Let Them Eat Something Or Other
Marie Antoinette did not say, "Let them eat cake" when told the peasants had no bread. That scurrilous lie was told by agitators trying to turn the populace against her. But the phrase has been around for a while and is usually interpreted as indicating aristocratic contempt for the needs of the people. (And don't believe the interwebby idiocy about "brioche", either.)
The political philosopher Jean-Jacques Rousseau mentions it in his Confessions in connection with an incident that occurred in 1740. (He stole wine while working as a tutor in Lyons and then had problems trying to scrounge up something to eat along with it.) He concludes thusly: "Finally I remembered the way out suggested by a great princess when told that the peasants had no bread: 'Well, let them eat cake.'"
But whoever said it and whenever it was said are unimportant. It does describe a disconnect between a ruling elite and the people, doesn't it? Well, that disconnect still exists. You see, bread prices are skyrocketing in Britain. Why? Well, its at least partly - if not mostly - due to the increased demand for biofuel production.
Premier Foods will force shoppers to pay up to 8p more for a loaf of Hovis after raising the price of bread for the second time this year because of an “unprecedented” surge in wheat costs.
The company, which makes Hovis, Mothers Pride and Homepride bread, said that it had no choice but to push through an increase given that wheat prices had doubled in the past 12 months after poor harvests around the world and the UK's dismal summer.
Premier Foods admitted the price rise as it revealed its pre-tax profits fell nearly 50 per cent to £13.9 million in the six months to June 30. Profits at Premier's Bread Bakeries business almost halved to £19 million.
Robert Schofield, chief executive, refused to reveal the extent of the price increase, adding that it was up to supermarkets and independent retailers whether to pass it on the additional cost of a loaf……
……Mr Schofield warned that other food products were also facing inflationary pressure, in part because of the desire by governments to give over more farmland to biofuel products.
He said: “Everyone is focusing on wheat and bread prices at the moment but there is a general inflation that hasn’t been with us since the 1990s.
“As long as governments are going to grow fuel there will be in effect an environmental tax on food.” (Emphasis added)
Kevin Hawkins, director general of the British Retail Consortium, said he believed shoppers would be able to weather higher bread prices.
Yeah, yeah. Let them eat whatever, right? Some folks are denying that it is the biofuels, of course. But a strong indicator that there really is a fire with all that smoke is the sharp decrease in profits for the company. Food prices have only just begun to climb - there is no end in sight. The increases are happening in every sector of the food markets. It will get worse. Remember what Sunita Narain, the head of the Centre for Science and Environment in India had to say about biofuel? Biofuels were "good as an idea, bad in practice." The elites are pushing biofuels without regard to the impact it will have on all those little people out there.
Let them eat whatever.
Energy, Environment | Gaius Tuesday, 4 September , 2007
By Robert, Friday, 7 September , 2007 @ 11:15 am
Burning your food for fuel makes about as much sense as cutting down a large tree, making a bunch of fine furniture out of it that you use regularly, and then when winter comes, burning that furniture for heat. There’s a reason we burned stuff like coal, oil, and natural gas for energy, rather than food. The Archer Daniels Midland corn-o-hol corporate welfare is now starting to bear bitter fruit. I don’t think we want to end up like Ethiopia, where they have plenty of agricultural land to feed themselves, but because of stupid political decisions, are unable to. Can you imagine the world sending food aid to starving people in the U.S.? Let us avoid ever bringing that day about!