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Food Rationing

It was only a matter of time, given the food shortages and food riots that had begun in Third World countries over the price and availability of rice, that hoarding would begin. Hoarding has begun in US, considered the breadbasket of the world, with Costco and Sam's Club forced to limit purchases of rice.

Sam's Club, Costco Limit Rice Purchases
April 23, 2008
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/04/23/sams-club-costco-limit-ri_n_98340.html

The two biggest U.S. warehouse retail chains are limiting how much rice customers can buy because of what Sam's Club, a division of Wal-Mart Stores Inc., called on Wednesday "recent supply and demand trends." The broader chain of Wal-Mart stores has no plans to limit food purchases, however. The move comes as US rice futures hit a record high amid global food inflation, although one rice expert said the warehouse chains may be reacting less to any shortages than to stockpiling by restaurants and small stores. Sam's Club followed Seattle-based Costco Wholesale Corp., which put limits in at least some stores on bulk rice purchases. Sam's Club said it will limit customers to four bags at a time of imported jasmine, basmati and long grain white rice.

Where the new rules apply only to rice, due to the global rice shortage, this is the start of a trend, per the Zetas, that will only increase. The Zetas have warned since the start of the ZetaTalk saga that times would come to this, as they predicted that crop shortages would increase going into the pole shift. But per the Zetas, hoarding is not the way to go as it is self defeating - giving a false sense of security - and ultimately can result in trouble with the neighbors and authorities.

ZetaTalk Prediction 11/15/1999: Many people view with alarm the thought of food shortages and struggling with other people to wrest away a loaf of bread or fist fights over a bag of flour or rice. They view with alarm such thoughts, and their first thoughts are to stock up, to buy many of these items. A case in point is the scare just years ago over toilet paper, where there was purported to be a shortage of toilet paper. Suddenly all the toilet paper on the shelves had been bought up. This is the first response to worry about shortages, but there are many problems with this reaction.

Because the desire to hoard and stock up is anticipated by the authorities, this is the first trend that will be watched and guarded against. Hoarding cannot be disguised. The grocer knows who bought a large stock of food, and neighbors can see who carried many groceries into a house. Those places that sell large quantities of food such as rice or wheat or beans have the person who made the purchase on record. One cannot hide a stock. The police can come door-to-door, open the doors, and see a stock of food and this stock can be confiscated. These stocks will be confiscated as food shortages occur and hoarding is to be discouraged, so that fighting and arguments and theft do not happen. The police will go door-to-door and those people who have hoarded will have it taken from them, and this will be distributed to others. Therefore, not only will they lose what they have tried to gathered, they will be penalized. They will be fined, punished, maybe put in jail, and certainly be scorned by their neighbors.

Nevertheless, the Wall Street Journal urged people to stock up their pantries. Not bad advice, and not contrary to what the Zetas advised. Having a stock on hand in case the grocery store is temporarily out or the weather prevents a run to the grocery store is one thing. Hoarding, where you have a year's supply stashed in the garage, is another.

Load Up the Pantry
April 21, 2008
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB120881517227532621.html

I don't want to alarm anybody, but maybe it's time for Americans to start stockpiling food. No, this is not a drill. You've seen the TV footage of food riots in parts of the developing world. Yes, they're a long way away from the U.S. But most foodstuffs operate in a global market. When the cost of wheat soars in Asia, it will do the same here. Reality: Food prices are already rising here much faster than the returns you are likely to get from keeping your money in a bank or money-market fund. And there are very good reasons to believe prices on the shelves are about to start rising a lot faster. You can't easily stock up on perishables like eggs or milk. But other products will keep. Among them: Dried pasta, rice, cereals, and cans of everything from tuna fish to fruit and vegetables. The kicker: You should also save money by buying them in bulk.

Food Prices

Shortages always incur rising prices, because of the law of supply and demand. Price controls may ultimately be put into place to control price gouging, but such price controls are usually part of the end game. Meanwhile, people starve.

Is This The End Of Cheap Food?
April 23, 2008 04:24 PM
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/04/23/

A sharp spike in prices for wheat, corn, rice and other staples has sparked riots in Mexico and Egypt, marches by hungry children in Yemen and the specter of starving people in Haiti turning to mud pies for sustenance. This growing unrest is forcing the global community to focus on the causes of higher food costs and what can be done. But it's also raising the troubling possibility that cheap prices for food may be gone for good, an economic relic of the past. The gloom-and-doom outlooks are prompted by rising prices for commodities, which started increasing steadily in 2001 before suddenly soaring recently. Wheat prices have gone up by 181 percent over the past three years, according to the World Bank; food prices around the globe have risen by 83 percent during the same period. In March, rice prices hit a 19-year high. Corn prices recently rose from $2.50 a bushel three years ago to $6, for the first time.

For those countries pegged to the dollar, there is a double whammy, as the dropping dollar means that less can be purchased with a dollar. Less food available equates to higher prices. Less purchasing power for the dollar equates to higher prices. The US is, of course, the main country pegged to the dropping dollar. Rice is not the only crop rising in price and threatening shortages. Corn, wheat, and soy are also in short supply and there are repercussions up the food chain.

Reduced Corn Crop Forecast Plants Fears
April 1, 2008
http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-corn1apr01,0,1787755.story

The U.S. Agriculture Department sent shudders through much of the food industry when it released estimates that showed farmers would plant 8% less corn this year. With corn prices already pushing up food prices the estimate bodes ill for consumers at the supermarket. Federal energy policies that have created increased competition between the nation's food producers and energy companies for corn. Competing demands for farmland from high-priced wheat and soy crops also play into reduced corn plantings. Farmers intend to plant 86 million acres this year, 7.6 million acres less than 2007. Food producers are worried about the decline because corn is a building block for a wide range of foods. It is feed for dairy cows and egg-laying hens. It fattens cattle, hogs and chickens. The acreage also has dipped because of the high cost of the petroleum-based fertilizers and agricultural chemicals that are used to grow corn as well as the standard practice of rotating crops to sustain farmland. The current wet weather and flooding in the Midwest could hamper or delay plantings of the grain and reduce the amount that is harvested. Later in the year, heat and drought at the wrong times could hurt the crop. Soybean producers intend to plant 74.8 million acres this year, up 18% from last year. Much of the increase is a result of the run-up in soy prices in recent months. Wheat acreage also is expected to rise this year, up 6% to 63.8 million acres.

The rising price of oil is also a factor, as oil is a component in fertilizer. Once again, for those in countries pegged to the dollar, the price of oil is a double whammy - partly due to the price set by oil producing countries, and partly due to the dropping dollar.

Oil Price Hits Record High 118.45 Dollars
April 27, 2008
http://afp.google.com/article/ALeqM5hw0Ys6GEmMlqqA2p9Z2FcR-xItqw

Oil prices rocketed to historic highs above 118 dollars on Tuesday, lifted by the tumbling dollar, unrest in Nigeria and OPEC's reluctance to increase output. New York's main oil futures contract, light sweet crude for delivery in May, jumped to an all-time high of 118.45 dollars. The weak US currency makes dollar-priced commodities like oil cheaper for foreign buyers and therefore tends to encourage demand. The 13-nation OPEC, which produces 40 percent of the world's oil, insists that there is no supply shortage in the market, with record prices driven instead by speculative financial activity.

The Zetas, in the same breath when warning about hoarding, have advised those taking their pole shift message seriously to become self sufficient by growing their own food. At a minimum, get into gardening and seed saving practices, and if possible maintain flocks and herds. Move from crowded city living to rural locations, sparsely populated, where such practices are possible. Such self sufficiency is the antidote to hoarding, which is self defeating.

ZetaTalk Recommendation 11/15/1999: Anyone who has a stock of food who does not find themselves at odds with the authorities will still be subject to theft from gangs or hungry neighbors. In fact, it is as dangerous to stock up and be traced as holding a hoard of food as it is for a rich man to walk with gold jewelry down a dark path known to harbor thieves in the bushes. It is almost a welcome sign, saying come take this from me. The word would go out that this person or that person has a stock of food. Windows will be broken and people will come in with bags over their heads so one doesn't know who is taking the food stores away, and the person who has a lot of stock will find it has been stolen from them. So, in the end, hoarding is not a solution, even for those people who think they are clever and have very carefully hidden their food. People who are starving and frightened will aggressively attempt to find where the food has been buried.

It is much safer to be able to produce food on a regular basis. Those people who have seed, or who know how to and are growing algae in water, for instance, will find this cannot be readily taken or carried away. Growing plants, algae or fish, cannot be carted away as easily as grabbing a bag of rice or cans of food. Such food stuffs will spoil, are hard to catch, is wet, smelly, and takes time. Those who are frightened or those who would steal and rob are not inclined to spend the time to harvest. So somebody with algae in a fish tank or gardens in their basement will find that it is not as worthwhile for a thug or a hungry person to break into the basement to take a tomato as it is to break into a garage where someone has stored many sacks of flour or potatoes, something that is dry, compact, and easy to carry away.

In addition, the person who is growing their own food regularly will find that even should they be attacked by hungry people, that they will be able to recover. Even should their hydroponics beds be ripped out and run off with, with someone grabbing their carrots or tomatoes or cabbage or green peppers or the fish in the tanks, they will have baby fish on the side to restart their fish tanks and seed to restart their gardens. The person who has just stored food cannot recover, and their food is usually gone. Therefore, we recommend the capability of growing food, in many and varied ways to where the cycle of life is at hand and a temporary disruption of a garden is not a devastation. These people will not be raided. It will be the hoards that will be raided. Therefore, we have encouraged growing seed and helping people learn to grow, and helping people understand the simple things about them with which they can feed themselves, such as insects and the foods found in nature, the minimum that they need to survive. This kind of knowledge is more valuable than bags of potatoes or barrels of wheat in the garage, because knowledge cannot be taken from a person, and it is therefore more valuable.

Aftershocks

Several aftershocks, at least two registering magnitude 4.5, followed the 5.2 quake along the Illinois border on April 21, 2008.

Aftershock Reported Early Monday
April 21, 2008
http://www.county29.net/cms2/index.php?

The U.S. Geological Survey says it has recorded one of the strongest aftershocks so far from Friday's Illinois earthquake. Geologists say the temblor just before 1:40 a.m. Monday, registered at 4.5 magnitude at its epicenter about 5 miles northwest of Mount Carmel, Ill. The location is in the same area as Friday's early-morning 5.2-magnitude earthquake, which was followed by a 4.5 magnitude aftershock about 5½ hours later. The Monday morning aftershock was at least the 15th since Friday's quake.

Has the pressure been relieved? Not according to some Bellevue, Ohio residents. An aquifer, under pressure, has begun flooding a subdivision with no end in sight.

Bellevue Residents: Five Weeks of Freak Flooding and No End in Sight
April 18, 2008
http://www.wkyc.com/news/news_article.aspx?storyid=87593

Beautiful weather, no river, no stream and yet almost a thousand residents are coping with flood conditions. For some reason, the earth in Bellevue continues to heave up millions of gallons of water to the surface. Against gravity and against logic, the flooding continues day after day. Homes and barns suddenly turned into islands trapped in muddy water. No one knows why it began or when it will end. It is a disaster for every homeowner for miles around Bellevue. The residents north of town on state route 269 have especially been hit hard. Scientists believe that underground artesian springs in the area normally drain toward Sandusky Bay and Lake Erie. There are large artesian springs at Miller's Pond, Green Spring, and Castalia, Ohio. Affected residents suspect that someone who lives north of Bellevue on State Route 269 might have plugged up sink holes that allow the artesian water to vent naturally toward Lake Erie.

What does Ohio have to do with a quake on the Illinois/Indiana border? Per the Zetas, the area under pressure is vast, reaching from the Great Lakes and New England area down through the New Madrid Fault area to the Gulf Coast and thence down to Mexico. The issue of aquifers under pressure in this region is not new. It came up before near San Antonio, Texas in 2006.

This East Side Tree Does its Own Watering
August 10, 2006
http://www.mysanantonio.com/news/metro/stories/

The knotted, towering tree, more than 100 years old, has become the root of scrutiny in the East Side San Antonio, TX neighborhood. The tree has gurgled water from its trunk for the past three months. Answers have been sought from several specialists - the Texas Forest Service, the Edwards Aquifer Authority and nurseries. The water is cool, like it came from a faucet. The flow is at a 10th or 20th of a gallon every minute. Compared to Edwards Aquifer water, it the same as what comes out of the tap. It could be a spring, but would be rare with the drought conditions this summer. A science team member researched the elevation of the area and said that it's unlikely that the water from the tree is from aquifer spring flow. The source of the mysterious water flow could be an artesian spring, a broken water pipe or an abandoned well. Or possibly something else.

Per the Zetas, the cause of this mystery is indeed pressure on an aquifer.

ZetaTalk Explanation 8/16/2006: What is the relationship between quake swarms in Oklahoma, sinkholes in Missouri, and a water tree in Texas? The rock underlying this area is being stretched, fingers pulling apart so support of the ground is lacking, and the ground sinks. As we have stated, stretch zones do not experience large quakes, but the trauma is just as great as in compression areas. Thus, the fact that this stretching and sinking is occurring is missed until something dramatic occurs to hit the news. What has caused an oak tree in the middle of a drought area to ooze water? What happens to water under pressure? It seeks to escape, moving up when that is the only avenue it can move. Tidal bore, where water rushes up a ravine well above sea level because the pressure from the sea behind the tide is intense, shows this to be the case. Water spews above ground when geysers blow because of pressure, alone.

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