The Times Gets It Wrong on Food Prices [Kevin D. Williamson]
Chris Blattman has some interesting criticism of the New York Times' reporting on food prices:
The New York Times continues to substitute hyperbole for information in its reporting on rising food prices:
Hunger bashed in the front gate of Haiti’s presidential palace. Hunger poured onto the streets, burning tires and taking on soldiers and the police. Hunger sent the country’s prime minister packing.
Haiti’s hunger, that burn in the belly that so many here feel, has become fiercer than ever in recent days as global food prices spiral out of reach, spiking as much as 45 percent since the end of 2006 and turning Haitian staples like beans, corn and rice into closely guarded treasures.
It's a cute opening. If it were followed by substance, analysis, and insight, it might even work. Instead we get 3,000 words of "the children are dying". Yes, children are dying. The problem is an urgent one. But there is a more nuanced story here, and I subscribe to the Times instead of watching Fox News so I can get it.
First, we need to be a little less Amero-centric. From John Quiggin:
prices for commodities, including oil as well as most ag commodities, are typically quoted in $US. In a situation where, for obvious reasons, the value of the $US is declining against all major currencies, this can be quite misleading. Measured against the euro, the currency of the world’s largest unified economy, the increase looks a lot less steep.
Short story: let's not mix up the U.S. currency crisis—that is, mortgage meltdowns and overspending on overseas wars—with global food prices.
Second, I am flabbergasted that almost no newspaper has mentioned there are people in poor countries who actually sell commodities.
Bingo and amen on that final point. It's the same old "George W. Bush walked on water, and the New York Times headlined the story: 'President Can't Swim'." No matter what the story, the media will find a take that reads, roughly: "Oh sweet Lord, the world is ending, the Third World poor will be hit hardest,* and it's all the fault of the United States of America and profit-making enterprises." When wages go up, it's "Inflation threatens economy" and when wages go down it's "Oh, sweet Lord, Americans are going to be standing in soup lines." When profits are down, the economy is collapsing and America has been eclipsed; when business is good, evil corporations are raking in record profits while lighting exotic cigars with $100 bills and using poor people for furniture.
A big chunk of the truly poor people on this planet are small-scale farmers. Higher crop prices are a very good thing for them. And a big reason that prices for food and energy are going up is that several hundred million people who were desperately poor in India and China have, thanks to microdoses of capitalism, become a bit less desperately poor and have added a few hundred calories a day to their diets and electricity to their homes. If the New York Times had any wit, they could keep up the barrage of negativity by headlining the story: "Overweight Americans now forced to compete with world's poor for carbs."
—-
* The best version of the End of the World headline joke is Al Neuharth's telling: "The world ends. How do the three big papers play the story? New York Times: World Ends, Third World Nations Hit Hardest. Wall Street Journal: World Ends, Dow Closes at Zero. USA Today: World Ends; Sports, Page 22!
04/18 01:37 PM
Share
