American-size Rations

[CurtEgerer]

So Sam's Club and Costco are "rationing" rice according to the headlines. The headlines sound dire, conjuring up images of long, depression era lines for a single loaf of bread .... then I hear today, the ration consists of four 20lb bags per customer

Who the hell is eating 80lbs of rice?

[Gogar]

It's mostly to keep small restaurant owners from buying too much before the prices go WAAAAAY up.

[URY914]

Will beer be next?

[Porsche-O-Phile]

Hint:

Rice futures might be a good thing to look at. . .

[red-beard]

Rice farm. Hmmmmm

[steve911]

Saw this on CNN yesterday.
Apparently, the average American eats 20 lbs of rice/year.
The average Asian consumes 150 lbs of rice/year.

Rice harvest in Australia was dismal this year; price of US rice is going up because of increased demand overseas.

[charleskieffner]

give me a break! should i lock and load my hk's and get my alum. foil hat on!

who in the hell buys 20 pound bags of rice? aside from restaurants.

[Porsche-O-Phile]

Warren Buffet, several steps ahead of the game as usual, foresaw the increased foreign demand for U.S. agricultural products and bought a ton of railroad positions. Think about it - with diesel costs going through the roof and huge demand for U.S. wheat, rice, etc. how else they gonna' get the stuff to the ports? Truck it? Not a chance. Trains can move many, many more times as much cargo per gallon of fuel burned.

Plan/position accordingly. I am.

[HardDrive]

Gotta love the fear mongering American press. They really are desperate to snap up the most minor events and crank up the 'SKY IS FALLING!' machine.

[dhoward]

Bush hates rice.

[charleskieffner]

lets see .............hmmmm should i use hollow points, FMJ's, tracers, armor piercing bullets for the MONGOL/CHINESE HORDES who will wanna steal all my rice cakes i have stashed!

god it makes me sick to read the news somedays.

ive gotten to the point in my life at 50, that a vacation w/no phones,beepers,cell phones,no computers, no newspapers is the most cherished time i can ask for relaxing and NOT GIVING A DAMN about the world!

[Moses]

BBC's Newsnight had an in depth piece on this. In most of Asia, rice supplies (and price) are closely tied to local leaders political survival. India has stopped exportation of certain types of rice to stabilize domestic prices. This has caused high prices throughout the pacific rim. It's a BIG problem. Ultimately the free market will provide adequate rice for Asia, but in the meantime there could be a fair amount of social unrest and political upheaval.

[Rick Lee]

My wife and I buy rice by the 20 lbs. bag and it doesn't last that long.

[charleskieffner]

after writing our contractor came in my office and stated he had heard about this and one of the main reasons is a shortage of rice overseas. guess alot of countries are wanting to buy OUR RICE!


i cant wait til monyana for another crisis ! what the hell next?????


i remember a time in my youth when i didnt care about nothing!

[on2wheels52]

Charles, don't tell me you actually eat rice cakes. My first wife supposedly had a wheat intolerance so she ate those things. One bite was plenty for me.
Jim

[sammyg2]

I'm guessing you've never been to Westminister, Ca.

[CurtEgerer]

The so-called 'rationing' is completely bogus. It's not 80LBS per day or per week or per month. It's 80LBS every time you walk into the store. Bring your wife and you get 160LBS every time .... Yet, my daughter comes home from school today concerned about the rationing of rice they talked about in class. Apparently, the teacher never got beyond the ginned-up headlines and she knew nothing about the 80LB portion size.

[Moses]

Originally Posted by CurtEgerer

The so-called 'rationing' is completely bogus. It's not 80LBS per day or per week or per month. It's 80LBS every time you walk into the store. Bring your wife and you get 160LBS every time .... Yet, my daughter comes home from school today concerned about the rationing of rice they talked about in class. Apparently, the teacher never got beyond the ginned-up headlines and she knew nothing about the 80LB portion size.

The 80 lb. limit is designed to discourage consumers from EXPORTING rice. Rice prices have quadrupled in some Asian markets where people already spend more than half of their money on food.

The rice shortage will be a transient one, but for now it's very real.

[johndglynn]

Originally Posted by HardDrive

Gotta love the fear mongering American press. They really are desperate to snap up the most minor events and crank up the 'SKY IS FALLING!' machine.

LOL, same here. UK papers are full of food shortage/food inflation headlines; this is up 30%, that is up 50% etc etc. I don't see it happening so obviously myself, not been a mega difference to our food bills.

O/T maybe, but I did pork chops, new potatoes, carrots, mushrooms and onion gravy for four of us the other night, all local produce bought from the local butcher and it still cost less than £5/$10 for four of us to eat all we wanted. Farmers' markets around here are full of great stuff, none of which costs a fortune.

We get our rice from a religious commune/community that my wife's cousin is big in. Organic rice with a hint of jasmine (and a free blessing), the kids love it and it costs us almost nothing - we give them more than they want for it because it is so nice. Even if the price goes up 500% it will still be too cheap.

[CurtEgerer]

>>>"The 80 lb. limit is designed to discourage consumers from EXPORTING rice."<<<

I understand that. So I guess I'm not clearly making my point. That being, 'why don't the headlines state the 'rationing' is not rationing at all, it is intended solely to reduce large volume commercial exporting'? Because nobody would give a rat's a$$ about that. So the media portrays this as depression-era food lines effecting US families and the majority of the population (including school teachers ...) just laps it up.