Freedomain Radio

Heartbreaking.

 

 

Stef, this might be a good video topic.  Very timely.  Very sad, too. 

I agree that corn ethanol is aggrevating our food shortage, which is a tragic example of how command economy kills folk.  Upon the 3d world we foisted the wto, which allowed subsidized amerikan wheat exports to supplant local farming.  This made the 3d world dependent on food imports.  Now our subsidized wheat exporters have switched to more heavily subsidized corn for domestic ethanol.  The quickest remedy involves the 3d world growing its own potatos, but this is a double whammy since both the wheat itself and the supply chain need immediate replacement. 

I feel our commodity boom is mostly rooted in free market demand.  I think we're facing the malthusian scarcity that occurs when population outstrips the carrying capacity of our statist world economy.  If this really is malthusian, then it likely will get worse.  Commodities should outperform equities for years ahead.  A very long lasting commodities boom is the primary financial prediction of malthusianism.

I don't think Malthusian is the right word to use. The great famine in the Ukraine wasn't rooted in any problems with the earth's "carrying capacity." The problem was Communism. Communism Plus (half the calories!) is just failing. Down and out.

I believe that govt always reduces the carrying capacity of the economy, and this creates malthusianism that the free market might avoid.  If you want to pretend that malthusian implications are absent, that's yours and the mainstream's choice, so you deserve to miss the profit of the commodities boom.  You've offered no explanation of the commodities boom, which extends beyond food.

Part of it's growing demand. The other part for food is governments (U.S., and E.U) paying farmers not to grow it.

I agree, but my qualm is with the word choice, not the underlying idea. Malthus obsessed over a projected population disaster if trends continued as they were and new technology was not introduced. To describe the current problems as "Malthusian," would amplify this failed thinker's thoughts and conclusions. I don't think it's effective to adopt the mantle of an intellectually corrupt man, as the word has limited descriptive utility in any case.