When people are hungry they'll eat the bills... Except this probably isn't even physical money, so they'll just eat air
In communist countries the state would do the thing that capitalists countries already do.
I didn’t really have a strong grasp on how much wheat 4M metric tons is, so I did a very rough calculation. My sourdough recipe uses roughly 455 grams of flour.
So this is enough for 26 loaves of bread for all 330M people (probably closer to 20-24 since wheat to flour is not 1-1 but we’ll say 10% of mass is lost maybe).
That’s for the full 4M t stockpile. Apparently the remaining amount that was sold off in 2008 wasn’t even a full 1M t. So that’s only 6 loaves of bread per person. That’s a joke, if we’re in a situation where a stockpile of grain actually needs to be consumed.
I bet the US govt hasn’t been capable of carrying out “convert nationally-stored grain to food (or foodstuffs) and distribute it to citizens” in several decades, or even managing the logistics of deciding how to send it to mills/food producers.
I bet they could have managed the logistics if it was to feed soldiers to put down uprisings. But of course they decided that was still a dumb idea, so now when shit hits the fan soldiers have a huge incentive to pillage, like the good old days, or just go rogue/insurrectionary.
Converting the stockpile to money sounds like a great way to support bureaucratic embezzlement by all the failsons who get that job
It's about 12 kilos apiece- a 25-lb bag of flour for every adult and child in America.
If the left can't get a foothold in food production, we're doomed. If we can, then our future seems a lot more secure. I put together an effortpost about a certain way to organize around this a while ago and I figured I'd share it here in case anyone feels particularly passionate about organizing around food but doesn't know where to begin.
The Bill Emerson Humanitarian Trust (BEHT) is a special authority in Agricultural Act of 2014, also known as the Farm Bill, that allows USAID’s Office of Food for Peace (FFP) to respond to unanticipated food crises abroad, when other Title II resources are not available.
Am I missing it elsewhere down the article, or is this just the food that America uses for foreign aid purposes, and not the food reserves for domestic purposes?
Yeah, the reality is even worse, the US government does not have a domestic food reserve
"The government has in the past stockpiled food, but these programs were mainly to support farmers hurt by low prices. For example, in the late 1970s and early 1980s, the Department of Agriculture (USDA) bought surplus dairy products, which it distributed to Americans via various welfare programs. Food stockpiling has been a point of debate in negotiations at the World Trade Organization because some critics say it distorts trade flows."
https://www.newswise.com/politics/the-state-of-u-s-strategic-stockpiles/?article_id=733428
As far as I can tell, the last vestiges of any domestic government food stockpile were ended in the Clinton years.
