I got a little shock the other morning when I went into the bagel store for a half-dozen cinnamon-raisins. Until about 6 months ago, the price was 50 cents per bagel. It had been fifty cents for about two or three years. But then it went up to sixty cents; well, no big deal. And then, last month, it was seventy cents. So I figured six bagels times seventy, $4.20. But no, the lady at the counter told me $5.40. In other words, ninety cents a bagel. GEEZ, what the hell is going on? Is the world coming to an end?
There was an article in the NY Times today that explains what happened. The price of wheat has skyrocketed lately, just like oil. Flour prices have gone way up. So the bagel shop owner had to raise his or her prices to stay in business. I can understand that. I only eat two bagels per week, so it’s only another two dollars a month out of my pocket. But what just happened with bagels is happening for a lot of other important things today, like gasoline and food. I haven’t seen economic stuff like this since the 1970s, i.e. prices going up every time you blink. Our economy is definitely entering troubled waters once again.
The Times article makes an important point, however. We here in the USA are hurting in the wallet and pocketbook because of all the recent price inflation. Our standards of living are going down somewhat. BUT, the effects of all this on the developing world, especially Africa, are of an entirely different magnitude. The average American may have to defer his or her next purchase of a high-def TV or a new cell phone; the average Nigerian or Congolian may have to cut back on his or her daily caloric intake. People who are now productive may not remain so after a few months of low-level starvation. As such, poverty in Africa might only get worse.
One of the big problems is that a lot of people in the world want to live like Americans, and are now imitating us by eating a lot more meat. Perhaps not in western Africa, but in other nations that have done somewhat better, e.g. Mexico and Indonesia, meat consumption is on the rise. And growing cattle and pigs and chickens uses a lot of grain; it’s a much less efficient way of getting calories to human beings, as compared to just consuming the grain (even if you first have to boil or bake or mill it). So, the demand for grain has climbed greatly, and since farmers can only increase production gradually, prices have skyrocketed. Although grain production can go up, there is only so much arable land; some economists think that food costs are going up on a permanent basis.
Of course, this could all change if the demand for meat starts to fall. Since the price of meat is very sensitive to the cost of the grain required to fatten up all those cows and pigs and birds for slaughter, consumers will soon be in for some sticker shock at the meat counter. At some point, meat eaters may re-think their diets. However, it will probably take a while; gasoline prices have been going up for three years now, but only now is the American public starting to think twice about those big guzzler SUVs that were so popular.
There are some people, however, who have already taken the plunge for food / energy efficiency and thus for a better-fed world. They are called vegetarians. And I’m glad to be one of them. If you have thought about becoming one, there couldn’t be a better time. And if you are already one, there couldn’t be a better reason for resisting the social pressures that all veggies face to “be like everyone else” and chomp down a burger. Sticking with our salads and tofu is just a drop in the bucket; it won’t allow any particular Somalian to properly feed his children (nor allow me to buy cinnamon-raisin bagels at a reasonable price again). But someone has to take on the role of the prophet; someone has to light the path when it’s still unpopular. So keep the lentils and rice coming, all you veg heads, and be proud of what you’re eating!
Jim,
OK I can see that if everybody became a vegetarian, yes it might help the economy–but I have a hunch that becoming vegetarian would be only a drop in the bucket of the recession we are currently in.
I say how about the (what did I hear today?) the $28 billion per month on the war in Iraq? I can’t be sure that I heard it right as it is such an outlandish number who can believe it. Then there was the added info that the waste and fraud connected to this war surpasses any other war we have ever had. All I can say is “Good grief!” However, no matter how you look at it, the war in Iraq simply costs too much. And who is making all the money off the fraud and waste? What is history going to say about the entirety of this war–to say nothing of GWB having gotten us into it.
Think of how many people in the world could be fed with $28 billion–and from only one month!
The total disaster the Bush administration has been is staggering. And then he says it’s a “slow down.” The man is not living on this earth.
I say the entirety of the recession is going to turn out to be much worse than anyone thinks it will be. I hear talk of maybe 5 months, maybe 8 months, maybe 18 months. I say how about the depression we had in the 1930s? Supposedly such a depression could never happen; yet I wonder: If there has never been such a massive expenditure of funds on a war that has been a mistake from the beginning, might it not lead us into such a recession we never dreamed of?
Who would ever have tho’t that not even 8 years ago there was a surplus budget when Clinton left office? Now we are trillions in the hole. It boggles the mind that one man (or maybe 2 men–Cheney cannot be blameless in all this) could so totally screw up a situation. But notice that none of the Bushes are suffering.
I also don’t know about other places but here in Cook County the Board just raised the sales tax to the highest in the nation–something like 10.25%. At least the Chicago area is not going to easily climb out of a recession with such a regressive tax. Sure, the solution to everything is tax the poor people.
I don’t eat a great deal of meat myself; and frankly, I’d go vegetarian in a heartbeat if I tho’t it would solve the world’s problems. However, I doubt it will. And in fact, I think the people who are the most hungry in the world really need meat to gain back their health.
I also think of the upside-down aspect of a nation that puts so much attention on food–what to eat, what NOT to eat, cable channels devoted to food, oh, let me eat but then exercise so I don’t get fat! Please! Wasn’t it the ancient philosophers who counseled moderation in life in all things? I still think they were right.
I really wish I could agree with you; then the solution to this recession might really be simple. But alas, I think not eating meat is in the same class likely as people using “energy-saving bulbs” in their homes. How about some of the big companies (especially the ones doing the most polluting) exercise some “energy saving.” What the ordinary guy or gal or famaily does to help is a drop in the bucket compared to what the big companies could do.
One way for the big companies to avoid attention on their own lack of energy-saving is to turn the problem back on to the consumer. Isn’t that an old street tactic? When accused of something, don’t answer the accusation, attack the person accusing with a problem he/she has to defend. Get the attention on the person accusing and divert the attention from the accused. Street fighting at its best/worst.
Well, it seems this has turned into a rant as some of my other comments have; perhaps we could say that I’m forcefully putting forward another point of view. Sounds better than “rant.”
MCS
Comment by Anonymous — March 11, 2008 @ 5:00 pm
Jim,
OK I can see that if everybody became a vegetarian, yes it might help the economy–but I have a hunch that becoming vegetarian would be only a drop in the bucket of the recession we are currently in.
I say how about the (what did I hear today?) the $28 billion per month on the war in Iraq? I can’t be sure that I heard it right as it is such an outlandish number who can believe it. Then there was the added info that the waste and fraud connected to this war surpasses any other war we have ever had. All I can say is “Good grief!” However, no matter how you look at it, the war in Iraq simply costs too much. And who is making all the money off the fraud and waste? What is history going to say about the entirety of this war–to say nothing of GWB having gotten us into it.
Think of how many people in the world could be fed with $28 billion–and from only one month!
The total disaster the Bush administration has been is staggering. And then he says it’s a “slow down.” The man is not living on this earth.
I say the entirety of the recession is going to turn out to be much worse than anyone thinks it will be. I hear talk of maybe 5 months, maybe 8 months, maybe 18 months. I say how about the depression we had in the 1930s? Supposedly such a depression could never happen; yet I wonder: If there has never been such a massive expenditure of funds on a war that has been a mistake from the beginning, might it not lead us into such a recession we never dreamed of?
Who would ever have tho’t that not even 8 years ago there was a surplus budget when Clinton left office? Now we are trillions in the hole. It boggles the mind that one man (or maybe 2 men–Cheney cannot be blameless in all this) could so totally screw up a situation. But notice that none of the Bushes are suffering.
I also don’t know about other places but here in Cook County the Board just raised the sales tax to the highest in the nation–something like 10.25%. At least the Chicago area is not going to easily climb out of a recession with such a regressive tax. Sure, the solution to everything is tax the poor people.
I don’t eat a great deal of meat myself; and frankly, I’d go vegetarian in a heartbeat if I tho’t it would solve the world’s problems. However, I doubt it will. And in fact, I think the people who are the most hungry in the world really need meat to gain back their health.
I also think of the upside-down aspect of a nation that puts so much attention on food–what to eat, what NOT to eat, cable channels devoted to food, oh, let me eat but then exercise so I don’t get fat! Please! Wasn’t it the ancient philosophers who counseled moderation in life in all things? I still think they were right.
I really wish I could agree with you; then the solution to this recession might really be simple. But alas, I think not eating meat is in the same class likely as people using “energy-saving bulbs” in their homes. How about some of the big companies (especially the ones doing the most polluting) exercise some “energy saving.” What the ordinary guy or gal or famaily does to help is a drop in the bucket compared to what the big companies could do.
One way for the big companies to avoid attention on their own lack of energy-saving is to turn the problem back on to the consumer. Isn’t that an old street tactic? When accused of something, don’t answer the accusation, attack the person accusing with a problem he/she has to defend. Get the attention on the person accusing and divert the attention from the accused. Street fighting at its best/worst.
Well, it seems this has turned into a rant as some of my other comments have; perhaps we could say that I’m forcefully putting forward another point of view. Sounds better than “rant.”
MCS
Comment by Anonymous — March 11, 2008 @ 5:00 pm