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| Preposterous Statements - Jim Rogers: "No Food at Any Price"; Barton Biggs: " U.S. Needs Massive Infrastructure Program"
It does not help your case when you make absurd statements to support your views. All it does is damage your credibility. Here are a couple of completely unrelated viewpoints that will show what I mean.
"No Food at Any Price"
Speaking on food shortages, Jim Rogers says Global Agriculture Supply Worsening May Spur Food Shortages
The global agriculture supply situation has worsened and a failure to boost food production fast enough to meet demand may lead to shortages, said investor Jim Rogers, chairman of Rogers Holdings.
“We’ve got to do something or we’re going to have no food at any price at times in the next few years,” Rogers said in a Bloomberg Television interview with Rishaad Salamat today in Singapore. “I still own agriculture. If I found something to buy, I would buy it.”
Rogers likes agriculture. Maybe he's right, and maybe not. However, the notion “We’ve got to do something or we’re going to have no food at any price at times in the next few years” is one of the more blatantly absurd things regarding food shortages that I have ever heard.
US has record grain forecasts. Even if you do not believe those forecasts, the US is going to have a good crop. How does that translate to "no food"? The short answer is "it doesn't".
Many reported shortages are weather-related. Some "alleged" shortages are not shortages at all, but unavailability because of government price controls. The rest of the "shortage" problem is higher prices caused by speculation and/or rampant inflation in China and India.
The idea there will be no food at any price is absurd. There may not be food available at government mandated prices, but that is certainly not what Rogers said. |
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west central illinois | In some countries the shortages come from not price controls but the heads of governments being more interested in their own wealth and well being and buying weapons than feeding their own people. |
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| http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JCojaGk6gXw |
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| He has long had ties in investments with G.Soros who is investing heavily in infrastructure (Grain Terminals) and farmland............actions speak louder than words, as at least as loud......
No food........remember Russia just a year ago shutting off exports of wheat: most countries will do the same vrs. face actual shortages
only ones that cannot are china and a good chunk of SE Asia
alot of countries at once shutting off exports.......means no food at any price for alot of countries
It would be like the credit crisis of 2008........the pendulum swings hard, too hard, too far |
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NEMO | Talked to a fellow tonite that made a trip from Missouri to Minnesota. He used to run an ag coop and now sells chemical and fertilizer machinery. He knows a little about crops is the point. He said that the corn that doesnt look poor, is late and small. The early stuff as a rule is uneven, yellow, drowned out, and gone all in the same field. Said it was like this all the way up there. Soybeans were smaller and smaller all the way to Minnesota. If that sounds like a good crop, what would be a bad one? Acres aren't there and bushels wont be there either, this is the 4th of July folks! I've said this before and I'll say it again: an old timer once told me that if the "river bottoms dont raise a crop the hills and praires aren't much better off. So goes the Mississippi so goes the nation." Look back at the historical floods and I think you'll see what he was talkin about. His words not mine, but I think they hold some water.
Edited by thekcirp 7/3/2011 23:40
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| The problem is that a lot of food gets put in the garbage because somebody (USDA or FDA or health departments) are scare of even one person much a kid getting sick from food that is out of date. A lot of this food that is dumped because it is cheaper to dump than have a lawsuit. The US is very wasteful because we can be to save every kid and person in the US. It is just like people throw cheese out when it has a fungus growing on the cheese. It is funny that they buy cheese that a fungus is used to make the flavors for the cheese. That is OK. My plant pathologist professor at college said most fungus is good for you. There are just a few that are not. There is a lot of cheese fungus that put flavors that I do not like. OH well.
Eat the fungus.
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sw corner ia. | I farm in the hills seven miles from a bunch of flooded out missouri river bottom ground. I can tell you that your quote "if the "river bottoms dont raise a crop the hills and praires aren't much better off" is just plain wrong. Corn looks behind and variable, but I would say it may be good for about 90% of potential yield maybe more. Beans still look close to 100% of potential. |
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USA | DV,
Your hills aren't going to make up for the flooded ground with 90-100% of yield potential. Somebody is going to have to raise more than 100% of APH to pick up the slack. |
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NEMO | Ya, I dont think the guy meant that every field was shot anyway, but just in general. Makes sense though. This year we've had two of the biggest tributaries to the Mississippi have major flood issues and the Mississippi itself is flooding. Looks to me like the quote aint to far off if you look at the crop in general. |
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| 90% of yield potential would still be well above APH. Yield potential might be 250. APH might be 175.
Brandon |
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| http://youarebeingmanipulated.com/fair-food/ I agree...it is amazing how much food is thrown away, just to make people buy more to replace it.
By the way, even the humble expiration date can be manipulated. Interestingly enough, no one regulates expiration date (with some exception, like milk and baby foods in some states). Essentially, the manufacturers are free to put whatever they think is appropriate in terms of expiration dates. Even the language is up for grabs: a few years ago, most expiration dates were called, stunningly, expiration dates. Lately, you will notice that the verbiage is very different – “best by”, for example, or “freshest before”. The issue is that most foods are actually designed to last a long time, and even when they get old they lose flavor – they don’t become health hazards. But since we’ve all been conditioned to check the expiration date, we tend to throw away any food that has passed its ‘best before’ date. We tend to throw away 14% of our food, mostly because of expiration dates. That’s a lot – around $600 a year for the average household.
So where’s the manipulation? Well, if you throw away something, you tend to need to replace it. So, theoretically, if you throw something away more frequently… Can you see where this is going? Manufacturers used to focus on creating foods with long expiration dates, so that supermarkets and consumers could stock them for longer. But a few of them realized in time that shorter expiration dates would have an interesting benefit – consumers would, on average, throw away the food faster, and hence need replacements more often, which would mean more sales. And while there are obvious penalties for making an expiration date too long (the food loses flavor), there are few downsides for shortening the date.
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| Soros was the brains. Rogers just hitched his wagon to the right guy. Rogers is heavily invested in a farming operation in Canada called One Earth Farms. He has a vested interest in high grain prices. Whether he's investing because he believes his predictions or his predictions are to support his investment are hard to tell.
Brandon |
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NEMO | How many times have you hit yield potential Brandon? How many times have you hit APH? APH is figured by your proven insurance reporting. That is why it is called Approved Production History. Yes you can lie about it, but you better be able to prove it if you get audited by them. |
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sw corner ia. | I did not say they would. Only stating the obvious fact that floods only go so far.
dave |
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sw corner ia. | I would say 100% potential for where I am at is around 215 farm average for corn, 65 for beans. I have seen some much higher yields on short runs but whole farm averages never get to 250 for me. I am using the highest yield years for my potential highs. I should have mentioned it, sorry. |
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| The way things look right now, we will be well above our APH. Right now, probably closer to our potential than our APH. Still a lot of growing season left, though.
Brandon |
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West Ky | Their is a lot of ground down here that did not get planted and will not be planted this year due to the flooding. |
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cropsey, il 61731 | There is certainly no reason with even half way modern farming techniques that most of the countries with famine can't feed themselves and likely end up exportors. Bad leaders being elected or at least tolerated by a nation resulting in starvation. The more I look at it, the more I think it's really incredible evil leaders that are 99.999% of the problem.
We grow food really well - always have and always will. Remember our sacred goal - produce enough to make the price at or below our cost of production. I'm guessing even once the mexicans and native americans started growing corn they ended up with 3 cobs too many and almost nothing for their effort. While I agree a free country and our 'American spirit' go a long way, it's not impossible for a country like Africa to grow a really big pile of food if they were motivated/lead to do it.
thanks,
Pat |
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southern oregon | Our "sacred goal" is to make the prices we receive at or below the cost of production? I don't know where to start on that one, but suffice to say my goal is not to subsidize the further enrichment of Tyson, General Foods, and Kellogg or enable further obesity in America.
My goals go more along the lines of building a place that my children can have a chance to return to, and a place of stability for all my family. |
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cropsey, il 61731 | That was a joke... sarcasim - doesn't mean we still don't do it anyway.
thanks,
Pat |
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remsen, iowa nw iowa | pat until the people of africa remove their shackles of bad govt, they will be net importers. except for crude and caoco. i believe in the balance of my lifetime(im half done), when africa gets there chit together, the world will be stunned at the results if they were un leashed. but there is always a govt standing on their throat. fwiw |
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southern oregon | lol, yeah I was trying to detect sarcasm in that, and almost wrote to that effect. |
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| Also has a Godfathers pizza sideline going. Ever half hour, what ever is in the warmers be it the one slice for $2 or a whole pizza, if not sold, to the dumpster it goes, or if u time it right, will sell for half price. Our coop owns a C store I think they operate on the 2 hour throw, they will also give u a deal if there at right time. Now think of all the kwik trips and so forth, seen them take shopping carts of donuts, rolls, and so forth to the dumpster. |
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Pittsburg, Kansas | Let's see, Sorros has the brains so he hired a dummy to be his partner? Somehow that statement soesn't seem to jive. Rogers has done quite well for himself since he and Soros have parted company. Really smart people with money tend to hire people smarter than themselves to manage it. That is why they are rich. Only dummies hire dummies. Makes them look smarter, or so they think. John |
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Grand Rapids, MI | Jim Rogers = just the latest in a long string of Malthusians. Someone had to pick up the slack now that Erlich, Coen, and Brown have made too many false predictions.
http://reason.com/archives/2009/05/05/never-right-but-never-in-doub...
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Jim Rogers off his rocker? from Mish
