why do we put up with it? Rising prices in food and gas??

[R_P_A_S]

What the fuck is going on? seriously? Why is this happening? Who's causing this?

It's like this.. the media and our government tells us and warns us about more price hikes in the near future! And we just accept it. what the fuck? I'm tired of prices going up and our attitude that we are just supposed to cope.. Fuck that.

The average person has no knowledge as to how and why the prices in fuel and food are so fucking high.. How come no one tells us? I want to understand why I'm paying over 2 dollars extra a gallon and why tortillas and beans have fucking gone up 75cents! even beer and chips is up!!!!!!

why?

[redSHARP]

the gods hate us?

from what i can gather, it is because fuel prices have gone up and massive draught and poor harvests across europe and australia.

and since companies have found that people like to feel good about themselves, they have bought farms and started to produce corn for alternative fuel sources. people eat up this new corn fuel but dont realize companies are starving us slowly and jacking up prices.

they dont tell us because they dont want us to know, and besides the common idiot on the street wouldnt listen.

[Svante]

What the fuck is going on? seriously? Why is this happening? Who's causing this?

It's like this.. the media and our government tells us and warns us about more price hikes in the near future! And we just accept it. what the fuck? I'm tired of prices going up and our attitude that we are just supposed to cope.. Fuck that.

The average person has no knowledge as to how and why the prices in fuel and food are so fucking high.. How come no one tells us? I want to understand why I'm paying over 2 dollars extra a gallon and why tortillas and beans have fucking gone up 75cents! even beer and chips is up!!!!!!

why?

i can answer this questons.the priice o f food this i s high becuase the gouvernement like put corn as pétrole but not on the table s o people can eat. the price of pétrole ii s high because George Bush he attack Irak for the WMD. so price o f pétrole this go up all over the world becuase George Bush h e is liar.

[F9]

why?because people is just fucking take bloody capitalism,and they dont do nothing to change it.what cares the average people if he manages it with money and he can live?the only thing that he cares is when he will arive home to open the stupidbox>tv and watch the stupid things they show to them to make them stupid livings who dont care about nothing and they tolerate everything.people si SLEEPING in the tv programms!as long as we tolerate capitalism we are going to get more deeply in "sheet".

Fuserg9:star:

[shuuk]

Well the way i fully understand it is that over here in america were fuckin shyt up so bad cuz bush is a fuckin idot and atacked the middle east for no reason

(dont even say 9-11 cuz that wuz fuckin set up and over 1/2 the people no that get with the program!)
and the middle east(ME) is saying fuck you guys so were not goin to sell you gas anymore and raise the price-

eather that or the ME has just stoped all together and he have to use our refineries SHOCK!! AWW so we raise the price per barral to over 100$ per barral to cope with not begin able to use up the worlds oil first!!! therfore everything else is goin up becasue the shiping costs go up!!! its fuckin gay~~~:(

i support barrakading the gas staitions around the world at least the closest 1 to you and stop all activity till the price gose down ( unrealistic but plosible );)

[R_P_A_S]

so thats all? Bush and the war? this is why the working class is poorer?

[abrupt]

the gods hate us?

from what i can gather, it is because fuel prices have gone up and massive draught and poor harvests across europe and australia.

and since companies have found that people like to feel good about themselves, they have bought farms and started to produce corn for alternative fuel sources. people eat up this new corn fuel but dont realize companies are starving us slowly and jacking up prices.

they dont tell us because they dont want us to know, and besides the common idiot on the street wouldnt listen.


The world's food supply is actually same as before, there is no shortage. Companies have had great profit this year more then ever, if there was a shortage they would not be enjoying their immense profits this year.

The corn story is straight lies. They have been killing 3rd world crops, but that's to make them more dependant and lies in the plans of globalization.

[abrupt]

For oil, they will use any reason to raise the price.

[R_P_A_S]

i still don't get it. I'd like to have a good understanding of this, grasp it so that I can educate my self and tell others.

is environmentalism to blame? is this the new tool of the capitalist?

[bluerev002]

The price of oil is on the sharp rise not necessarily because of the war on the middle east, it's far too easy to simply brush it off as just that. It may be a factor in it, but the main factor is actually China. The rising economy and the prevailing implementation of the capitalist system there has given a sharp demand for consumerism. With that more cars are being purchased as well as more electricity is being used for new household appliances. Both of which requires large sums of oil. In recent years consumerism has risen so exponentially that it may soon mirror that of the US.

As a result the demand for oil has risen- sharply, far more than it was ever imagined. Now that the U.S. has another super power, or atleast if not a superpower then a large economic rival, to compete with for barrels of oil, the oil industry has risen the prices per barrel. Much like a diamond, it will go to the highest bidder, the one that believes it needs it the most.

Another factor may be that the oil industries of the world have actually united much like the diamond industry did. To take that diamond industry as an example, they put a oligarchy on diamonds putting less diamonds out there in the market than there actually are in the world. In other words hiding a lot of diamonds in their vaults to make them less accessible to the public, thus more expensive. Oil may have taken the same route.

Another possibility may be that, in fact, oil is running low, contrary to popular belief, and the oil industries are reaping as much profit from the governments as possible before they go out with a bang. This last one is a bit conspiracy-like but a possibility nonetheless.

I cannot base any arguments for food since I have not done any studies on it. And as to why the general public isn't doing anything. Well post 9/11 shock has a lot to do with it. Also the general public in times of economic crisis are just trying to survive. The shock factor has a lot to do with it though. Niomi Klein talks a little bit about it, I'll admit I haven't watched the full video but the parts that I've seen are enough to make want to buy this book:

http://youtube.com/watch?v=FKr_soG4DUA

[nvm]

Marx has explained all that.
People are inherently conservative and theywant to preserve whats out there.that's why there is no massive movement in the first World countries against capitalism.
But people are also like an elastic band. They can stretch only so much. And when they go beyond what they can take they explode in a revolutionary fever.
But during that revolutionary fever and because most of them utl yesterday did nt bother with politics etc, a group people (the vanguard) has to show them what actions they need to take in order to achive socialism.
So the best thing we can do right now is building the vanguard and in general continue what we are doing in order to point them to the right direction into taking the power fo themselves.
As I said there is going to be a huge leap in the conciousness of the workers when the capitalists put the last straw that breaks the camel back.
So don't worry. A revolution will come. Not just yet.
Continue studying Marxism and continue whatever actions you do and be patient!

[R_P_A_S]

Marx has explained all that.
People are inherently conservative and theywant to preserve whats out there.that's why there is no massive movement in the first World countries against capitalism.
But people are also like an elastic band. They can stretch only so much. And when they go beyond what they can take they explode in a revolutionary fever.
But during that revolutionary fever and because most of them utl yesterday did nt bother with politics etc, a group people (the vanguard) has to show them what actions they need to take in order to achive socialism.
So the best thing we can do right now is building the vanguard and in general continue what we are doing in order to point them to the right direction into taking the power fo themselves.
As I said there is going to be a huge leap in the conciousness of the workers when the capitalists put the last straw that breaks the camel back.
So don't worry. A revolution will come. Not just yet.
Continue studying Marxism and continue whatever actions you do and be patient!

thank you, thank you. but i dunno... this whole "be patient" "wait" "revolution is coming" sounds like the same shit they told me at church.. that jesus was coming.. so dogmatic.

[shuuk]

Another factor may be that the oil industries of the world have actually united much like the diamond industry did. To take that diamond industry as an example, they put a oligarchy on diamonds putting less diamonds out there in the market than there actually are in the world. In other words hiding a lot of diamonds in their vaults to make them less accessible to the public, thus more expensive. Oil may have taken the same route.

i agree very much in the suply and demand conspiresy(for lack of better word) and that would also be a major part along with china as u said erlyer,
i also agree with the "the revolution is comeing just w8 for it" is total bs it shouldnt be coming it shoulb be LIVE right NOW HERE AND PRESSENT not sum futer endever years form now we need to arm arselfs and hit the streets as ive said many times before we need to be the jimmy hoffas of 2DAY!!! im tired of waiting if we wait to long itll be to late and the government will infringe upon our rights even more and and make it almost impossible!!!

start acting now!

[nvm]

this whole "be patient" "wait" "revolution is coming" sounds like the same shit they told me at church.. that jesus was coming.. so dogmatic.

It's not dogmatic. It's common sense plus scientific analysis.

If what I said wasn't right there would be a revolution tomorrow because yesterday the prices rose 20%. But If we don't see a revolution tomorrow I was right:D

Look man I don't think its a bad thing necessarily the wating part.
During the waiting part we create the vanguard. If the revolution happened tomorrow, then we would we crushed with no leadership. At least in Canada and the USA there is no marxist - Leninist vanguard.
So it would be a slaughter .

[R_P_A_S]

It's not dogmatic. It's common sense plus scientific analysis.

If what I said wasn't right there would be a revolution tomorrow because yesterday the prices rose 20%. But If we don't see a revolution tomorrow I was right:D

Look man I don't think its a bad thing necessarily the wating part.
During the waiting part we create the vanguard. If the revolution happened tomorrow, then we would we crushed with no leadership. At least in Canada and the USA there is no marxist - Leninist vanguard.
So it would be a slaughter .

I don't know my friend. I think you've read too many of those books. which are very good. I love them too. but also think for your self. It's not holly text.

That they were on to something and ahead of their time. YES! but they too are human and they too can't predict the future. nor ever imagined the media as big of an enemy it has become.

[KaubanProcs]

Well here in the Philippines, the media totally hyped up the whole "Food Crisis" thing. IMO it came at a right time cause the whole "food crisis" thing was just coincidentally announced the same time shit hit the fan for one of our governments oh so numerous cover-ups for corruption, thus diverting all attention away from it.

[bluerev002]

Whatever is done it better be done quick. China cannot become a nation of consumers. If the U.S. makes up less than 5% of the world population and consumes almost half of the world's resources, imagine China which makes up a huge part of the world's population. Sustainability needs to be looked at NOW because the Chinese government is giving no hint of stopping until it reaches the wealth that the US has. And at the rate it is going it won't be long until the government has that sort of budget.


In this day and age we need to not only look at Marx but at enviormentalist movements as well.

[shuuk]

just a question but why is everyone here lenist n marxist i mean its not like democracy is evil and sucks i love democracy its just the people we elect dick us over and fuck with the democracy its like true communisum on paper it works but the people chosen to rule fuck it all up.

[bluerev002]

Shuuk, you've just compared an apple to an orage.

You can't say Communism vs. Democracy. Communism vs. Capitalism, yes. Democracy vs. Dictatorship, yes. But Communism, like capitalism, is an economic system that, in its ideal, final form, embodies democracy.

And I don't think were all Marxist, I certainly am not.

[Led Zeppelin]

just a question but why is everyone here lenist n marxist i mean its not like democracy is evil and sucks i love democracy its just the people we elect dick us over and fuck with the democracy its like true communisum on paper it works but the people chosen to rule fuck it all up.

Being a Marxist or Leninist does not mean that you are against democracy, in fact it means that you are for real democracy, as opposed to fake bourgeois (ruling class) democracy, which is in reality nothing but a dictatorship:


As Marxists, we have never been worshippers of formal democracy. In a society split into classes, the democratic institutions, far from abolishing the class struggle, only lend the class interests a highly imperfect form of expression. The possessing classes have always at their disposal thousands of means to pervert and adulterate the will of the labouring masses.
Link (http://www.marxists.org/archive/trotsky/1918/hrr/ch03.htm)


In capitalist society, providing it develops under the most favourable conditions, we have a more or less complete democracy in the democratic republic. But this democracy is always hemmed in by the narrow limits set by capitalist exploitation, and consequently always remains, in effect, a democracy for the minority, only for the propertied classes, only for the rich. Freedom in capitalist society always remains about the same as it was in the ancient Greek republics: freedom for the slave-owners. Owing to the conditions of capitalist exploitation, the modern wage slaves are so crushed by want and poverty that "they cannot be bothered with democracy", "cannot be bothered with politics"; in the ordinary, peaceful course of events, the majority of the population is debarred from participation in public and political life.

[...]

Democracy for an insignificant minority, democracy for the rich--that is the democracy of capitalist society. If we look more closely into the machinery of capitalist democracy, we see everywhere, in the “petty”--supposedly petty--details of the suffrage (residential qualifications, exclusion of women, etc.), in the technique of the representative institutions, in the actual obstacles to the right of assembly (public buildings are not for “paupers”!), in the purely capitalist organization of the daily press, etc., etc.,--we see restriction after restriction upon democracy. These restrictions, exceptions, exclusions, obstacles for the poor seem slight, especially in the eyes of one who has never known want himself and has never been inclose contact with the oppressed classes in their mass life (and nine out of 10, if not 99 out of 100, bourgeois publicists and politicians come under this category); but in their sum total these restrictions exclude and squeeze out the poor from politics, from active participation in democracy.

Marx grasped this essence of capitalist democracy splendidly when, in analyzing the experience of the Commune, he said that the oppressed are allowed once every few years to decide which particular representatives of the oppressing class shall represent and repress them in parliament!
Link (http://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1917/staterev/ch05.htm)

[trivas7]

Market Madness How Speculators are Manipulating & Profiting from the Global Food Crisis
June, 02 2008 By A.K. Gupta
http://www.zmag.org/zmag/viewArticle/17820

and "The Revolt Over Rising Food Prices" here:
http://isreview.org/issues/59/feat-food.shtml

[Nietzsche's Ghost]

This may sound somewhat insane but maybe Bush is somehow raising gas prices. I know he owned an oil company and probably still has strong connections with the oil industry and maybe he is helping horde oil like it has been said about the diamond industry.

[Joe Hill's Ghost]

Well it’s a multi-angled issue. Our first problem is a global drought caused by climate change. Some areas, like Russia, are gaining agricultural land, but most tropical regions, the main producers of staples like rice, are seeing large droughts. Thus the shift in global precipitation is leading to a net loss in productive agricultural land.

The second factor is meat. The industrial growth of India and China has led to a wealthy upper class and well off professional class. It has impoverished billions of farmers and workers. But to the 150-250 million ascendant folk, now is the time to start eating burgers. Meat requires several times more land to provide the same amount of calories as pure agriculture. Thus we've got cows eating what would usually go to someone’s plate.

The third is labor. Neoliberalism is bringing the logic of capitalism into areas once "undeveloped." Peasants are leaving the fields as paramilitaries harass them, foreign crops undercut them, and industrial jobs provide higher salaries and more material goods. This isn't always a problem for agriculture. Sometimes mechanized farms fill the gap. But capital has not moved into these areas to generate industrial agriculture yet. Or capital has chosen to use the land for something else, like factories, or it has poisoned the land. Plus crops like rice are labor intensive regardless. Without masses of peasants to pick the rice, there's no harvest.

The 4th is oil. High fuel prices drive up the transport costs of everything, which creates mass inflation. But food often has to travel extremely long distances. Tropical fruit in the winter requires continental shipping. Island nations have to import everything. Thus food shoots up as gas shoots up.

The 5th is biofuel. We're taking food and turning it into fuel. In a country like the US 30 percent of corn production is getting diverted to ethanol production. As the US is a world breadbasket, this sort of behavior tends to shoot up food prices.

The last is speculation. The credit crunch has made investment in traditional markets, like stocks and real estate, high risk. In response capital has moved into other less "capitalized" markets. Capitalized essentially means that not many people are investing and any person buying up will be guaranteed a higher return as others follow him/her into the market. So over the past 4 years investment in food commodity markets has gone from somewhere around 15 billion to 150 billion. With that much money sloshing around, there’s a corresponding increase in the danger of speculation. Investors can spike up the price several times over in a given day.

[mikelepore]

I'm tired of prices going up


Why?

How else could capitalism carry out the law of economics according to which the working class can receive only a bare living wage, a mere subsistence income, even if modern automated mass production results in a hundredfold or thousandfold increase in productivity, and those increases in productivity go directly to increasing the profits of the wealthiest property owners?

I can't readily think of another way of accomplishing that without price increases.

[R_P_A_S]

Well it’s a multi-angled issue. Our first problem is a global drought caused by climate change. Some areas, like Russia, are gaining agricultural land, but most tropical regions, the main producers of staples like rice, are seeing large droughts. Thus the shift in global precipitation is leading to a net loss in productive agricultural land.

The second factor is meat. The industrial growth of India and China has led to a wealthy upper class and well off professional class. It has impoverished billions of farmers and workers. But to the 150-250 million ascendant folk, now is the time to start eating burgers. Meat requires several times more land to provide the same amount of calories as pure agriculture. Thus we've got cows eating what would usually go to someone’s plate.

The third is labor. Neoliberalism is bringing the logic of capitalism into areas once "undeveloped." Peasants are leaving the fields as paramilitaries harass them, foreign crops undercut them, and industrial jobs provide higher salaries and more material goods. This isn't always a problem for agriculture. Sometimes mechanized farms fill the gap. But capital has not moved into these areas to generate industrial agriculture yet. Or capital has chosen to use the land for something else, like factories, or it has poisoned the land. Plus crops like rice are labor intensive regardless. Without masses of peasants to pick the rice, there's no harvest.

The 4th is oil. High fuel prices drive up the transport costs of everything, which creates mass inflation. But food often has to travel extremely long distances. Tropical fruit in the winter requires continental shipping. Island nations have to import everything. Thus food shoots up as gas shoots up.

The 5th is biofuel. We're taking food and turning it into fuel. In a country like the US 30 percent of corn production is getting diverted to ethanol production. As the US is a world breadbasket, this sort of behavior tends to shoot up food prices.

The last is speculation. The credit crunch has made investment in traditional markets, like stocks and real estate, high risk. In response capital has moved into other less "capitalized" markets. Capitalized essentially means that not many people are investing and any person buying up will be guaranteed a higher return as others follow him/her into the market. So over the past 4 years investment in food commodity markets has gone from somewhere around 15 billion to 150 billion. With that much money sloshing around, there’s a corresponding increase in the danger of speculation. Investors can spike up the price several times over in a given day.

I have an other thread under the Science and Environment section that makes me very skeptic about this "climate change" hysteria. check that one out.

[Svante]

The world's food supply is actually same as before, there is no shortage. Companies have had great profit this year more then ever, if there was a shortage they would not be enjoying their immense profits this year.

The corn story is straight lies. They have been killing 3rd world crops, but that's to make them more dependant and lies in the plans of globalization.

so you say all this are fake.what abaout all the corn there put i n pétrole ?

[abrupt]

so you say all this are fake.what abaout all the corn there put i n pétrole ?



1. according to the UN, biofuels contribute only 10% to the price rise in food; it is the least important of all the factors (oil, speculation, increased demand from the East, etc...); biofuel profits are not spectacular; they don't drive this crisis in any particular way. Biofuels play a marginal role.

2. why did anyone ever even get the initial idea that there would be the slightest reason to think there would be a physical shortage of food? This is the most ludicrous idea ever. The world has been producing food for 12 billion people for several years now, and there is huge capacity left.
So both starting points for the article are flawed, but nonetheless resulted in an interesting text.
-There are no food shortages.
-There is capacity to feed billions more.
-There is capacity to produce 1500 Exajoules of bioenergy by 2050 without impacts on meeting food needs and in a strict no-deforestation scenario (that is: about 4 times as much energy as all the energy currently consumed on the planet from all sources: oil, gas, coal, nuclear).
-IEA: biofuels are 'critical' to global energy security.
In short, there is no problem other than that of the resilience of net food importing countries. They must be helped to design coping strategies with which to deal with volatile prices.
One of the smarter ways to do so is to stimulate investments in agriculture, so as to tackle the problem at the root. (But this sounds like a loonie idea, given that the UN, the World Bank, the IMF and the "international community" have systematically destroyed agriculture in developing countries, by not spending a dime on it during the past 25 years.) It is a criminal situation, to know that a country like the DRC can produce food for 3 billion people, while it currently is a food importing country in which 70% of the population is chronically undernourished. It is really obscene, this situation.


http://gristmill.grist.org/story/2008/4/26/194611/395



Why can’t the global food industry feed the hungry?


The answer can be stated in one sentence. The global food industry is not organized to feed the hungry; it is organized to generate profits for corporate agribusiness.
The agribusiness giants are achieving that objective very well indeed. This year, agribusiness profits are soaring above last year’s levels, while hungry people from Haiti to Egypt to Senegal were taking to the streets to protest rising food prices. These figures are for just three months at the beginning of 2008.
Grain Trading: Archer Daniels Midland (ADM). Gross profit: $1.15 billion, up 55% from last year Cargill: Net earnings: $1.03 billion, up 86% Bunge. Consolidated gross profit: $867 million, up 189%.
Seeds & herbicides: Monsanto. Gross profit: $2.23 billion, up 54%. Dupont Agriculture and Nutrition. Pre-tax operating income: $786 million, up 21%
Fertilizer Potash Corporation. Net income: $66 million, up 185.9% Mosaic. Net earnings: $520.8 million, up more than 1,200%
The companies listed above, plus a few more, are the monopoly or near-monopoly buyers and sellers of agricultural products around the world. Six companies control 85% of the world trade in grain; three control 83% of cocoa; three control 80% of the banana trade. ADM, Cargill and Bunge effectively control the world’s corn, which means that they alone decide how much of each year’s crop goes to make ethanol, sweeteners, animal feed or human food.
As the editors of Hungry for Profit write, “The enormous power exerted by the largest agribusiness/food corporations allows them essentially to control the cost of their raw materials purchased from farmers while at the same time keeping prices of food to the general public at high enough levels to ensure large profits.”



I strongly urge you all to read this article:

http://www.internationalviewpoint.org/spip.php?article1471

[abrupt]

so you say all this are fake.what abaout all the corn there put i n pétrole ?


Also, that explanation was provided by the IMF and World Bank.

AKA it is not trustworthy by any means.

[Raúl Duke]

As I thought...it must be fake shortages (especially about food). Once I read, although I'm not sure if it's true, that they burned crops (in Africa?) so to keep food prices high enough for sufficient profit. After all, all firms are made fundamentally to make profit not to feed you or provide energy sources.

For oil, OPEC maybe be driving the price up yet the American oil companies, which refine gas these days mostly anyway, might begetting cheap oil from Iraq/Afghanistan since they have control there and I heard that supposedly they privatized those country's oil fields. So maybe even that "shortage" is false and just a pretext for U.S. oil companies to make large profits. One is even at the top of the Fortune 500 (Exxon Mobil?) last time I checked.

Although why it is going this high I don't know for sure...maybe blame it on the (hypothetical?) tendency for the rate of profit to fall...

[nvm]

I don't know my friend. I think you've read too many of those books. which are very good. I love them too. but also think for your self. It's not holly text.

That they were on to something and ahead of their time. YES! but they too are human and they too can't predict the future. nor ever imagined the media as big of an enemy it has become.


I guess you re right my friend.
Nothing is like we think it is .
The earth does not revolve around the sun.
And there is gonna be a revolution tomorrow in all of Europe and North America because prices went up yesterday.

Except if you want to accept what I said in my previous post as being true.
Then you wont be confused anymore.:)

[abrupt]

that they burned crops (in Africa?) so to keep food prices high enough for sufficient profit. After all, all firms are made fundamentally to make profit not to feed you or provide energy sources.


The global food industry is not organized to feed the hungry; it is organized to generate profits for corporate agribusiness.


They will burn crops, throw away food to keep it all balenced. That is the best thing they can come up with to control the economy appearently.

Google might be able to help you further with that.

[Lost In Translation]

Well...we really don't put up with this crap, we have no other choice. Rising food prices are because crops like Corn and Maize are being used to produce fuel, at a much lower efficiency than regular gasoline. Capitalist countries are using up more resources because they have to feed their growing debt problem and desire to become better than China.

Still, would you rather get $1/pound of wheat so that it is produced into food for the world, or $10/pound of wheat for the production of fuel? When you're a desperate farmer, anything goes.

[KrazyRabidSheep]

If you think petrol prices are bad in the U.S. (with all of the subsidies paid to oil companies), check out the rest of the world.

Even people in the United States who use public transit are paying outrageous prices (out of tax money that could be better spent elsewhere.)

Here are some (out of pocket) prices according to the German Technical Cooperation (GTZ) as of November 2006. Units have been converted into $U.S. per liter:

Venezuela: $.03
Egypt: $.30
Indonesia: $.57
U.S.: $.63
China: $.69
Mexico: $.74
Canada: $.84
South Africa: $.85
Colombia: $.98
New Zealand: $.98
Japan: $1.09
Spain: $1.16
Brazil: $1.26
Ireland: $1.34
France: $1.48
Germany: $1.55
U.K.: $1.63
S. Korea: $1.65
Norway: $1.80
Turkey: $1.88

See pg. 96 (Diesel) and 97 (Gasoline) of this document:
http://www.gtz.de/de/dokumente/en-international-fuelprices-part1-2007.pdf