Let them eat dirt? July 29, 2008
Posted by thomas in : Uncategorized , trackback
With rising food prices it is important to compare your shopping options…
There are plenty of reports like this one on American news programs: advice on how to stretch your food budget, how to manage the 30% increase in the price of eggs or the rising cost of milk. The authors give good tips like eating before going to the grocery store, and buying generic as opposed to brand name products. I wonder how the people in Haiti manage to choose between generic and brand name mud cakes? Haiti relies almost exclusively on imports for food and with rapid inflation discs of hardened mud are a staple to combat hunger. I realize this sort of thing isn’t exactly breaking news (which is sort of absurd in itself - the fact that this sort of story isn’t that surprising for us), but I was just struck by how advice that you should eat before shopping to prevent impulse buys would strike so many in the world as an unbelievably surreal response to rising food prices. In some ways we do live in a global village and we are becoming increasingly interconnected, but in others the deep rift of separation and difference - the accidents of geography and history that leave some people literally eating dirt and others struggling with obesity - is so absurd that it is beyond comprehension.
Comments»
Sadly well put.
What’s the solution?
Capitalism. Cold hard capitalism.
Economies are created and fueled by commerce and commerce requires capital. This is where the haves must step in.
http://www.opportunity.org/NETCOMMUNITY/Page.aspx?pid=193&srcid=-2