fiercely advocated for admittedly weak Cap & Trade legislation because he felt that it was our best hope for progress — have given up on the nation’s capitol, it’s clear that a lot of people are being forced to re-evaluate.
Pelosi’s probe: oil sands & America’s addiction to oil
Ms. Pelosi and other politicians may pay lip service to the obvious environmental constraints [of tar sands] but the US really doesn’t have many alternatives as long as it is addicted to oil.
Tales from a tail of wooded land (Days 164-165) September 8th -9th
It would be heartening to think that there could be trust regained in place of the fear, what is it that those who honour ownership above all else fear? And from whence came the sense of alienation from one another, and the sense of entitlement of one above the other?
World Bank on land grabs: It’s all good unless you’re African, a woman, disempowered, or poor
The World Banks long-awaited report on land grabs is out. I’ve not had time to study it — I only found out an hour ago — but here are some first impressions.
Trend break in oil supply
The enthusiastic professionals in Paris report that: “Global oil supply fell 250 kb/d to 86.8 mb/d in August, as non-OPEC output dipped to 52.4 mb/d on seasonal maintenance in Canada, the UK and Russia.” As often, the agencies don’t completely agree on what’s going on, with OPEC now seeing July as only a partial restoration of production cuts in June, but the IEA still seeing it as taking production to a higher level. But both concur that August is now below the level of February.
