petrochemicals = food

http://www.indexmundi.com/commodities/?commodity=corn

whoa! yesterday wheat was trading at $330.69 a tonne...this morning it's at $337.39...maize was $303.35 yesterday and today it's $$310.14...both up ( coincidentally)$6.79 a tonne...oil is at $104.91 a barrel this ,morning...i have been watching the commodidties market as a sort of rough gauge of what is really going on in the economy since the punditry, captains of industry, and politicians all have an agenda which may or may not coincide with reality...energy and food costs are reality for just about everyone on the planet...things do not seem to be improving from a consumer point of view...especially an impoverished consumer's point of view which is probably the majority right now...wes jackson calls the ever increasing dependence of industrial agriculture on petrochemical inputs such as pesticides, herbicides, anhydrous ammonia as fertilizer, and fuel for farm machinery "chemotherapy" for soil rendered sterile by longterm chemical abuse...nothing organic about dense yellow numbet two corn...specualtors or not, as long as the cost of a barrel of oil rises, so too will the cost of a bushel of wheat or corn...look for pice increases in big macs and hot pockets soon if things don't calm down...look for food riots as well...if you believe things are getting out of hand now, stick around a while...as the cost of oil rises ( and it may go back down, but it is bound to rise again) things will become more volatile everywhere...then kick back and wait for the acute water shotages facing much of the world ( so long las vegas) to reach public awareness ( the people facing them alrerady know...most of the rest of us don't)...the times just keep getting more interesting.