Caesar fiddled while Rome burned...

[ironglow]

  While the world is running short on food supplies, the "progressives" in cahoots with the eco-freaks and Malthusians are diverting much foodstuffs to making gasoline, while vast supplies of petro;eum lie untapped under our own soil.
  http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/41062817/ns/business-consumer_news/

[Graybeard]

Wasn't that Nero instead of Caesar?

[ironglow]

Wasn't that Nero instead of Caesar?

  Absolutely correct GB...don't know what I was thinking of...

  I could weasle out by saying all the dictators were known by the generic term of caesar, which they were.  But no..I just wasn't thinking clearly, and you caught me at it ! 

[Gary G]

The whole world is printing fiat money. This is why food prices are so high and going higher. As money is being devalued it takes more units to buy something. Government price controls cause shortages as in Northern Africa. Sure, there have been floods and droughts, but that happens every year somewhere.

[pmeisel]

Guys, its only been going on for decades, and in some places longer.....

[Dee]

Wasn't that Nero instead of Caesar?

Yes Bill it was.

As far as food shortages, all you farmer supporters that believe they SHOULD GET the farm subsidies, take this in. They rent or buy grain elevators, and HOLD THEIR GRAIN TILL PRICES GO UP AND THEN SELL. Of course they still take YOUR TAX DOLLAR in the form of subsidies. They claim to get subsidies but not much. I know one family that the husband and wife together get a little over $160,000.00 a year, ON THE SAME LAND AND CROPS! that's right! They file themselves, and then file again in their wife's name, and sometimes in the childrens name. DON'T BELIEVE IT? CHECK A FARMER "BY NAME" THAT YOU KNOW AT "EWG FARM SUBSIDIES DATA BASE". YOU'LL BE SHOCKED! BY THE WAY! They have also filed for FEDERAL DISASTER RELIEF because they either didn't get enough, or got too much rain. 
The farmer has you coming and going whether you like it, or believe it, or not. THEY GET YOUR TAX DOLLAR in the form of "farm subsidies" AND YEY ARE ALLOWED TO DRIVE THE PRICES UP BY HOLDING THEIR GRAIN TILL THEY FORCE A SHORTAGE, AND GET BETTER PRICES. You pay both ways.
Right now beef, (even old tuff wore out bulls) is bringing $0.91 a pound on the hoof. Highest in U.S. history. Hang on boys, it's gonna get worse, and your payin'em a comin and a goin, and their'a whining all the way to bank, and the new car dealerships.
ASK YOURSELF. HAS THE GOVERNMENT EVER SUBSIDIZED YOUR BUSINESS? LIKELY NOT.

[DDZ]

 The agriculture subsidy program needs to go away. It soaks up 10 to 30 billion a year.  USDA statistics show that the income of farm households is higher than the national average. David Rockefeller, the billionaire even gets a check from tax payers for growing corn. Many other well to do so called farmers have been on the gravy train, like former NBA player Scottie Pippen and David Letterman, as well as a some US senators.
It appears that most farmers have their hand in the pot. I looked up a couple of local small dairy farms in the area, and sure enough they were getting subsidies. This program should have been stopped long ago. As with any other federal program, fraud is involved. The subsidy program has been paying out billions to dead people, or to people that were not even farming. It was found that the USDA, in forty percent of cases, applications were not even reviewed to see if they were legit. 
Everything the government gets their hands into is screwed up, and the longer a program has been around the more wasteful spending it creates.

Another brilliant idea was to turn corn into gasoline. Even if the 70 million acres of corn were turned into fuel it would only replace 12 percent of the gasoline needed. This corn into gasoline idea has done nothing but raise the cost of corn.
 We certainly have been doing everything right to turn this country into a third world nation.     

[Dee]

The agriculture subsidy program needs to go away. It soaks up 10 to 30 billion a year.  USDA statistics show that the income of farm households is higher than the national average. David Rockefeller, the billionaire even gets a check from tax payers for growing corn. Many other well to do so called farmers have been on the gravy train, like former NBA player Scottie Pippen and David Letterman, as well as a some US senators.
It appears that most farmers have their hand in the pot. I looked up a couple of local small dairy farms in the area, and sure enough they were getting subsidies. This program should have been stopped long ago. As with any other federal program, fraud is involved. The subsidy program has been paying out billions to dead people, or to people that were not even farming. It was found that the USDA, in forty percent of cases, applications were not even reviewed to see if they were legit. 
Everything the government gets their hands into is screwed up, and the longer a program has been around the more wasteful spending it creates.

Another brilliant idea was to turn corn into gasoline. Even if the 70 million acres of corn were turned into fuel it would only replace 12 percent of the gasoline needed. This corn into gasoline idea has done nothing but raise the cost of corn.
 We certainly have been doing everything right to turn this country into a third world nation.     

My highlight of part of your post is one of my major points. These farmers I personally know, live WAY ABOVE most is this area, and their wives would not have the slightest idea in how to even start a tractor, much less use one. All drive $60,000.00 pickups with leather interior, and their wives would not be caught dead in a plain ole Ford or Chevrolet. They all drive LIMITED EDITION SUVs, or Cadillacs or Lincolns, and then only the top of the line ones. They NEVER buy clothes in WalMarts, and will not even think of eating in ordinary restaurants, but only the best ones. The take cruises, and 4 to 5 vacations a year, while the illegal mexican does the actual farming.

[saddlebum]

I might get tomahawked for this, but it seems like if the farmers were cut loose from government subsidies and government controls, they could operate like the free market is supposed to. They could grow what they want instead of being told what to grow by the government and when to grow it. When to plant and when to sit idle and collect tax dollars. The free market always works better than government control. It should work out better for everyone. As hungry as the world is, they should be able to prosper providing not only for the US but the international markets too. There was a time when American farmers fed the world. Now China is starting to take that role. Along with all the other roles America used to fill. Isn't US government control grand?

When thinking about the insane policies concerning food, fuel and economies around the world and especially in the US, I have to wonder if the Cloward and Piven strategy is being used the world over. That is to collapse economies and everything so the people will look to governments to save them. Because the people are so desperate they will either submit or be forced to do anything the governments demand.

Many, if not most, people see the C & P strategy playing out in America by the progressives who learned it in college. Possibly from Obama himself, since I have seen a picture of him teaching it on a chalkboard in a classroom from his past teaching days. It's all about collapsing economies, gaining control of the people, power and "fundamental transformation".
It's getting to be common knowege that the EPA and others are tools to bring about their desired results. Controlling our natrual resources.

From a Biblical standpoint, it is written that there will be great famines and pestilence. These do not necessasarily come just from droughts and other weather changes. They can be manipulated by man.

Then too, there is the Bilderbergs and others who believe that there is too many people in the world to control so starving off or in some manner disposing of large numbers of people is a good thing,....to them. It's what Mao Su Tung did in China. Starving out millions.

I'm not a big conspiracy theory guy, but the C&P strategy, as crazy as it is, is the only thing that explains the insane self destructive policies we see going on in the US and elsewhere.......But I'm open to suggestions.

I guess what I'm trying to say is, I think it's intentional.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cloward%E2%80%93Piven_strategy

[Dixie Dude]

The answer to subsities is for the government to buy surplus and store it for bad years like Joseph.  Farmers are paid around here NOT to grow cotton, and they use it to grow trees instead.  Trees are profitable but take 15-20 years before payback.  Or they rent it out for pasture.  If the market drops because of overproduction, the government could buy up enough excess to keep prices up enough for the farmers to make a profit.  Stored wheat, rice, corn, and soybeans could go a long way in droughts, excess rain or extreme cold.  They could buy up excess oranges and store it as frozen concentrate, even if they have to store it in Alaska.  Wheat could be stored in underground abandoned coal mines in sealed containers or plastic drums. 

[SHOOTALL]

If farmers were left to do as they wish the many would not survive and go on wealfare , what would we gain ?

[saddlebum]

The whole world is printing fiat money. This is why food prices are so high and going higher. As money is being devalued it takes more units to buy something. Government price controls cause shortages as in Northern Africa. Sure, there have been floods and droughts, but that happens every year somewhere.

Case study in hyperinflation; The Weimar Republic

Will we get to this point where a wheelbarrow full of money only buys a loaf of bread?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inflation_in_the_Weimar_Republic

[SHOOTALL]

 I bet something happens first . A war , Disaster etc.

[saddlebum]

Good example of the EPA tool.
I was just watching FNC and they reported the EPA just pulled the permit of a coal mine employing about 250 people in WV. This mine had finished spending a ton of money to satisfy the EPA's infrustructure requirements and after they were issued the permit, the EPA revoked it. Spent all that money for nothing!
This move puts all the other mines in jeopardy of losing their permits. No one wants to spend the money to meet the requirements just to get shut down!!!

[Graybeard]

Nuttin new there the obamination actually campaigned that he would shut down the coal mines and it seems to be about the only campaign promise he is trying to keep. The folks in coal mining country were told flat out he'd put them out of business and I think every state with any serious coal mining operations voted for him anyway. Some times ya get what ya ask for.

[gypsyman]

I just read where a conservation group has sued to stop the construction of a solar energy plant in the California desert. HHUUHH?? Isn't this what they wanted?? Why do I get the feeling that within a decade, the lucky ones of us, still alive, will be sitting around a camp fire, reminising about electricity and gas powered vehicle's. gypsyman

[DDZ]

Nuttin new there the obamination actually campaigned that he would shut down the coal mines and it seems to be about the only campaign promise he is trying to keep. The folks in coal mining country were told flat out he'd put them out of business and I think every state with any serious coal mining operations voted for him anyway. Some times ya get what ya ask for.

GB, I'm still trying to figure that out. I guess its the same old union mentality. Vote democrat and we will get goodies. Nothing like slicing your own wrist.

[powderman]

GB. Lots of coal mined in KY but I don't believe the obamination carried here. Folks don't realize it but most big businesses exist because of coal either directly or indirectly. Just another step in the obaminations plan to destroy us. A new coal mine opened up along I 64 in Indiana just South of the hwy about the #40 mile marker last year. A big ol hole in the ground now. We watch the progress as we go to and from ILL.  POWDERMAN. 

[ironglow]

Nuttin new there the obamination actually campaigned that he would shut down the coal mines and it seems to be about the only campaign promise he is trying to keep.

   Not exactly, GB;
  He also promised to "fundamentally transform" the United States..(yeah; into a dictatorship) ,and he seems to be doing his best to accomplish that promise....