Americans hoard food as industry seeks regsWhat did I tell ya.
The first propaganda step is to characterize preparedness planners as hoarders, that is, selfish, unsympathetic and antisocial.
Along with barterers...uh...price gougers.
Something must be done!
And when that happens, those who did not assume responsibility for their provisioning will be properly covetous, desperate, and importantly, conditioned, to feel the selfish bastards are getting just what's comin' to 'em...
There sure do seem to be a lot of disconcerting rumblings in the air lately...what's the recurring line from Star Wars?
I have a bad feeling about this.
"worldwide consumption of wheat has exceeded production in six of the past eight years, said U.S. Agriculture Department chief economist Gerald Bange"
ReplyDeleteHere is a sterling example of the idiocy of a government bureaucrat. How can "consumption" exceed "production??" Did they eat wheat that wasn't produced? What he apparently meant, but was too stupid to say, was that demand exceeded supply. But That would imply a market economy, and government planners can't have their planning spoiled by a market.
We should all beware of this type of rhetoric. Thanks, David, for broadening out from gun rights. This post directly relates to the ongoing assault on freedom by government at all levels.
A must read book on this subject is Austrian economist Friedrich Hayek entitled "The Road to Serfdom." Here is a cartoon synopsis:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q6lSR62wmSo
When consumption exceeds production you draw down your reserves. Do that often enough and poof no more reserves. Grains and rice do well in long term storage under good conditions, things like milk get processed into things like cheese or powdered milk. The US keeps a running surplus, generally donating older stock to third world food bank support as it ages off.
ReplyDeleteTwo issues here, speculators and savers, totally separate. Speculators want a volatile market and get rich playing the swings. Savers just want to have a food supply they can count on. By the way, one of the tennets of the LDS church is to keep a year of food on hand at all times. Not all Mormons do, but a lot more than the rest of us.
Uncle Lar,
ReplyDeleteGood point about drawing down the reserves. I guess Bange wasn't the idiot I made him out to be. However, the broader point is why these bureaucrats refuse to frame the issue in market terms. With prices at an all time high, I expect production to jump in response.
Also, good point on speculators vs. savers. Speculators aren't smarter than the market as the recent housing crisis has illustrated.
As for myself, I am building toward a 1 year supply of food even though I am not LDS.
A point I will make again, the next time you hear a supposedly conservative business executive decry "overregulation" of the market by government, remember this story. In nearly every case where government has entered the market to regulate and inevitably fuck it up, they have been invited by the players in that market who find they have guessed wrongly and are facing losses.
ReplyDeleteIndustry and trade groups routinely lobby for regulation as a way to salvage their operations from their bad decisions and more importantly as a way to drive the smaller competitors from the market and to discourage the entry of new competitors whose pockets are not deep enough to absorb the costs of satisfying the regulators.
in the start up phase.
ReplyDeleteSorry left that off.
Presidential Executive Orders and food "hoarding:
ReplyDeletehttp://standeyo.com/News_Files/Exec.Orders/EOs.html
You can keep "reasonable amounts." back in the '90s there was talk about a limit of one year's worth, and anyting over that was illegal. That may have changed.
Just like guns and ammunition, ain't nobody's business iff you do. FEMA may disagree. "We're going to take what you have for the good of everyone -- Hillary Ramrod Clinton.
As a good man recently said:
ReplyDelete"Look to your Larders, people!"