Food Crisis

I found some great commentaries here on the recent rise in food prices.
American Thinker | Financial Times: Economists Forum | New York Times: A Global Need...

Things to think about while listening to the news on the Food Crisis:

Since Gasoline and Biofuels are well on their way to becoming true substitutes, and biofuels are made from food, high oil prices will become directly related to higher food prices. Not only can food substitute for oil, but it apparently works the other way too. I should make a whole blog post just on that.
Wired

India, China, and South America are developing far wealthier populations who consume more of both food and fuel. Driving the demand of both, raising the prices of both.

Those same three regions are also using that wealth to increase their productive capacities. The US utilizes only 0.27% of the world's crop land, but produced 16.8% of all the world's grain in 2007. Which means the US produces grain 80 times more effeciently than the rest of the world, so there's room for 7978% improvement in global grain production without any new technologies. That's about 80 new earths to put that in terms Daniel W. Basse can understand.

I don't have many links to back this up, but it seems that as wealth passes some level, quality begins to take precedence over quantity to the average consumer. High class restaurants serve smaller portions than low class restaurants. Areas with higher average population have more Chipotle's and fewer Taco Bell's. If this is true, then as the West gets still wealthier, it will begin to consume fewer pounds of grain while expending far more in terms of other wealth to get it. That might relax demand for low priced grains for poorer areas.

Information Super-Highway

Somebody accidentally cut an undersea Internet cable off the coast of the United Arab Emirates, which disrupted Internet service in India by a great deal.

I didn't know there were cables spanning the Pacific! That's a lot of water. The description of the cable is amazing as well. 14 cm thick with several layers of steel wire mesh guarding a narrow (like, 1 cm) wide fiber optic core that actually carries the data. It would take some heavy equipment to break that.

Government vs. Religion in India

BBC NEWS | South Asia | Report on Hindu god Ram withdrawn

Hinduism as a religion encompasses the worship of over 300 million gods and godesses. In the report cited, the government was trying to build a canal that would have to plow through a natural bridge formation that the locals believe was built by the god Ram and his army of monkeys. The report itself said that the bridge was not built by Ram because Ram does not exist.

Initially this seems like just an interesting story, like "Miracle on 34th Street," but it begs the question, How many development projects have been conducted by the other 300 million gods over the milleniums of civilized existence India has enjoyed. I wonder if this poses any kind of long term threat to the future economic development of India.

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