Article

2008-04-15 -Signs, Portents, and the Weather-

Time Magazine, hopefully: How Hunger Could Topple Regimes

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Posted by gorb & Seafarious 2008-04-15 00:00|| || Front Page|| [11130 views ] Top

#1 It was capitalist farmers, agri-businesses, and ag-schools working together that created the farming boom that this country and the rest of the West experienced in the 20th century. Some of the crops like rice where developed through statist programs in India and the like, but the great booms in agriculture have happened because people found a way to grow and sell a lot more of certain products. And every country that has loosened state controls on agriculture {like Red China} has experience a huge increase in their agricultural production in just a few years.

Posted by Shieldwolf 2008-04-15 04:23|| 2008-04-15 04:23|| Front Page Top

#2 That's too bad---but, usually, People get exactly the kind of government they deserve.

Posted by g(r)omgoru 2008-04-15 08:05|| 2008-04-15 08:05|| Front Page Top

#3 Don't forget cheap oil derived fertilizer.

Posted by phil_b 2008-04-15 08:10|| 2008-04-15 08:10|| Front Page Top

#4 But he did warn that capitalism had a tendency to generate its own crises.

Ah, yes. The "discarded social theories" of Marx, but they still had to include this bit of opinion, eh? How does capitalism explain the full-on collapse of Africa's *former* "bread basket" (ZimBOBwe)? I'd say socialist/communist regimes have done WAY less than Capitalists to "feed their populace," and then you throw in some good old-fashioned luck (e.g. weather and soils), and silly government "programs" (e.g. turning corn into ethanol), and it's a recipe for disaster.

It comes down to this....if you can't *afford* to feed your own populace now, where do you think you'll be in 20-30 years when the Chinese and Indians' economies *really* start clicking. IOW, if you're already dependent on foreign nations to feed you, and those nations aren't exactly on the *up and up*, then you'll be cut off at the knees. That's one reason we HAVE to keep farming/food supply here in the U.S. for our own populace.

Posted by BA 2008-04-15 08:57|| 2008-04-15 08:57|| Front Page Top

#5 Does morbid obesity also trigger revolutions?

Posted by Excalibur 2008-04-15 10:22|| 2008-04-15 10:22|| Front Page Top

#6 Out: Global Warming
In: Global Starving

Posted by tu3031 2008-04-15 11:32|| 2008-04-15 11:32|| Front Page Top

#7 PJ O'Rourke puts forth a solid case for the fact that every major famine in the 20th century was caused intentionally by government to starve out an ethnic group so it seems hard to imagine famine causing regimes to topple.

Posted by rjschwarz 2008-04-15 15:13|| 2008-04-15 15:13|| Front Page Top

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