Comments on: Time to Stock up Rice?

By: Higher Food Prices, Global Rice Shortage Concerns @ The Roundup

Higher Food Prices, Global Rice Shortage Concerns @ The Roundup — Sun, 27 Apr 2008 20:14:56 +0000

[...] The Sun’s Financial Diary: The stories on higher food prices and diminishing available supply of rice are dominating the blogosphere these days. Now the buzz is on rice hoarding. [...]

By: Tim

Tim — Fri, 25 Apr 2008 21:18:09 +0000

yup, it’s media fueling the hype. what they forget to say is that the rice or wheat will probably go bad by the time you have a chance to use it if you hoard it for the common person.

By: Sun

Sun — Fri, 25 Apr 2008 02:56:55 +0000

It’s true that speculation, rumor and fear play a large role in driving up prices recently, even though there isn’t any kind of shortage in this country at least. And stories like Costco and Sam’s Club are limiting the amount people can buy could potentially make matter worse and make people feel there’s indeed problem in the food supply china.

It is not really like before when large families ate a lot of rice every day and even a mild increase in price could mean a big jump in spending. But with a 20-lb bag of rice at $15 and lasts a couple of month for a family of three, I am not too concerned even if the price goes to $30 a bag next month. I would be more concern if gas price doubles

STLPlace: Yeah, I read you own SYT. Actually, I was thinking of buy some agri ETF, but didn’t because of the record prices of agri commodities. If I buy now, it’s probably a little too late, especially for the current round of advance in price.

By: pidgeon92

pidgeon92 — Fri, 25 Apr 2008 00:23:37 +0000

Honestly, it just sounds like more fearmongering.

By: Danny Tsang

Danny Tsang — Thu, 24 Apr 2008 17:21:17 +0000

I kid you not, the family that lives in my parent’s in-law unit came home one day with about 5 50lb bags of rice. I asked them why they needed so much and they were telling me how the price keeps going up.

Personally I don’t think its necessary at all, I agree with Jeremy. I would just keep buying like usual. Sure it can be $10-$15 more but one bag lasts so long. If we all go buy more bags then we need it makes matters worse.

By: STLPlace

STLPlace — Thu, 24 Apr 2008 15:27:13 +0000

Sun,
I have not stock pile the rice. Although I bought the rice 4 days after it raised price, yuk!

That being said, I think buying the agri stocks will be more profitable to take advantage of soft commodity boom. As you may know, I hold SYT for now.

By: Mickey Blue Eyes

Mickey Blue Eyes — Thu, 24 Apr 2008 12:08:20 +0000

Dittos to Jeremy!

I think it was in P.J. O’Rourke’s book “All The Troubles In The World” where he talks about famine. While food shortages happen naturally, famine is a result of politics.

There was a case in British India where a rumor went around about entire crops (probably rice) being wiped out. People started hoarding food. The British declared hoarding illegal. This only confirmed the rumor in the people’s eyes and the hoarding increased. The price of food skyrocketed because it disappeared from the open market and was sold on the black market. Thousands died of starvation. However, the rumor was false. There was no shortage of food. However, the people had a perception of a shortage and reacted by hoarding which only made the situation worse.

By: Jeremy

Jeremy — Thu, 24 Apr 2008 03:26:51 +0000

I think all of this is borderline ridiculous. Yes, there are increases in food prices, but the media is extrapolating the effects of third world countries onto us. Yes, higher prices for the poor is a bad thing, but for the typical American who can get by for many months on 20 or so pounds of rice, this is unnecessary fearmongering.

What does a 20 pound bag of rice cost now in discount stores? 12-20 dollars? 20 dollars to feed a few people (if necessary) for a month or two is incredibly cheap. Again, we’re not talking about those living on the streets without any money or even a roof over their heads. We’re talking about people shopping at Costco and Wal-Mart. So they are not only buying rice, but probably buying 2-5 dollar a pound beef or pork, and maybe 6 dollar a pound boneless chicken, and everything else that makes up a meal.

So this hoarding of staples is going on, perpetrated by the media, is a bunch of crap. Of course if major media outlets that reach hundreds of millions of people says that other people are hoarding food items, you’ll spark fear into many others who think they need to do the same. All this is going to do is create a major problem out of a relatively small problem that could be addressed without such measures.