There is an interesting contrast between the approach of the US and that of Cuba during the oil embargo, when starvation threatened. Food was grown communally on every patch of available ground and when necessary food rationing was introduced ( after the hurricane).
In the US enough food is thrown away every day to feed all of the hungry people in the US several times over.
http://www.project7.com/2009/11/we-t...-entire-world/
Originally Posted by Cael
My comments on 20000 was a reply to your previous comments on him and the mises institute (above), however let's move on...
Government intervention in free markets is not free markets. Therefore if government tampering with market signals is to blame for an increase in unemployment, and the rise in unemployment is the cause of the increase in your numbers (as the Secretary of Agriculture is quoted as saying) then free markets are NOT to blame. I'm not saying this hypothesis is correct, I'm asking you to prove that yours is or at least prove why it is more correct than this one!
You have provided no economic context, and you have provided some skeletal historical context which proves nothing except that government involvement in the free market is to blame for worse conditions for union workers!!! This is proved by your following statement (which is completely incorrect by the way):
NO THEY DON'T !!!!!!!
And is this not a result of US government direction in the production of food!!
You keep on re-raising the same irrelevant points. I've had to ask both yourself and Cael a few times now to show some evidence (I'd accept theoretical even!) why free markets is to blame for the increase in the original numbers and not government interference in free markets.
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There has never been a free market anywhere in the world at any time. So it is a nonsense to talk about interference in an entity which does not and cannot exist. "The free market" is not to blame for anything, because it does not exist. We are talking about capitalism as it now exists, ie. state fascism.
cael,
have you ever been to the US????
the poor in america have the highest rates of obesity and diabetes in the world. and its not from lack of food or hunger.
have you ever walked down a new york or chicago street (not the main ones but the ordinary suburbs)...there are fat children waddling down all of them. and they're not the wealthy children but the poor.
have you seen the portion sizes for cheap food outlets. a regular fries in wendy's or micky d's is equal to twice our large sizes.
perhaps "hunger" is relative in this study...i.e. having regular meals rather than supersize meals.
One who condones evils is just as guilty as the one who perpetrates it. -Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., civil-rights leader (1929-1968)
Hazlitt: show me anywhere in space and time that your free market has existed.
It seems to me to be a mirage.
[quote]Have you ever been poor ?
I doubt that the obese fall into the category of absolute poverty. People on low incomes are often over weight, because in order to survive they have to rely on high calorie diets, that are cheaper but less nutritious and less satisfying.the poor in america have the highest rates of obesity and diabetes in the world. and its not from lack of food or hunger.
have you ever walked down a new york or chicago street (not the main ones but the ordinary suburbs)...there are fat children waddling down all of them. and they're not the wealthy children but the poor.
have you seen the portion sizes for cheap food outlets. a regular fries in wendy's or micky d's is equal to twice our large sizes.
perhaps "hunger" is relative in this study...i.e. having regular meals rather than supersize meals.
That is the kind of shallow analysis Id expect from a Fine Gael supporter. Why dont you people stop to think for a moment, rather than just spouting what you saw on TV.
Again, you both fail to back up your argument whatsoever and miss the point of my argument comprehensively. It doesn't matter if a pure free market exists, government intervention can reasonably be attributed to the rise in unemployment, therefore it is up to you/Cael to prove that it is NOT government intervention in the market that caused this rise in hunger. It has been attributed to "Capitalism", so unless our wires are crossed and you think 'Capitalsim' means 'The State' then you/Cael need to back up the OP's claim that Capitalism is to blame. At this point maybe it would be wise if you clarified your definition of Capitalism.
My point above holds.
Well that's a different story then. Why didn't you entitle your thread "The fall of State Fascism: Quarter of children went hungry last year" ?? This is my point.
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I use the term Capitalism to describe its current manifestation, i.e. Corporatism or State Fascism. The point that you dont seem to get is that you cant seperate the governments of capitalist countries from the corporations that rule the market and buy the political parties - they are one and the same thing. If you ask me is hunger caused by the intervention of the corporate government, well, yes, no doubt a lot of it, if not most of it is. But that is the nature of capitalism, and always was. Von Mises was an idealist who imagined a place that he thought would be perfect (or quite nice anyway), but he destroys the possibility of such a place ever coming into being by defending private property - the very thing that allows corporations to capture states and run them for their own ends.
No, it's no more than a statement of the obvious from someone who, unlike yourself, actually lives in the real world.
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