This ain’t no amateur style food fight but on a global scale. Rice, wheat and corn are at near record highs. Oil this week touched USD 120 a barrel and is currently around USD 112. Riot’s have broken out in some parts of the world for food, i’m a bit surprised nothing like that has happened here in India. With 80% of the Indian population earning less then USD 1 dollar a day, food ends up costing more as a percentage of daily spend as prices rise for those 80%.
In 2008, 24% of all corn harvested in the United States will be used for biofuel. And that number will hit 32% by 2009. People are starving and to take something that could keep people alive and instead turn it into fuel for Ferrari’s and Ford’s seems a bit short sighted.
The above thumbnail (when clicked) shows the oil production for the past 40 years and you can see not much has really changed in light of increased population, cars, data centers, industrial complexes, etc…stuff that needs oil.
Apparently, oil companies are REALLY bad at predicting demand and producing enough supply. Funny how Toyota, Sony and other manufactures can predict customer demand and scale their operations to meet targets. I guess something to do with lack of competition.
celestri - virtual home of manish jain 