Hat tip to Zero Hedge on this report. From the BBC:
At least 35 people have died in violent unrest in Tunisia, according to a human rights group. The authorities say 21 people were killed.
Meanwhile, two people were killed in riots linked to food price increases and unemployment in Algeria…
While oppressive regimes and corruption are playing a role in these violent incidents, the thing which concerns me the most is the fact that it was a basic item like the price of food which triggered the violence. While the central banks are printing money like mad to support the global financial system (which may well be absolutely insolvent) and we watch our dollars decline in value and our debt skyrocket, we must remember that most of the world lives on a very thing margin. Around the world, outside our cozy enclaves, people struggle, day by day, just to have enough to eat. Me here in America paying 10% more for my steak is annoying – some poor guy raising 5 kids in Algiers is already paying 50% of his income for food…and now its to be 60%?
As always when financial systems teeter on the edge of collapse, the plight of the poor is ignored. We’re being told that if we don’t continue to bail out these banks, disaster will ensue. Well, with 1.5 million bankruptcies in the United States in 2010, I’d say disaster has already happened…and maybe its time that the bankers started to feel it, too? With food riots happening in foreign lands, I’d say we’ve got a bigger problem than whether or not Goldman Sachs will remain profitable.
It would, of course, help if the United States produced as much food as we used to. But, we don’t – and, in fact, a lot of our best farm land is lying fallow for various reasons…from government subsidies not to plant, to asinine environmental regulations which hold a guppy to be more important than farmers and their families. We’ve made one heck of a mess of this world and we’d better wise up right quick, or we’re eventually going to have to pay a very price for our folly.
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