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To: Tommaso who wrote (93730)	4/22/2008 4:07:57 PM
From: The Ox	Respond to of 110194

The planet I live on is not only running out of oil... The rise in oil from $22/bbl to $120/bbl has nothing to do with the policies of the current US administration either! Commodities usually double and triple in the face of recessions, too! And bond market yields always rise when the FED lowers rates! No, you are right. No speculation going on here.... Next issue set of issues, please.

To: Tommaso who wrote (93730)	4/22/2008 4:27:20 PM
From: Giordano Bruno	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 110194

Food Price Increases Could Plunge 100 Million People Into Hunger, WFP Warns 4/22/2008 4:26:00 PM On Tuesday, the U.N. World Food Program has outlined the alarming impact of rising global food price. WFP Executive Director Josette Sheeran said in press conference that high food prices are creating the biggest challenge the U.N. agency has faced in its 45-year history. She described it as a “silent tsunami that threatens to plunge more than 100 million people on every continent into hunger.” Sheeran, who is in London for a meeting of food producers, retailers and consumers hosted by British Prime Minister Gordon Brown, said recent violent unrest in Haiti and 33 other countries shows that food insecurity threatens not only the hungry but peace and security as well. The skyrocketing food prices have forced the WFP to cut back on food aid to the poor, she told reporters. “Those living on less than a dollar a day or 50 cents a day have no other choice but to succumb to the pressures of food prices that have increased and often doubled during the past six months,” Sheeran said. She admitted the inability of the organization to procure the same amount of food as it could last June. According to Sheeran, those who have been priced out of the food market included the rural landless, herders and the majority of small-scale farmers. The World Food Program, which fixed a budget of $2.5 billion to feed the poor around the world, now needs another $755 million to meet its target just because of the soaring prices. “We are putting out an urgent appeal for the world to help us meet the accessed needs of people from Darfur to Uganda to Haiti and beyond, and also to meet the gap in the budget,” Sheeran said. The United States, which accounts for about half of all global food aid, has responded to the call by announcing an additional $200 million in aid to help ease the crisis. The governments of Britain, Spain and Germany have also assured that they will contribute to the humanitarian cause, Sheeran said. Sheeran said it is high time the world addresses the growing danger by making long-term investments. Citing the example of farmers in the Rift Valley in Kenya, whose plantations have shrunk because of the steep rise in the price of fertilizers, she suggested more help to small-scale farmers to produce more food crops.

To: Tommaso who wrote (93730)	4/22/2008 6:51:04 PM
From: Merlinson	Read Replies (3) \| Respond to of 110194

Is this a private fight or can anyone join in? LOL I agree basically with both of your posts. I think both shortage and speculation are at work here. I would like add something that I posted in Mish's group. Probably most of you have already seen it. I don't support the use of corn to make ethanol because of the prime farm land requirement and poor energy balance. I think there are better alternatives. However, I do think that the argument of food versus fuel neglects an important consideration which is the huge loss of nutritional value in turning grain into meat which reduces our ability to feed ourselves by a massive amount. Before the ethanol craze, about 85% of the corn grown in the U.S. went to feeding livestock, not people. Here is my other post: When corn is turned into ethanol, only the carbohydrates ( about 70% of the corn) are changed into alcohol by the yeast in fermentation. The vitamins, protein, and minerals remain in the distiller's grain that is left over. This stuff also has dead yeast in it. The yeast metabolize the carbohydrate into alcohol until it's about 12% at which point it kills them. Yeast is a very high quality protein, used in expensive weight gain powders. The distiller's grain is over 30% protein and 30% fiber, a really nutritious food. People can eat it but mostly farmers feed it to their cattle ( supplemented by hay) and other animals. The cattle gain more weight faster than when fed the original corn. If we fed it to people we would have a huge increase in available food and the ethanol too. Turning grain into meat has about a 5% return on food value, not a 5% loss, a 95% loss. So we would get about 20 times the return by not turning it into meat. But we like our steaks. ( No, I'm not a vegetarian, I like steak too. ) The question is: are we smarter than yeast?