11.20.07 Food Shortages Next?

AFTER THE OIL CRISIS, A FOOD CRISIS? This is definitely something to keep an eye on. Food supplies are at a 35 year low. A quarter of the U.S. corn production this year went to biofuels instead of food. And 1 in 6 of people on the planet now suffer from malnutrition. The United Nations Food and Agricultural Organization expects the present situation to worsen.
...In this country in years gone by, people used to can and dehydrate foods for storage to help out when they couldn't get fresh food. With all our technology and modern conveniences, and the 'just-in-time' efficiency of the transportation and distribution sectors of the economy, those days are long gone. I read some time ago that the average supermarket has about 4 days of food on hand. What if the supply systems were disrupted for any reason?
...Putting some extra food and water supplies on hand can't hurt, and could be very helpful. And with inflation being such as it is, it even is a good investment.
...This is all another sign of the end times. With all the advances that have been made, 1 in 6 people on the planet are hungry - and even then, some of the corn production in particular is diverted from food use to biofuel production for additional profits.
.
LENDING CUTBACKS MAY TRIGGER A 'SUBSTANTIAL RECESSION' IN THE U.S., according to a Goldman Sachs report. The report theorizes that losses due to home foreclosures may be as high as $400 billion for lending institutions. "The likely mortgage credit losses pose a significantly higher macroeconomic risk than generally recognized," Jan Hatzius, chief U.S. economist at Goldman in New York wrote in the report.
.
ECONOMIST: GREENSPAN TO BLAME (Chicago Tribune). "I'm very pessimistic. Alan Greenspan really made a mess of all this. He pushed out too much liquidity at the wrong time. He supported the tax cut in 2001, which is the beginning of these problems. He encouraged people to take out variable-rate mortgages," said Joseph Stiglitz, a 2001 Nobel prize winning economist.
.
...Lots of coverage the last few days even in the mainstream press about other countries moving away from the dollar. This is the kind of story that usually doesn't get a lot of play here in the U.S., so when they finally start covering it here, it is something else to watch.
.
...The warnings are now starting to leak out into the mainstream press. As the Bible says, "The prudent man sees the danger and hides himself; but the simple pass on, and are punished." Proverbs 22:3.