[beyondprice] Food Rationing Confronts Breadbasket of the World

[Guest guest]

Bruce,

> This is probably true. I heard second-hand about a local baker who

> says the price of flour is going up and the supply is shrinking. I still

> ask, So What? The world would be better off if the price of flour,

> rice, and cooking oil went up. Along with the price of table sugar,

> HFCS, hydrogenated oil, and other poor quality foods. The prices

> are low due to subsidies (including gas/oil subsidies). Any cooking

> oil but coconut, palm kernel, macadamia, cocoa butter, and palm

> oil is probably not worth using. Olive, hazelnut, and avocado oils

> are 8-13% PUFAs and should not be cooked with.

While I agree that the less consumption of certain foods would be

better in a health sense, the problem is the *reason* why those foods

are going up in price. The subsidies have certainly not been removed.

The article doesn't adequately address it but the price of those foods

are going up because of gov't intervention in the marketplace. Just as

the prices were artificially low to begin with because of gov't

intervention in the marketplace.

--

" And true manhood is shown not in the choice of a celibate life. On

the contrary, the prize in the contest of men is won by him who has

trained himself by the discharge of the duties of husband and father

and by the supervision of a household, regardless of pleasure and

pain. It is won by him, I say, who in the midst of his solicitude for

his family, shows himself inseparable from the love of God. "

- Clement of andria