Global Food Price Inflation Will Spawn Many Revolutions

April 8, 2008

Elaine Meinel Supkis

Inflation is now hammering food prices. Before that, it was energy and metals. Before that, property. The global super bubble hasn't vanished at all, it has merely shifted through one thing to the next. Food is usually the last parking spot for inflationary forces. It is hard to escape food inflation. Except by eating less. Since the US and other central banking systems have jointly conspired to leave out energy and food from inflation calculations, this means cruel times for the greater mass of humanity. Not that the ruling elites give a hoot. But food inflation always leads to the next bubble: revolutionary activities. 'Let them eat cake' can swiftly become, 'Off with their heads!'

Cost of Rice Rises 50% in Two Weeks as Agflation Continues

We've been talking about the coming food crisis due to "agflation" (accelerated with central banks flooding the world with paper money) for a long time. [Mar 31: Reuters - Tensions Rise as World Faces Short Rations]. The past 2 weeks we've been focusing on rice, but I was blown away by this article I was reading that says rice has increased by 50% in the past 2 weeks, and 10% Friday alone. Shocking. Especially considering this is a staple food for much of the globe. I was simply doing a Google Search on term "food prices" and looked at the news tab and was struck at just in the first 5 pages (50 news articles) how many countries were represented - Bangladesh, Philippines, Guam, Kenya, India, Vietnam, Liberia, Pakistan, Haiti, United Arab Emirates. And that's just the first 3 pages.

As speculators flood into the final bubble markets, the price of food shoots up, world wide. The fact that this is global and not local is very significant. We have seen this before in history. Usually, after an economic stress, normally wars, sends the Great Powers into financial stresses, the governments create inflation since this is the only way to make their national war debts easily repayable. The more they use fiat currency, the easier it is to go into inflationary debt payments. In older times, war inflation tended to be local rather than global. But if the nation is a Great Power, it can be global. For example, the Hundred Years Wars and King Edwardian Scottish Wars bankrupted the biggest banking houses in Europe. This caused global financial problems before England became a Great Power.

Usually wars cause farm prices to rise for the simple reason, destroying the crops of peasants while fighting causes a drop in crop surpluses. This is why the Bible talks about the Four Horsemen: disease, war, famine and chaos. Chaos is also inflation. In the present case, the US is the world's biggest empire, by far. And the US, Russia and China, the three top military powers, all have been involved in a joint 'Cold War' for over 60 years now. Uprisings in China and Russia have been very expensive. But the uprisings against the US have been epic! Right now, the US is trying to occupy more than one country that absolutely refuse to cooperate with this imperialism. Iraq, the most famously. Iraq's battles with the US empire, in the last three days, has killed 10 more American occupying imperial storm troopers and many more were badly injured. This has NO mention in the news in the Empire, of course.

We are choosing which free-spending warmonger should be our next ruler. The media owners and the real rulers hope we install a good 'free trade/all war' person like Hillary Clinton or McCain. Obama is troublesome to them since he seems to be as slippery as Kennedy who might betray them and not jump into one imperial adventure after another.

The main thing is, the Super Bubble of wild military overspending by the USA empire is at the very basis of global inflation today. To pay for our endless military overspending, the USA needs easy money. Paying a realistic interest rate means ceasing this gigantic military spending balloon. So the allies of this empire went into a conspiracy run by the G7 nations: they will redesign inflation statistics so they don't reflect reality. And they will keep interest rates below 6% this way. And the Japanese went one step further: they would keep their own rates below 1% so the US could have infinite loans at virtually no cost.

So money production via lending globally shot through the roof the last 15 years. And continues. The collapse of the G7 banking system due to the illogic of all these systems set up to feed the US Empire military balloon has created counterforces that are now ripping apart the entire banking system leaving still standing, only the central banks that created this problem. Just like at the end of the Vietnam War, we are in a energy/food inflation cycle. And this has imperial consequences as I will show in the news today:

'Protect world poor against food inflation'

Developing countries need to take comprehensive action to protect their poor in the face of soaring global food prices, a Washington-based research centre has warned.

The International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI) said in a paper released on Tuesday that the food price index calculated by the United Nations' Food and Agriculture Organisation rose by nearly 40 percent last year.

The increase had been nine percent the year before.

Global military spending inflationary effects are now firmly parked in the most unstable part of the economic system. At first, farmers rejoice in higher profits. But these are rapidly eaten up by much higher energy costs. The rise in profits means farmers plant more crops. This usually ends swiftly as the marginal farmlands come into the cycle and prices rise too far for the ordinary shoppers. The bubble pops and prices collapse.

Then, desperate governments will try to restrict farm production in order to raise prices. But there are other forces at work. In this case as many others in history, thanks to overproduction, farm failures suddenly take off due to drought, overuse of irrigation, and the sudden rise in some sort of disease or plague. I just lost my last beehive to the latest scourge, Catastrophic Hive Collapse. A peculiar mutation of wheat rust virus is sweeping out of Africa and into Central Asia, borne by the Trade Winds. Drought in Australia is reducing its crop. And China's winter blizzard that went far into the south has reduced harvests.

During inflationary times, these sorts of things that may cause small rises, cause huge rises in price. Coupled with the surge for biofuels which literally burn up crops, we have a Perfect Food Inflation Storm. Just like in the past when several forces come together to create social chaos, so it is today. The days of the US empire dominating the planet are numbered thanks to our overspending on our military occupation of much of the planet. Let's go to the one nation we spend the most on in 'foreign aid' aside from our master nation of Israel that leeches off the US unashamably: Egypt.

We give more 'aid' to Egypt in order to keep the dictator there in power so he can cooperate with Israel in crushing the Palestinian people trapped in various ghettos. This ruler is extremely unpopular at home. But he can stay in power only so long as the US pays for his entire military and feeding the masses so they don't riot.

Day of angry protest stuns Egypt

The main complaint is economic, driven by rising food prices, depressed salaries and what opposition leaders say is an unprecedented gap between rich and poor. It is hard to say if the streets were empty Sunday because people stayed home for fear of getting caught in the crossfire between protesters and police, or because of the call to stay home as a form of protest.

Either way, the government took the threat of a mass mobilization so seriously that it issued a warning to potential strikers, saying it would "take necessary and resolute measures toward any attempt to demonstrate, impede traffic, hamper work in public facilities or to incite any of this."

In Cairo, riot police officers massed in Tahrir Square, the center of the city. They stood in formation outside the lawyers', doctors' and journalists' syndicates. State security agents had visited government workers in advance and ordered them to attend work on Sunday, some workers said. At the lawyers' syndicate, a few hundred protesters stood on the roof and on a balcony chanting "Down, down Hosni Mubarak."

Hundreds of students demonstrated at three universities in Cairo.

Are protestors in Paris yelling about US corruption crushing the democratic desires of the Egyptian people? HAHAHA. Of course not! France repeatedly invaded Egypt starting back in 1280 AD! After Napoleon's failed invasion, England and France both struggled to gain control of Egypt for 100 years. Then the US stopped both of them when Eisenhower refused to back them in a colonialist war in the mid-1950's. But since then, after Nasser was dead, the US became corrupted by European desires to rule the Arabs and Egyptians via military power. So we now control Egypt and use billions of dollars to pay our Quisling there to viciously oppress his own people which Mubarak cheerfully does as eagerly as Musharraf in Pakistan.

Egypt is a vicious police state. A draconian leader in the pay of a hostile foreign power rules without mercy. The population of Egypt continues to rise and farming continues to decline thanks to the damming of the Nile which rejuvenated the farmlands for many thousands and thousands of years. So most food is imported. The US pays for much of this which comes from the US itself. But the US is undergoing huge food inflation due to our reckless government spending and huge trade deficits. The food we export to Egypt is counted as 'export profits' while ignoring the economic fact that the degrading dollar is paying for this directly, from at home.

The US government is grossly in debt now and this is rising, not falling. Military spending is rising, not falling. Spending on wars is rising, not falling. And so all our military allies see inflation. We export this just like we export grain. On top of all this, the Chinese are consuming much more food than before. The US was quite cheerful about most of the world going to bed hungry in the past. We are a lot grumpier when we have to do this. So far, we are still in a 'too fat for our own good' crisis. But not for long. As families here choose between energy and food, so it is in all our empire which is much of the world. Masses of humans who did well at the beginning of the 'easy lending/free money' cycle are now being hammered by the reset side of this cycle, the 'no lending/money scarce' side.

‘These elections have already been fixed before being held’

Brotherhood to boycott Egyptian polls

We call on the Egyptian people to boycott the municipal elections because of the executive’s disregard for justice, the group’s deputy supreme leader Mohammed Habib told AFP. We are boycotting the election, he said.

The Brotherhood was set to field just 20 candidates after a wide-ranging government crackdown left many would-be candidates behind bars or blocked from registering.In contrast, President Hosni Mubarak’s ruling National Democratic Party is fielding a candidate for every one of the 52,000 council seats up for grabs.

Ninety per cent of its candidates are standing unopposed, according to party members. The municipal elections rarely drew fierce competition in the past, but this year’s poll will be the first since a 2005 constitutional amendment required independent candidates running for the presidency to secure the backing of municipal councillors.

Presidential candidates need the support of at least 10 elected members of every local council in at least 14 provinces for their nomination to stand.Press reports said only 700 out 1,700 members of the opposition liberal Wafd party were able to register, as well as some 400 members of the left-leaning Tagammu party, amid complaints by opposition hopefuls of obstacles ranging from bureaucratic hurdles to physical assaults at registration stations.

Americans who are anxious to ignore Egypt would dearly love to eliminate Atta from our history books. There is a huge movement afoot that on the left and the right, deny this strange man his pivotal place in the story of the destruction of the American Empire. Atta's family was very involved in the Muslim Brotherhood. When it was suppressed in Egypt, it moved to the US. The fathers of this organization correctly understood that the US was the power behind the throne and the only way to destroy the US power was to provoke the US into wild military spending and then bankrupt us.

Starting in 1991, they targeted the World Trade Center. Finally, by 2001, a mere ten years later, after more than one attempt, they succeeded, wildly beyond anyone's dreams. The US decided to deal with this huge blow to our economy by giving away infinite money for free. This sudden surge of funny money is today's inflation that will create a revolution in Egypt! Which is what Atta desired the most!

Atta is winning his war. Egypt's ruler can't hang on forever. Not if there is great distress in the Streets. So far, thanks to US overspending, he gets free money for his military. But all such efforts fail the hour that the military is ordered to murder many thousands of citizens storming palace gates. Time and again in history, the same story is played out: the rulers order the troops to fire. The troops fire once. The mob disburses. Then they return, in greater numbers. This time, the troops, instead of shooting them, turn their guns on their own leaders and shoot THEM! And the Muslim Brotherhood know their history. They plan ahead for this event. And the government knows this. But Mubarak knows the minute the US dollars are either worthless or cease flowing, his head will be on a pike. I am betting, he is preparing his exit and has squirreled away enough money in Switzerland to live as comfortably as all our puppets live if they get out of their palaces via helicopter.

Of course, all this is Israel's Jewish leaders worst nightmares. History is running out of control here. Expecting the US which is going bankrupt to keep up our empire can work only if the US has some empire saving them like we saved the British and French for 100 years. Since China is probably the only possible empire, I doubt this will happen. The hope in Europe is, they will forge a New Holy Roman German Empire. A 'Viertel Reich', so to speak. With the euro as the currency for bribery, using the US military which will be controlled by the bankers, we will continue our collective colonization and control of the lands the crusaders wanted so badly. But with the popping of the Super Bubble, I doubt this will work.

Food riots fear after rice price hits a high

With rice stocks at their lowest for 30 years, prices of the grain rose more than 10 per cent on Friday to record highs and are expected to soar further in the coming months. Already China, India, Egypt, Vietnam and Cambodia have imposed tariffs or export bans, as it has become clear that world production of rice this year will decline in real terms by 3.5 per cent. The impact will be felt most keenly by the world's poorest populations, who have become increasingly dependent on the crop as the prices of other grains have become too costly.

Rice is the staple food for more than half the world's population. This is the second year running in which production - which increased in real terms last year - has failed to keep pace with population growth. The harvest has also been hit by drought, particularly in China and Australia, forcing producers to hoard their crops to satisfy local markets.

The increase in rice prices - which some believe could increase by a further 40 per cent in coming months - has matched sharp inflation in other key food products. But with rice relied on by some eight billion people, the impact of a prolonged rice crisis for the world's poor - a large part of whose available income is spent on food - threatens to be devastating

Speculators are pouring money into food futures. This mob of investors are using a huge mountain of funny money generated via the Japanese Carry Trade and US military overspending. They want to park this loot somewhere that has 'growth' [ie: faster inflation than the world bubble inflation]. This desire will cause riots in more than one nation. Including in the US. When people accustomed to buying neat stuff are reduced to spending all their money on food and fuel, they get rapidly very irate. Even the most flaccid and helpless populations on earth like in the US, get motivation. And this motivation is hard for the rulers to restrain if it gets rolling. So far, each time US workers are betrayed by their bosses, they hang their heads and head for home. There is enough money to keep them from total financial collapse...barely. And even then, the Social Security and other systems set up are being destroyed rapidly by inflation. For the Fed has jiggered inflation statistics so food and fuel are cruelly left out. So real incomes of the non-working classes are collapsing. I see this up close for my husband is on a fixed income due to work injuries and I can't work since I have to stay home to keep him alive.

LuLu joins hands with UAE to rein in food inflation

Dubai: Emke Group, which operates the LuLu hypermarket chain, on Sunday became the first private sector retail chain to join hands with the Federal government to curb rising prices of essential food items.

Sultan bin Saeed Al Mansouri, Minister of Economy, and Yousuf Ali M.A., managing director of Emke Group, on Sunday signed a memorandum of understanding at the Ministry of Economy in Dubai to freeze prices of certain foods.

The company, which operates 37 supermarkets and hypermarkets across the UAE, will keep the prices of 32 basic items steady throughout 2008.

They include rice, sugar, oil, flour, tea, butter, milk and poultry, the Ministry of Economy said.

This is being done out of fear. Many of the families in the oil pumping nations are on the dole. When bin Laden launched his revolution, Saudi Arabia was near bankruptcy due to low world oil prices. Now, they have a lot of dollars. Only the dollars are melting away due to global inflation. So the government is twisting and turning, trying to keep down prices but unable to counteract the destructive nature of global food inflation. Nearly all their food is imported. In the past, the Kings tried to create artificial farming and thus, have some control over food. But they won't allow population controls so the population rapidly outstrips resources. This is true in Egypt, too. China is being hammered by this inflation but being an agrarian as well as manufacturing giant, they can cope somewhat better than any of the Muslim nations.

Chhattisgarh tops farmer suicide table

While farmer suicides in states like Maharashtra and earlier Andhra Pradesh have drawn much media and government attention, those in Chhattisgarh have gone virtually unnoticed. Yet, the suicide rate among farmers is the highest in Chhattisgarh.

According to calculations by Canada-based scholar Yuvraj Gajpal, who used data from the National Crime Records Bureau, the suicide rate among Chhattisgarh’s farmers in 2006 was 6.49 per one lakh farmers. The corresponding figure for Maharashtra was 4.28 and Andhra Pradesh 3.24.

India is not China. It is a very unstable country that is rent by even deeper social and tribal as well as religious divides, the hopes of the manufacturing powers of using India as a New China will be undone by social unrest and outright insurrections. The peasant population there isn't protected like in China. What slender protections China gives their peasants, India gives virtually nothing. The devil here is very ancient: farmers going into debt and unable to pay this off, go deeper and deeper until they die or are enslaved. And India has slaves. A recent typhoon uncovered an island of slaves who worked for several rich owners of fishing boats.

Some Truth About Trade

It was Mr. Rove who urged Dick Cheney in 2000 to forget the free trade spiel and promise voters in West Virginia that a Bush administration would protect American steel from cheap imports. “If our trading partners violate our trade laws, we will respond swiftly and firmly,” Mr. Cheney thundered.

Those words seem to echo in Mr. Obama’s attacks against “unfair” trade deals — including Nafta, Cafta and President Bill Clinton’s decision to establish regular trade relations with China. Mrs. Clinton seems to draw inspiration as well, railing to the Pennsylvania A.F.L.-C.I.O. against alleged dumping of Chinese steel: “When I’m President, China will be a trade partner not a trade master,” she said.

Such pandering may play on the stump, especially in Pennsylvania, where workers fear for their jobs as the country’s manufacturing base shrinks. Mr. Bush won West Virginia, only the fourth Republican to do so since 1932. Still, whoever wins in November would be foolish to choose protectionism.

The New York Times has only one type of editorial: total free trade, all the time. There are NEVER any anti-free trade editorials. Some guest editorialists may squeak about the downside of free trade but no one comprehensive is allowed into the one-sided debate. Note how the Times is ordering the two Democrats to NOT ever even TALK about hindering 'free trade'! They are supposed to bow down to the Super Bubble Masters. Clinton is obviously in the past of these people. This is why her income shot up by $100+ million in less than four years. She is as likely to fix 'free trade' with China as she will fix illegal immigration: HAHAHA. Not even slightly. The Times does worry about Obama. He isn't totally owned by the ruling elites...yet. This is why the Times warns about 'protectionism'.

The Times supports Israel. Israel floods the US with imports while getting the lion's share of US foreign aid money. If there are restrictions on imports, this will be applied to Israel which, per capita, outstrips China as the leading export nation to the US.

Here is a great video of one of our Congressional representatives talking about free trade and the huge corridor being built by our trade rivals:

Marci Kaptur North American Union Canada Mexico NWO POVERTY

And finally, there are two ways to stop a Super Bubble: inflation and destruction of funny money via bankruptcy.

Late Payments on Loans the Highest in 16 Years: The Pooring of America Continues

More Americans have fallen behind on consumer loans than at any time in nearly 16 years, as credit problems once concentrated in mortgages spread into other forms of debt.
In a quarterly study, the American Bankers Association said the percentage of loans at least 30 days past due rose to 2.65 percent in the fourth quarter from 2.44 percent in the third quarter, and from 2.23 percent a year earlier.

The rate of delinquencies was the highest since a 2.75 percent rate in the first quarter of 1992. It provides a fresh sign the nation's economy is slowing, and may be in recession.

"Deterioration of household credit should continue through 2008, though the rate may moderate," he added. "If it intensifies, then the current recession may prove more severe than anticipated."

ABA Chief Economist James Chessen attributed the jump in the delinquency rate largely to auto loans.
Late payments on "indirect" auto loans, which are made through dealerships, totaled 3.13 percent, the highest on record. Delinquencies on direct auto loans rose to 1.90 percent, a 2-1/2-year high.

Credit and debit card delinquencies rose to 4.38 percent from the third quarter's 4.18 percent, following four straight quarterly declines.

Housing wasn't spared. Delinquencies on home equity loans rose to a 2-1/2-year high of 2.39 percent, and on home equity lines of credit rose to 0.96 percent, matching a level last seen in the fourth quarter of 1997.

All across the planet, we see global inflation and global rising bankruptcies. We see money vanishing as swiftly as the bubble is being inflated by the Central Banks of the G7 nations. This super bubble will pop simply because it cannot grow forever. No bubble can. And this leaves us with the very last super bubble, the biggest one of them all, the one that is larger than 5 years of planetary wealth: the Derivatives Beast Bubble. This one is still growing. And it is doomed to go splat, big time.

Email this post

Culture of Life News Main Page

Comments

[Oops]

Published 4/8/2008...St. Louis Post Dispatch.

News Of The Weird

In the worst slums of Port-au-Prince, Haiti (where 80%of the people live on less than
$2 a day), rice now sells for 30 cents a cup (double the price of 1 year ago), according to an Associated Press report,leaving the poorest of the poor to subsist mainly on "cookies" made with dirt. Choice clay from the central plateau is at least a source of calcium and can be baked with salt and vegetable shortening. However, recently the La Saline slum, the reporter noted, the price of dirt, too, has risen about 40%.

[Bokonon]

By Golly, we live in interesting times.

Mubarak has called out the army to stabilise the situation while he tries to get bread on the table as quick as possible.

Israel held missile attack drills today.

The USA has put sanctions on Iranian banks. (I would expect Armenian and Pakistani bankers will rubbing their hands with glee.)

Crude oil spot price is staying above $90/barrel. When USA demand dropped in Jan 2007 the price dropped below $50.

The Credit crunch in the USA has had collateral damage (poor pun I know) globally.

[Dutch]

Now you are talking! As the US slowly slips toward midnight and starts to lose its grasp globally, a confederation of China and the Muslim world will fill that power vaccum with the Queen proping up Europe to take our place. All of these countries are being MANIPULATED toward a world war. Israel will be wiped out and the US will busy trying to contain riots inside its own borders. But the Elitist plans for this will fail.

[Bear of Little Brain]

That "peculiar mutation" of wheat rust Elaine mentioned is called Ug99, being first detected in Uganda in 1999. Since then it has been spreading through parts of Africa and through the Yemen. It was recently suspected of having occurred in southern Pakistan, but the authorities there have not mentioned it. It has definitely been confirmed in Iran, and this is where it gets interesting.

Apparently, the spores are asexual and cannot mutate in that form. However, there is another host besides wheat that it can attack, and that is the barberry bush, a plant native to Iran and that general area. However, once it meets the barberry bush it becomes the sexual form and can then mutate, potentially rendering attempts to breed resistant strains of wheat to particular forms of Ug99 irrelevant. As a scientist said, "Whatever blows into Iran will not be the same as blows out."

Currently, no Ug99 has been detected in India, and their statements continue to be reassuring, but imply that that although they are doing their best, that's as much as they can do.
The prevailing winds will carry Ug99 into India, perhaps by next season (India is the second largest grower of wheat in the world, I believe). Then it will be transported to China.

It is also known that the USA is frequently the recipient of dust carried from China, hence it is not at all impossible for Ug99 to be carried into the wheatlands of Northern America. There is even the possibility that this even crosses the Atlantic, which earlier Chinese dust storms almost managed.

This wheat rust is considered particularly virulent, the more so because it is a stem rust, which kills the plant and can obliterate a crop. Wheat strains developed at the beginning of the green revolution are not resistant to it. Programmes are in place to try to develop resistant strains, but this is a slow process and, even when/if suitable varieties are found, breeding enough seed to offset/replace the existing crop will take years, not months.
Inevitably, the loathsome (my opinion) Monsanto is going to be poking its nose into this misery, but one thing that I have yet to read about is whether or not their existing GM crops are Ug99-resistant. I suspect not, or I think we would have heard. (As an aside, some people are beginning to wonder if the bee Colony Collapse Disorder is due to GM crops, with their built-in pesticides. We'll see.)

I first became alerted to Ug99 in a New Scientist article some time ago.

http://environment.newscientist.com/channel/earth/mg19425983.700-billions-at-risk-from-wheat-superblight.html

Then everything went quiet. Now, it's mainstream news. With falling water tables everywhere and with wells in places like Asia becoming contaminated with naturally-occurring arsenic (a process hastened by the use of electric, submersible pumps) the food crisis runs much deeper than a rice shortage. The green revolution may have only bought us a little time, and permitted a further expansion of the population. Ironically, this may simply have made any potential catastrophe worse. Although spraying crops may be one way of countering the disease, it is likely that limited supplies and cost will restrict spraying to those countries that can afford it.

With respect to population and energy, there is a brilliant lecture by Dr. Albert Bartlett available on YouTube, under the heading "The most important video you will ever see". It is simply an explanation of the exponential function applied to us. It has been broken into eight short sections. I urge everyone to watch it, then figure out where we are in his test-tube analogy. It is truly frightening, because it has the inevitability of a mathematical process. Don't expect any whizzo audio-visuals; its a straight lecture
Here is the link to Part 1:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F-QA2rkpBSY

Again, I urge you to watch it and consider its implications for our future and the future of our children and grandchildren.

[Bear of Little Brain]

BTW, I'm not sure that referring to "food price inflation" is not understating the situation. It implies that this can be countered by a little "food price deflation". I believe we now have a fundamental supply and demand situation, probably with speculation and hoarding thrown in for good measure. I hope I'm wrong.

[Elaine Meinel Supkis]

Yes, there is hoarding going on in the third world, at least. And about the posting by you, Bear, yes, we have yet another mutation disease ravaging crops. This is why monogenetic crops are pure evil.

And always, always, always, periods of rapid economic expansion coupled with easy money ALWAYS end up being party to some horrible new mutation in agriculture. For example, 1848: the potato blight. In the early 1970's it was a corn blight. I suspect it is due to overplanting marginal lands that are surrounded by weeds, swamps, deserts and other places where it is easier for the disease from wild plants to jump to domestic breeds.

[mad mike]

expect riots when money doesnt by food.
mass civil disobedience. most gov-mets will collapse.
picture unburied dead corpses rotting in the streets.
soon, very soon in the usa. it doesnt matter who wins the white house in november.
enjoy the free ride while you can.
because suffering will be universal very soon.
there's nothing you can do about it, certain men can still get rich in the mean time.
there is no limit to human greed and folly.
the meaning of life is meaninglessness.
say, what's britney up to these days?
who's the top driver in nascar?
that is what you should be occupying your days with.

[Michael]

BTW, it's not a 'Viertel Reich' - you would say 'Viertes Reich', as the former means 'quarter' and the latter 'fourth' in German ;-)

[Elaine Meinel Supkis]

You are right, Michael. Heh.

[Pete Murphy]

"...the allies of this empire went into a conspiracy run by the G7 nations: they will redesign inflation statistics so they don't reflect reality."

One of my pet peeves is the way that the government strips food and energy from the calculation of the "core rate" of the Consumer Price Index. Food and energy are two of the most indispensable commodities in the index, yet they are stripped out, leaving in the "core" rate such things as jewelry, liquor, cigarettes, movie tickets, etc.

Another trick they use is to take modifications that they've made to the calculation in the past year and go backward and apply the same modifications to previous years. This results in significantly overstating the value of the dollar today as compared to previous decades, helping to make wages, incomes and net worth appear to be keeping pace with inflation when they clearly are not.

Pete Murphy
Author, Five Short Blasts

[Elaine Meinel Supkis]

Hi, Pete!

You are totally correct! And I am very happy to see you here. We loved your book, as you know.

And I hope readers buy it. 'Five Short Blasts' combines economics with population statistics. Money and the environment with politics. Lots of graphs and charts.

And yes, it is all designed to trick people. But anyone on a fixed income can plainly see, they are being cheated. I no longer heat my house with gas, for example. I have to go into the woods to get firewood and tend fires all winter long, this is hard work.

[Dutch]

What kind of wood stove do you have?

[GK]

FYI, I happen to have a Fireplace Xtrordinair wood burning fireplace, EPA rated, 70% efficient, that heats a 3000+ sq ft house (super insulated) with 2 cords (almond) a winter in the coldest town in the US. It is lovely hard work.

[Dutch]

Earthstove

[gehi]

nike store,air max shoes,dunk sb shoes,nike shox shoes

[angel]

puma sheos

[angle]

tiffany jewerly

[1246986700]

VNIYf8 hoxedtjz phjziwph rlsqgizn

[1247162068]

S7GtDx hxetyrma xiyvbhob hvhqzsdl

[discount]

air max 2003

[angle]

nike ir max

[discount]

air max 1

[discount]

air max 2

[angle]

nike sb dunks

[discount]

airmax

[discount]

nike sb dunks

men mid dunk

[heraldcran]

continues newsletter particular comparable technology carbon