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Posts Tagged ‘food supply’

Doug Casey on the Controlled Demolition of Food and Energy Supplies

Posted by M. C. on September 8, 2022

It’s as if the world’s governments decided to unleash the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse (Pestilence, War, Famine, and Conquest). The Covid hysteria and subsequent Vax mania can stand in for Pestilence. The US proxy war against Russia in the Ukraine has every chance of getting much worse. Vastly higher commodity prices caused by central bank inflation and State dictates will cause famine in poor countries. As for the Fourth Horseman, Conquest? That’s best translated as State Power. Kings and rulers, of course, but it evidences itself as socialism and authoritarianism today. We’re in for tough times. The Four Horsemen are saddling up.

by Doug Casey

Doug Casey on the Controlled Demolition of Food and Energy Supplies

International Man: Russia is one of the largest producers of fertilizer in the world, and tensions with the US and EU are disrupting supplies.

In addition, it seems there is a deliberate effort to sabotage the global agriculture industry.

For example, in the Netherlands, the government is restricting the use of nitrogen fertilizer under the ridiculous pretext that it’s needed to combat so-called “climate change.” Dutch farmers have protested the measures because they believe they will destroy their livelihoods and cause food shortages.

In Canada, the Trudeau government has announced a similar policy. Other governments will likely follow.

What’s your take on this? Is this a deliberate plan to disrupt food supplies?

Doug Casey: This meme has been circulating, along with three related ones, for a couple of years.

It’s as if the world’s governments decided to unleash the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse (Pestilence, War, Famine, and Conquest). The Covid hysteria and subsequent Vax mania can stand in for Pestilence. The US proxy war against Russia in the Ukraine has every chance of getting much worse. Vastly higher commodity prices caused by central bank inflation and State dictates will cause famine in poor countries. As for the Fourth Horseman, Conquest? That’s best translated as State Power. Kings and rulers, of course, but it evidences itself as socialism and authoritarianism today. We’re in for tough times. The Four Horsemen are saddling up.

But let’s look at Famine. Few people realize that before the Industrial Revolution, which only started in the 19th C, the world was perennially on the edge of mass starvation. Privation and hunger were normal. Hobbes was accurate when he said that life was “solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short.” The Industrial Revolution, powered by coal and then oil, changed the nature of life itself. Food has become abundant and is now, by far, at the cheapest levels in history.

That may be changing. Basic commodities like wheat, soybeans, and corn have doubled in the last couple of years—incomes haven’t. I doubt this is just a cyclical self-adjusting fluctuation. It’s much more serious.

So what’s going on? What’s the deeper cause behind it?

The great Covid hysteria was the catalyst that put WEF’s “Great Reset” in motion. Even though the flu itself turned out to be a big nothing, it brought on a collapse in economic activity. The Democratic Socialist Republic of Sri Lanka, a place few think about, seemed to lead the way. Its rulers decided to make it the most ESG-compliant country in the world at the very time tourism collapsed because of the pandemic hysteria. The government banned imported fertilizers in 2021, and production of tea and rice collapsed 50%. Sri Lanka made the news because of the depths of its self-caused disaster. I wonder, since Sri Lanka is an island with a very authoritarian government, whether this was an experiment to see what happens if you cut off all fertilizers and create an agricultural crisis in a country. Does it sound crazy? I think it’s a real question. It’s crazy—but it’s exactly what happened.

Is it possible that the world’s elite have decided, among themselves, that the world has too many people and that too many of them are what the WEF’s court intellectual, Yuval Noah Harari, has called “useless mouths”? With few exceptions, all the world’s leaders are members of the World Economic Forum. They all have common interests, share the same elitist/collectivist philosophy, promote each other, and have a common party line.

The elite are to blame for the problems that we have now, the release of the Four Horsemen.

This isn’t a conspiracy theory. This is just a recognition of the fact that birds of a feather flock together. And once members of the elite become internationally influential or control a government, they become a “class.”

I hate to sound Marxist talking about class interests, but it’s true. The people who run most governments are much more loyal to their class—the international elite—than they are to their constituents or their countrymen.

They think alike. They went to the same schools, they go to the same clubs, read the same books, go to the same conferences, have the same worldview, and become friends with each other. They’re influenced by the same influencers. So what’s going on right now is not just an accident.

International Man: The Biden regime recently passed the Inflation Reduction Act. It aims to reduce inflation by creating more inflation.

A large part of this Orwellian spending bill includes an astronomical $369 billion for boondoggles related to “climate change.”  

What do you think about this?

See the rest here

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Now they’re targeting the food supply

Posted by M. C. on August 8, 2022

Over the past several decades (until just before 2020), the number of people living in what economists called “extreme poverty” has been cut in half. This is an astonishing achievement (though almost nobody even knows about it).

And here’s Dave’s point: the campaign against fossil fuels means those people go right back into extreme poverty. Possibly even death. That’s not even debatable. That’s what it means.

https://mailchi.mp/tomwoods/food?e=fa1aba8cd8

These days we’re hearing stories from around the world of governments making food production much more challenging — even, for some farmers, no longer doable — in the name of fighting “climate change.”

(I covered the uprising among farmers in the Netherlands in episode #2159 of the Tom Woods Show.)

Now Canada’s Justin Trudeau is jumping on board, and other places are following suit.

Trudeau is asking for levels of fertilizer reduction that will obviously lead to much less food output, and at a particularly inauspicious moment at that.

Never forget: the “climate change” fight is an elite project. No normal person in a poor country is demanding “climate action.”

In a recent episode of his Part of the Problem podcast, Dave Smith made the kind of point almost nobody ever makes, and which the kids of people who push “climate change” policy prefer we not hear.

Over the past several decades (until just before 2020), the number of people living in what economists called “extreme poverty” has been cut in half. This is an astonishing achievement (though almost nobody even knows about it).

And here’s Dave’s point: the campaign against fossil fuels means those people go right back into extreme poverty. Possibly even death. That’s not even debatable. That’s what it means.

We keep hearing “conspiracy theorists” telling us that the elites want to whittle down the Earth’s population. All I can say is, if that isn’t what they want, they have an extremely strange way of showing it.

(I might add, by the way, that climate-related deaths declined by about 98 percent over the past century — in large measure thanks to fossil-fueled solutions.)

Some people look at our situation and conclude that it’s hopeless. The odds are stacked too highly against us. The elites will win, and there’s nothing we can do about it.

I’m sure you know someone like this. It’s all defeatism, all the time.

I don’t know about you, but I refuse to live like that.

In the vein of Harry Browne, I intend to find freedom in an unfree world — for myself, and for my children.

I invite you to join me (but in 48 hours the doors close):http://www.TomSchoolOfLife.comTom Woods

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Where’s the Beef? – Not on the Horizon – Gold Goats ‘n Guns

Posted by M. C. on May 7, 2020

In fact, this is what I’ve been banging on about as the real problem
with our response to the financial crisis and the Coronapocalypse. Why
has the private sector been shut down, tens of millions thrown out of
work, while no one is talking about downsizing the costs of local, state
and federal government agencies?

https://tomluongo.me/2020/05/05/wheres-the-beef-coronavirus-horizon/

Author: Tom Luongo

The reports continue to come in that there’s a real problem with the U.S. food supply. From McDonald’s reviewing their supply chain for beef to the pleas of ranchers already staring at feeding issues with last year’s poor harvests the signs are there for a major supply dislocation in beef going forward.

Kroger is limiting the amount of beef and pork people can buy. My local Winn-Dixie has had limits on large cuts of pork for the past couple of weeks. Pork loins have been gone for weeks now, so no pork jerky for us, which is a tragedy.

Now Wendy’s, which doesn’t use frozen beef, is reporting more than 20% of their stores are out of beef.

Stephens analyst James Rutherford noted 18% of Wendy’s restaurants were “completely sold out of beef items as of Monday evening,” reported Bloomberg.

“By our count 1,043 Wendy’s units were selling zero beef items yesterday evening,” but within the figure, about 128 restaurants were still selling beef chili. Rutherford added that the shortage varies across the country and said some restaurants still have full menus, while states like Ohio, Michigan, Tennessee, Connecticut, and New York are “fully out of fresh beef.” The note also said Wendy’s is “more exposed” to meat shortages because of its reliance on fresh beef compared with its competitors.

If you subscribe, like I do now, to the idea that this Coronapocalypse is mostly a cover story for the failures of the global financial and political system to usher in a new round of totalitarian control then destroying the most vulnerable, yet important, part of our food supply would be a key strategic goal.

My talk with Patrick Henningsen of 21st Century Wire recently covered the motive, means and opportunity for why this perspective should be our default setting.

But this beef shortage has been a year in the making. Last year because of poor grain harvests, especially corn, where millions of bushels came in at quality not even fit for silage, we were already expecting disruptions in the beef market as ranchers were thinning herds and bidding up the price of feeder calves earlier in year.

I’ve spoken with ranchers here in Florida about this. And this is an area which 1) grows a lot of cows, and 2) where meat packing plants have been mostly unaffected by COVID-19. So, it’s important when I tell you this dynamic in January and February has completely reversed itself.

Finished cattle are fetching excellent prices while feeders are down. Comex Live Cattle futures, however, have yet to get the news because the dislocation in the supply chain has farmers slaughtering animals faster than they can be processed and brought to market.

And just like in the oil industry, once you kill a heifer or cap a well it takes a long time to bring that lost supply back into the supply chain. Read the rest of this entry »

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