In a recent news conference, President Bush addressed the concern over food prices in the U.S. that has led consumers to panic and resort to bizarre and desperate behavior (generally only displayed by agoraphobic octogenarians suffering from dementia and people in the throes of war and/or famine) like rice hoarding — it’s such a widespread problem, Costco now limits the number of bags people can buy to five.
And why have food prices skyrocketed? It certainly has nothing to do with the two wars we’re waging, the environmental consequences of global warming, or our superannuated trading practices … as Bush has deduced, with his widely acknowledged laser-like attention to world affairs and his indubitably brilliant analysis of meta economic patterns, the average American is clearly suffering because the nation of India has succeeded in dragging itself from the brink of poverty and collapse and as a result, its people want to do this crazy thing called “eat healthful food.”
Or as he put it, “When you start getting wealth, you start demanding better nutrition and better food, and so demand is high, and that causes the price to go up.”
As The New York Times reports, the response from India has been appropriately swift and snappy.
Politicians and academics have cited a laundry list of reasons for our food woes:
The diversion of arable land into the production of ethanol and other bio-fuels.
Agricultural subsidies.
The decline of the dollar.
The average American consumes 3,770 calories a day. The average Indian consumes 2,440 calories a day.
Americans are the largest per capita consumer of beef, the most energy-intensive common food source.
No response from Bush yet.
