[HN Gopher] The Price of Wheat
___________________________________________________________________
The Price of Wheat
Author : baremetal
Score : 86 points
Date : 2022-03-05 15:51 UTC (7 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (tradingeconomics.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (tradingeconomics.com)
| giantg2 wrote:
| I guess it's good I bought 5 pounds of wheat seeds earlier this
| year. Now to grow it, malt it, brew it.
| h2odragon wrote:
| I dunno what kind of wheat they grow in Ukraine; specifically
| when do they plant and harvest? I've got the impression that
| planting season is a couple weeks to a month off and closes a
| couple weeks after that, for a late fall harvest.
|
| In the southern USA there's more winter wheat in the fields than
| I've seen in the 30 years I've lived here. It looks _really
| happy_ so far too. They 'll be bringing that in starting in
| another 3mo or so.
| ed25519FUUU wrote:
| You probably know this already but the hard winter wheat and
| soft white spring wheat are used to make different types of
| food. I imagine in the US food manufacturers will start trying
| to swap for hard winter wheat which it sounds like we'll have a
| lot of.
|
| But you're right about planting season. It's coming up fast and
| that window will close with no way to rewind if tensions die
| down.
| downrightmike wrote:
| It isn't so much production as transport. We may have a lot of
| wheat, but getting it shipped is way more expensive and ship
| into long beach are only on time about 10% of the time, pre
| covid, they were 90% on time. And it is a lot easier to get
| goods into smaller towns and farms etc, than it will be to pick
| up a bunch of shipments from rural areas.
| derbOac wrote:
| This is related to something on my mind since I read about
| the impact of the Ukraine conflict on wheat: will the
| economic impacts of wheat deficits be equally spread
| worldwide?
|
| I wondered about it because I am lucky I suppose to live in
| an area with a fair amount of local wheat production. During
| the pandemic I noticed that the locally produced wheat never
| really disappeared even though it was more expensive to begin
| with; the bigger brands totally disappeared from the shelves.
|
| I could see this as making a bigger impact though, because
| it's affecting worldwide stock to a bigger extent, at the
| more basic level of production rather than supply chains per
| se. But if the local wheat isn't really going anywhere
| anyway, maybe it doesn't matter.
|
| Between this and the pandemic it seems like smaller, local
| production is being rewarded more, at least where I am.
| Chains struggled but smaller local shops thrived.
| qalmakka wrote:
| Luckily, I prefer rice to bread /s
|
| Jokes aside, I honestly think that the modern Western diet would
| benefit a lot from some diversification on what cereals we eat.
| We eat way too much wheat nowadays. For instance, I like in Italy
| and we import most of our wheat, while we produce large amounts
| of rice, exporting more than 50% of it. People in Northern Italy
| have always eaten bread, but they ate way less pasta and way more
| rice and cornmeal in the past. Since the 1950s pasta has become
| incredibly ubiquitous and people have lost knowledge and the
| taste for rice dishes - lots of boomers I know don't even have
| rice in their homes.
| riedel wrote:
| This page has a pricing page [1] without prices. How I hate such
| things.
|
| [1] https://tradingeconomics.com/analytics/pricing.aspx
| FredPret wrote:
| You mean you _don 't_ like to contact Sales to "learn more"?!
| hamiltonians wrote:
| wont take much for this to fall again.increase prices means
| increased supply
| ed25519FUUU wrote:
| Ukraine is one of the world's bread baskets and produces
| roughly 12% of supply. If they miss the planting season because
| of war it's going to have a long lasting effect, and you can't
| plant again until next spring.
| jelliclesfarm wrote:
| they have to plant within the next 30-60 days. the planting
| window is fast approaching. i think they will miss it.
| khuey wrote:
| Yeah that's not how commodities with fixed production cycles
| work in the short term.
| BoiledCabbage wrote:
| > wont take much for this to fall again
|
| Yes it will, as crops have a growing season. If it gets missed
| there is simply less wheat for everyone in the world for
| roughly a full year until the following growing season.
| hugh-avherald wrote:
| Why hasn't supply increased already?
| futhey wrote:
| If futures markets do their job, and incentivize other growers
| to expand their production ahead of planting season, it might
| partially resolve itself. Not my area of expertise though. Are
| their North American farmers holding out waiting for better
| prices?
| onecommentman wrote:
| A worthwhile resource on the topic, Ohio State Ag Economists
| discuss (important to US ag industries for obvious reasons)...
|
| https://ocj.com/2022/03/ukraine-russia-and-crop-production/
|
| Agricultural economists as a discipline deal with these and other
| policy/trade issues all the time. At agricultural colleges and
| universities, they provide farmers with insights so the right
| crops are grown in the right time and place at the right level.
| No political or financial agenda worthy of note. If you're in the
| US and care enough, you might want to contact your local land
| grant school and talk to an ag economist who specializes in grain
| production about these concerns, or sponsor an on-line forum with
| them for others who are interested.
|
| If I remember correctly, most wheat in Ukraine/Russia is/has been
| planted in the fall/winter for summer harvest. But active
| regional conflict right next to your breadbasket generally sounds
| like a dumb and dangerous idea to pursue. You can't harvest if
| your harvesting equipment is disabled. You can't get the grain to
| market if your transportation systems are disrupted. Seems silly.
| Slavs may need to gen up some culturally appropriate recipes
| using maize and soybeans.
| Borrible wrote:
| https://www.wsj.com/market-data/quotes/futures/W00/advanced-...
|
| Filter to 'All'
|
| Those tops between 2010 and 2013 is the 'Arab Spring'.
|
| Now you know what is coming.
|
| I mentioned that eight days ago, it was a sure thing ten days
| ago. The moment they crossed the border.
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30457490&goto=item%3Fid...
|
| Oh, and it was talked about for months. It's that Ukraine
| Breadbasket thing.
|
| We Germans had a tour back then, just for that. It's not widely
| known, but we sometimes even stole the pure soil literally,
| Chernozem.
|
| History and geostrategics, quite interesting.
|
| Uh, by the way, the Ukrainians had a land reform last year.
|
| As a primer:
|
| https://www.oaklandinstitute.org/blog/who-really-benefits-cr...
|
| ----------------------------------------------------------
|
| And now to something completely different, the Serbians and the
| Balkan...
| beebeepka wrote:
| What about the Balkans? We don't need another war, thanks.
|
| I don't know for sure who is funding all these "nationalistic"
| organisations around these parts but I do know nationalism is
| more often than not used as a tool to divide people, not unite
| them.
|
| These people seem to "care" and "love" their countries to the
| extent of beating and harassing brown people. Sorry, got
| carried away
| baq wrote:
| There are reports something's brewing in Serbia/Kosovo, more
| than usual. Same in Moldova/Transnistria - the latter in
| particular could provide a western angle of attack on
| Ukraine.
| Borrible wrote:
| >We don't need another war, thanks.
|
| Some people think it's the best. At the moment the strongest
| proponents of this line of thought sit in the Kreml. It's
| just a question of who it's best for. And they don't care if
| you want it or not.
|
| The Republika Srpska cultivates close ties to their Russian
| brother, nurtures strong ethnic/nationalist ambitions and is
| a possible attack vector for Russian PsyOps to stirr things
| up. Don't you think a possible Civil War or some such in the
| Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina would come in handy? For
| Russia and the Republika Srpska?
|
| Oh, and please don't shoot the messenger, I'm just looking
| for an exit.
|
| By, the way that Balkan thing is much older. In 1888 Bismarck
| is quoted as saying "One day the great European War will come
| out of some damned foolish thing in the Balkans."
|
| He was right.
| agumonkey wrote:
| I don't know how solid this piece (or the team behind it) is
| https://bywire.news/articles/millions-of-russian-roubles-
| fun...
|
| But it hints at that there is potential for groups and/or
| nations (I assume Russia wouldn't be the only one) to mess up
| peoples minds.
|
| Not long ago a journalist ended up in the "internet
| communication team" of a french presidential candidate
| (Zemmour) and saw how much shitty tricks they're trying to
| influence people (editing wikipedia, flooding articles online
| to give a better image)
| [deleted]
| protomyth wrote:
| Might not be a bad idea to monitor
| https://www.ers.usda.gov/publications/#!topicid=&subtopicid=...
| WHS: Wheat Outlook. Also, the February report
| https://www.ers.usda.gov/publications/pub-details/?pubid=103...
| has a section on Russia.
| PestoDiRucola wrote:
| We might have reached the highest price of wheat in history. A
| lot of historical things happening as of late.
| pfdietz wrote:
| This is a great time to be on a low carb diet.
| slothtrop wrote:
| Everything is more expensive, wheat is probably among the
| cheapest staple items. Meat prices are already higher, fruit
| and vegetable prices will get there
| immibis wrote:
| What do you think the low carbs eat?
| tbirdny wrote:
| Grass
| LinuxBender wrote:
| The vegans/vegetarians eat vegetables. The low carbohydrate
| omnivores on Paleo and/or Healthy Keto eat a mix of
| vegetables and meats. Those on carnivore diets eat mostly
| non gmo grass fed meats from what I have seen.
| pfdietz wrote:
| Not wheat, typically.
| base698 wrote:
| Beef is up too.
| giantg2 wrote:
| Not so much if you buy it direct and avoid the
| store/middlemen markups.
| dan1234 wrote:
| Great time to be on a plant based gluten free diet!
| giantg2 wrote:
| Fertilizer costs are skyrocketing, and Russia is saying
| not to export to western nations now too.
| ragingrobot wrote:
| Everything's on the up.
|
| I'm an omnivore, and use tofu for meals on occasion. On
| my trip to the Asian market yesterday (cheapest price
| around), tofu was 50% higher than what I paid last trip
| two or three months ago (was $1.39 for House Foods 10oz -
| a common brand around here, now $1.99). Nothing's safe.
| bryanlarsen wrote:
| Beef is often counter-cyclical with grain prices, so I
| wouldn't be surprised to see it drop. When the price of
| feed goes up, cattlemen sell cattle depressing its price.
| When the price of feed goes down, cattlemen expand their
| herds, temporarily decreasing the number of cattle for
| sale.
| rruark wrote:
| We may be seeing the highest nominal price for wheat in US
| history, but we are nowhere near the highest inflation adjusted
| price. The price of wheat in 1866 was $2.06/bu [0]. That is
| $36.43/bu in 2022 prices.
|
| In times of famine, prices have of course been higher. Just for
| fun, the rider of the black horse in the book of revelations
| prices a quart of wheat at one denarius (a typical days wage at
| the time). If you go by the 4.4g silver content of the coin,
| that comes out to $3.64 per quart or $135/bu.
|
| [0] https://www.ers.usda.gov/data-products/wheat-data/
| Shadonototra wrote:
| Dark days ahead of us.. money won't be enough if everyone is
| fighting for the same resources.. then we'll have water issues
| very soon, things are changing at a very fast pace, it's scary
| 7373737373 wrote:
| I don't get how and why water could ever be an existential
| problem for humanity, other than in extremely remote drought
| regions. Yes, desalination plants and other infrastructure
| investments may make it more expensive, but it doesn't seem
| to be a fundamentally scarce resource.
| calvinmorrison wrote:
| at .01 cents a gallon or less, yeah it's not scarce at
| all...
| bcrosby95 wrote:
| You can use desalination for drinking water, but growing
| food requires way too much water for it to be feasible.
| pfdietz wrote:
| In Israel, use of desalination made more effluent
| suitable for irrigation. Before that, the effluent
| contained too much salt.
|
| This isn't desalinating specifically for irrigation, but
| it is a source of water for irrigation that wouldn't
| exist without desalination.
|
| https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/.premium-study-water-
| des...
|
| Israel is not self-sufficient though; they import 80% of
| the grain they consume.
| jeffbee wrote:
| Literally billions of people rely on glacial meltwater
| which will eventually run out. Yes it is technologically
| feasible to provide the whole world with desalinated water,
| but it is also technologically feasible to provide the
| whole world with renewable energy and for some reason we
| haven't done that either.
| adam_arthur wrote:
| Also pipelines are already proven via oil and natural gas.
| You can transport oil from remote areas in Canada to
| western Texas with little effort.
|
| Very trivial to extend the idea to routing water from any
| of the thousands of lakes in Canada.
|
| Vegas had a plan to do just that (though from Reno). These
| ideas aren't pursued because water is not scarce enough for
| them to be economically justified yet. If the time comes,
| they will do it and likely cheaper than you think.
|
| If renewables eventually take over, we can even repurpose
| the existing oil pipelines. Likely need to widen them, but
| much cheaper than land use/zoning legal battles.
| arbitrary_name wrote:
| Not trivial at all. It's billions of dollars, huge
| amounts of energy to pump water up and down mountain
| ranges, many years of construction, many more years of
| litigation... And why on earth would Canada give us their
| water?
|
| There was a plan to pipe water to California from the
| Pacific north west, and the projected costs for that were
| insane.
|
| By the time the high price of water justifies projects on
| this scale, there will be blood in the streets, not water
| in aqueducts.
| adam_arthur wrote:
| Billions is peanuts vs abandoning trillions of dollars of
| real estate and uprooting millions of people's lives.
|
| Sorry, doomsday abandonment scenario is a complete
| fantasy, void of any logic.
|
| People talk about colonizing Mars, yet suggest we can't
| pump water from point A to B
| Retric wrote:
| Billions of dollars isn't actually that expensive for
| governments. Such projects are only considered expensive
| because water is not currently a problem.
| FredPret wrote:
| These problems will tend to evaporate when water starts
| running low enough to impact people's daily lives.
|
| Civilization adapts quickly once somebody pokes the bear.
| 7373737373 wrote:
| I would love to see a historical survey of what
| circumstances and processes made large scale projects
| like these happen
| HPsquared wrote:
| Most shortages of water are caused by an inability to
| build and maintain infrastructure, not an inherent
| scarcity of water.
| nostrademons wrote:
| An inability to build & maintain infrastructure is a
| common feature of times of scarcity. It's hard to
| organize people toward a common goal when there's an
| imminent threat to survival.
|
| Sure, in theory there's plenty of water on the globe, and
| it's just a matter of getting it to population centers.
| In theory all we have to do to avert global warming in
| the first place is reduce our CO2 emissions. In practice
| both of those goals are essentially impossible, because
| it's a coordination problem and coordination problems are
| significantly harder than technological and economic
| problems.
| phatfish wrote:
| Clean water in the right location can certainly be scarce.
| If a large population is close to the limit and unusual
| weather or some other event causes a shortage, I'm not sure
| how long a quick fix like trucking it in would be
| sustainable.
| nostrademons wrote:
| It's not an existential problem for humanity, but it could
| be an existential problem for individual humans.
|
| Settlement patterns grow up water availability. There's a
| reason India and eastern China are densely populated while
| the Sahara has virtually nobody. The U.S. Southwest (LA,
| Vegas, Phoenix, and smaller cities in SoCal/AZ/UT/NV/NM)
| urbanized when we developed the technology to dam & control
| the Colorado River.
|
| In 100 years, it's likely they'll be thriving communities
| in the Sahara, Canadian Shield, Siberia, etc. to make up
| for the increasing inhabitability of Northern Europe, the
| U.S. South & Southwest, Indian subcontinent, Middle East,
| etc. But _that 's cold comfort for the people who already
| live in the affected regions_, who will have to migrate,
| die, or spend most of their resources on water
| infrastructure.
| DyslexicAtheist wrote:
| there is a whole Wikipedia entry dedicated to the topic:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Water_scarcity
| leke wrote:
| So we need to make up 30% of grain in the world. Surely 30
| countries can produce 1% more grain than they usually do to make
| up the deficit.
| athinggoingon wrote:
| The problem is that Russia and Ukraine make up significant
| amounts of nitrogen fertilizer production.
| ggus wrote:
| Percent math doesn't work that way. Every country should
| produce an additional 1% of the whole world total. Very
| different from 1% of what they usually do, which is a fragment
| of the total.
| sulZ wrote:
| They'd need to produce 1% more grain as compared to the world's
| output, not their own output. This could be a significant
| increase.
| freemint wrote:
| That's not how math works. They wouldn't need to produce 1%
| more 30 countires would need to produce 1% of world production
| in addition to their current produce. In other words the
| countries producing the other 70% each would need to 42+% more
| to make up the missing 30%.
| sremani wrote:
| plague. war. famine.
|
| welcome to end of 'end of history.'
| marginalia_nu wrote:
| More like 'welcome to history'. There have always been periods
| of peace and prosperity, sometimes hundreds of years long.
| Those living through these have always thought they were the
| exception. They have always been wrong.
| gboss wrote:
| The OP I'm pretty sure is being sarcastic and referring to
| this obnoxious book by Francis Fukuyama:
| https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/End_of_history
|
| He had this absurd premise that because the Soviet Union
| collapsed and free trade was surging every place everywhere
| would coalesce to a boring democracy.
| DyslexicAtheist wrote:
| they did say "the end of 'end of history'" so maybe there
| is more to untangle than the postmodern idea of what
| Fukuyama was having his night-terrors about. I fear it's
| even more "meta" and also a reference to this old Churchill
| quote about war:
|
| > _" Now this is not the end of end of history. It is not
| even the beginning of the end of end of history. But it is,
| perhaps, the end of the end of the beginning."_
| TheGigaChad wrote:
| sAbakumoff wrote:
| Exactly!
|
| Covid-19 was the first one, it was literally "given a crown".
|
| The last one to be nuclear winter.
| DyslexicAtheist wrote:
| there is a lot of fear mongering about nuclear holocaust wrt
| NATO joining the war etc., but this is incredibly far fetched
| even in a worst case scenario[1]. I don't say the nuclear
| threat is nil, but it's also not as bad as war-hawks
| pondering escalation scenarios or the media makes it out to
| be.
|
| What do you think would happen to Putins daughters in London,
| to the family members of oligarchs, to anyone who carries the
| smell (shame) of a past support of that regime. Even enemies
| of the West will think twice and have no choice supporting
| the force that is stronger. (whether that's good or bad or if
| they like it or not)
|
| anyway nobody knows anything about any of this even the ones
| who are supposed to be experts in it. so certainly don't take
| my word for it but do question it when they make it clean
| cut.
|
| [1] assume RU does launch nukes without sabotage on their
| systems before, and 1 or 2 cities will be lost to nuclear
| holocaust. There will be immediate containment of many of the
| missiles not fulfilling their objective. This is a lot
| messier than the academic idea of a neat escalation scenario
| that ends in total annihilation of the human race including a
| nuclear winter.
| sAbakumoff wrote:
| >> What do you think would happen to Putins daughters in
| London,
|
| I think he does not give a fig about anyone anymore
| alephnan wrote:
| How much of this is attributable to meme stock style momentum
| versus fundamentals?
| tyrfing wrote:
| It's a number of factors coming together. The market over 2021
| was very tight, with China importing a huge amount of wheat,
| some drought/weather issues, and probably more. Coming into
| this year, nitrogen fertilizer, potash and other agriculture
| inputs are very expensive, which partly traces back to energy
| costs (natural gas) and sanctions (Belarus/Russia). Adding the
| Ukraine war to this puts a huge percent of global exports at
| risk, with at least some people naming it as the biggest supply
| shock in a lifetime:
| https://twitter.com/ScottIrwinUI/status/1499137998386085889
|
| It's not just the supply shock, but everyone expecting rough
| conditions this year _before_ the war started. Primed with
| those conditions and a commodity where not having any means
| millions /billions of people starve, it's easy to see how
| supply concerns can set off some very sharp movements. Energy
| and food inflation like this has a history of setting off
| events like the Arab Spring; it's a very inelastic market and
| governments don't have the option of not paying.
|
| I'm no commodities expert though.
|
| Here's an article on effects in Egypt:
| https://mei.edu/publications/russia-ukraine-war-has-turned-e...
| teej wrote:
| It's clearly a supply shock.
| adam_arthur wrote:
| Commodity speculators can push prices up for sure.
|
| But they are also huge markets where most buyer/sellers
| actually intend to use the product. On top of that, global
| inflation was already pushing up price of most commodities
| (excess goods spending due to govt stimulus, among other
| things, such as substitution).
|
| Oil is a much more dire situation, as demand is increasing
| faster than structural supply. Higher oil does push people
| towards renewables, but at large cost to the poor. Also acts as
| multiplier to pretty much all other goods production.
| tenpies wrote:
| Probably zero.
|
| The WSB-types generally do not touch futures contract because
| the margin requirements can be quite high (a single contract is
| generally tens of thousands of dollars).
|
| Much of this is also fundamentals. ESG = energy stops growing
| and as the West continued down its self-destructive energy
| policies, an energy crisis was basically guaranteed. Recall
| that energy prices in Europe were at all time highs already.
| The US has largely been saved thanks to the previous POTUS who
| prioritized energy independence. Even if the current US
| Administration threw that away, they haven't been in power long
| enough to completely sabotage their own energy production.
|
| Where it is now a supply crunch is in agriculture. You have one
| of the largest producers of wheat, fertilizer components, and a
| couple of other things; invading another of the largest
| producers of wheat, fertilizer components, and a couple of
| other things.
|
| Add to this a backdrop of woke politics and cancel culture
| spreading into diplomacy and you have the West self-destructing
| itself over what would - in normal times - be a regional issue
| at best.
|
| TL:DR we're in trouble. And that's before even talking about
| how the West has weaponized finance and now fundamentally
| changed the rules by which globalization worked. That's going
| to have some really nefarious effects a la 2008 GFC, but much
| worst.
| Jerry2 wrote:
| Given the dire situation and prospects for the future, doubling
| of the wheat prices is completely rational. Some countries are
| now also imposing export bans. [1] That won't stop price
| increases but at least they'll still have wheat and will be able
| to use it. Another crisis to keep an eye on is the global
| fertilizer shortage [2]. Near future looks pretty bleak.
|
| [1] https://uk.finance.yahoo.com/news/hungary-ban-grain-
| exports-...
|
| [2] https://www.wthitv.com/news/global-nitrogen-fertilizer-
| short...
| Azsy wrote:
| Wheat is not the only problem, fertilizer prices are also
| disrupted and it might get worse.
|
| Next to the deaths in Ukraine, we might thank Putin for 100
| million plus deaths by famine within the 3 years.
| warner_of_doom wrote:
| We could simply not sanction agriculture-related exports. That
| would be moral, IMO.
| giantg2 wrote:
| It's not the sanctions directly. Putin is retaliating by
| instructing that fertilizer not be exported to the west.
| warner_of_doom wrote:
| We need to start negotiating on that right now. We need to
| open up negotiations on this point immediately. Arab Spring
| x 10k is about to hit the entire world, and the result will
| be 10k times as nasty.
| Azsy wrote:
| We are well past sanction stories and moved into national
| security by banning export:
| https://tradingeconomics.com/china/exports-of-fertilizers
|
| The only real solution i see is to stop feeding the animals
| with stuff humans could eat and make a point of global
| solidarity. I say this as a avid meat eater, but I'm not
| holding my breath.
| warner_of_doom wrote:
| Why is the media here in the US not reporting on the fact
| that grain prices are going to quadruple if sanctions on
| agricultural products and inputs are not lifted?
|
| Do they want to see the whole world destabilized by a
| famine?
|
| This is ridiculous.
| giantg2 wrote:
| The restrictions aren't necessarily on the import side.
| Even if they are, it's irrelevant since Putin has placed
| restrictions on the _export side_.
| warner_of_doom wrote:
| We need to open up negotiations on this point
| immediately. Arab Spring x 10k is about to hit the entire
| world, and the result will be 10k times as nasty.
| ck2 wrote:
| Even if Putin was somehow deposed tomorrow and somehow the
| invasion ended, that curve is not coming back down any time soon.
|
| Kind of like gas prices during/after invasion of Iraq? Despite
| local production availability, it was an opportunistic hike.
|
| What's weird though is I noticed a price spike and then sudden
| unavailability of many wheat products just after New Years.
| mynameishere wrote:
| Right after a news story about Putin getting deposed will be a
| news story about the Baltics being invaded. So, careful about
| what you wish for.
| umanwizard wrote:
| > Even if Putin was somehow deposed tomorrow and somehow the
| invasion ended, that curve is not coming back down any time
| soon.
|
| Why not? If everything normalized tomorrow, what would stop
| Russia and Ukraine from resuming wheat shipments?
| DiabloD3 wrote:
| Technically, nothing. If you ended up with a 100% pro-
| Ukranian Russian government, they could immediately cease
| fire, and begin talks with the entire world on resuming
| commerce.
|
| They may have to invent a new currency, but this would be
| what, the fourth Russian currency in modern times? Nothing
| new.
| thriftwy wrote:
| An interesting plan. What if Russians don't agree?
| DiabloD3 wrote:
| I see no reason why the Russian people won't agree, they
| almost universally despise Putin, especially after just
| sending a bunch of kids to die on the front lines with no
| supplies or plan.
|
| The only people who worship Putin are a vocal, dangerous,
| and violent minority that are about to find themselves
| persona non grata in their own homeland.
| ed25519FUUU wrote:
| Who is to say Putin isn't deposed by somebody even more
| ruthless than himself?
| umanwizard wrote:
| We are talking about the hypothesis that the invasion ends
| and relations are normalized.
| [deleted]
| thesuperbigfrog wrote:
| >> If everything normalized tomorrow, what would stop Russia
| and Ukraine from resuming wheat shipments?
|
| The effects of war are not magically undone when the war
| ends.
|
| If the war ended today, it would take Ukraine decades to
| recover. Pictures like these do not show the people whose
| lives have been shattered or lost:
|
| https://news.sky.com/story/ukraine-invasion-before-and-
| after...
|
| Similarly, the sanctions on Russia are only a symbol of the
| loss of trust and willingness to cooperate that many people
| throughout the world feel. How many years or decades will it
| take to build back that trust?
| Aperocky wrote:
| wheat does not need trust, it is not a fiat currency.
| thesuperbigfrog wrote:
| >> wheat does not need trust, it is not a fiat currency.
|
| As I said above, when given the choice many people choose
| not to do business with murderous criminal thugs.
|
| If someone killed your family members or friends would
| you buy grain from them? Or would you pay more and buy
| grain from someone else?
| umanwizard wrote:
| Your picture is not of a destroyed wheat field, so what is
| your point?
|
| Everything in the linked story claims that wheat shortages
| are due to short-term disruption, not productive capacity
| having been destroyed.
|
| > How many years or decades will it take to build back that
| trust?
|
| That's irrelevant to the discussion. You don't need to
| trust someone in order to buy wheat from them. The actual
| sanctions are what matter, not whatever they "symbolize".
| And there's no reason to believe the sanctions would last
| for years or decades if Putin were deposed and Russia's
| aggressive actions stopped.
| thesuperbigfrog wrote:
| >> Your picture is not of a destroyed wheat field, so
| what is your point? Everything in the linked story claims
| that wheat shortages are due to short-term disruption,
| not productive capacity having been destroyed.
|
| Wheat fields don't harvest themselves. Wheat can't drive
| itself to ports and load itself on ships. It requires
| people and infrastructure. The war has disrupted those
| people and the country's infrastructure. It does not
| magically return when the war ends.
|
| >> You don't need to trust someone in order to buy wheat
| from them.
|
| Yes, but when given the choice many people choose not to
| do business with murderous criminal thugs. If someone
| killed your family members or friends would you buy grain
| from them? Or would you pay more and buy grain from
| someone else?
|
| >> And there's no reason to believe the sanctions would
| last for years or decades if Putin were deposed and
| Russia's aggressive actions stopped.
|
| Who knows? That has not happened yet.
| fidesomnes wrote:
| daxfohl wrote:
| I guess I'll never hear the end of my parents saying it's all
| Bill Gates and the WEF's plan to kill us all.
| NoMoreBro wrote:
| This reminds me of "The Death of Grass", a really interesting
| (and now scaring) post-apocalyptic science fiction novel (1959)
|
| https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Death_of_Grass
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