Food price inflation up 33.7 percent in one yea

[naaman fletcher]

The acceleration in food price inflation puts pressure on Venezuela's Consumer Price Index (CPI), which increased by 1.5 percent at the end of October compared with 1,1 percent increase in September, according to data provided by the Central Bank of Venezuela (BCV).

After a slight change (0.2 percent) in September, the price of foodstuffs gained strength and rose by 1.6 percent in October. The Executive Office did not decree any adjustment in the price of regulated items.

As a result, food products recorded an annual variation of 33.7 percent, whereas the cumulative variation reached 29.5 percent. This is the group of goods that mostly impacts general prices.

Although agricultural products heightened by 1.4 percent in October, the hike of prices of such goods recorded a cumulative variation of 51.6 percent during the first ten months of the year, the highest increase recorded.

http://english.eluniversal.com/2010/11/10/en_eco_esp_food-price-inflation_10A4712853.shtml

[ChangoLoa]

1. Sorry, I reposted this same article by mistake...! nt

[social_critic]

2. Amazing, I thought they were subsidizing food with PDVAL

Aren't they subsidizing food in Venezuela using PDVAL? What's the matter, they can't figure out how to import food in large quantities?

[ChangoLoa]

3. Half of that food is rotten in containers

State purchasing commissions and rent-seeking for the bolibourgeoisie.

[Mika]

4. I was listening to Thom Hartmann's show the other day. A guest said the same is going on here.

Big corporate agriculture is making money hedging and reinsuring their crops. Very much like the mortgage/AIG fraud. The more the corn/rice/peanuts/soy fails on the fields (or in storage) the more the commodities futures prices go up, then the insurance pays the higher value on the rotted corn, soy etc.

There's more money to be made from rotting produce (and creating the failed crops).

Our corporate masters of über capitalism have made it so.

Depressing. Isn't it?


Oh. I guess I forgot to mention that millions of people, mostly infants, die from starvation because of rapacious capitalist schemes like this.

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[naaman fletcher]

5. When you hedge,

There is a counterparty. Some are food producers, like Cargill. Cargill will want to hedge to lock in a decent price for the good it grows. On the other side might be a general mills who want to lock in a price for the grain it buys.

There are also speculators who buy and or write such insurance.

For a company to make money keeping food warehouses so that I goes bad, there is another company losing money on that deal. So, it cant go on repeatedly or nobody will be on the other side of the deal.

[Mika]

6. Yep. Just like the toxic mortgages.

As long as the corporate masters can loop it around a few times (they are all on each other's BoDs - see: www.theyrule.net ) they can make billions. They don't care about crop crashes or starvation or even if their own companies fail. As long as they walk with the loot, its all good. In the US some of the crop commodities reinsurance is guaranteed by the gov. (another big wet kiss of corporate welfare on our dime).

In the New World Order Economy - failure rules! :puke:

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[naaman fletcher]

7. With the mortgages

The person who was getting ripped off at the end of he deal was the taxpayer who didn't know what was going on and whose elected representatives were bought off. No way either cargill or general mills or Goldman sachs is going to be a victim (at least not more than once). For it to be a pervasive fraud I think the taxpayer would have to be on the hook at the end of the line.

[social_critic]

8. So you think failure rules in Venezuela?

Venezuela seems to have a lousy economy and their government seems to be turning more and more radical. Wouldn't you call this their failure?

[ChangoLoa]

10. Indeed

But it wouldn't be too difficult to impose a regulation on over production and spoiled food. There's an institutional gap. Nowadays, for European and American agricultural policies, the core idea is land planning. Their markets are completely saturated with cheap food so there's no need to produce as much as they do. And we definitely don't need an over-extended and subsidized agro-industrial sector to take care of the rural spaces.

[ChangoLoa]

9. Absolutely

Almost as depressing as the European CAP and the US govt industrial farming promotion which killed coherent agriculture, massively polluted soils and flooded 3rd world markets with artificially cheap goods that local farmers can't compete with.

Unfortunately, in most 3rd world countries, we keep our borders open to those products, even in 21st century socialism :/

Actually, it's even worse than that. We "re-subsidize" them a second time with our cheap dollars for local importers.

In this case of PDVAL, the symbol is incredibly bad too. We're talking about thousands of tons of rotten food which were bought with public money but handled by a bureaucracy who found its best interests in letting it decompose in huge containers. You know, when a state official buys a huge quantity of goods from a foreign exporter, he receives a commission. The more he buys, the more he gets paid by the "corporate masters of über capitalism".

Infuriating too. Right?

[social_critic]

11. I wonder what they'll do with the containers

Given the lack of housing, they could steam clean those containers and use them for cheap housing. I saw that being done in Trinidad.

[ChangoLoa]

12. I saw they were doing that in Lille, France

Housing for students. One container is like 30 sq meters.

[social_critic]

13. Container housing is OK

Container housing can be luxurious. I saw some done right, they installed two containers, the one underneath had a bathroom, kitchen, and dining and eating room. Then they had outside stairs to go to the "second floor" where they had two small bedrooms. If you add the floor space, it's about 60 meters. The key is to cover the outside with a light material, and line the inside with fiberglass, to keep the steel isolated, or they get too hot.

I saw the films of the rotten food containers in Venezuela, and I figured they could set up housing for several thousand poor families with a very low cost in less than a year (it takes time to order the plumbing and electric equipment). And the best part is they have steel walls, so it's easier to keep the thieves out. Crime is a serious problem in poor areas, and it's really important to have sturdy walls.