.....and it shall come to pass, that when they shall be hungry, they shall
fret themselves, and curse their king and their God, and look upward. And they shall look unto the earth; and behold trouble and darkness, dimness of anguish; and they shall be driven to darkness.
Isaiah 8:21,22
"........explained why
with prices already soaring, global inflation was about to go into
overdrive as the leading food price indicator that is the Bloomberg Agri
spot index hit the highest level in six years.
In a nutshell, this is a problem since food is a large
component of CPI baskets in Asia, and "this large inflationary impulse
in the region that houses more than half the world’s population should
result in higher wage costs in the factory base of the world. As CPI and
PPI rise in Asia, it will feed through globally in the months ahead"...........the importance of this record surge "extends far beyond your
weekly shop, as there’s an extensive literature connecting higher food
prices to periods of social unrest."
Indeed, you’ll notice from
the chart that the last big surge from the middle of 2010 to early 2011
coincided with the start of the Arab Spring, for which food inflation
is regarded as a contributing factor.
While this is hardly new - we discussed it in "Why Albert Edwards Is Starting To Panic About Soaring Food Prices" and in "We Are Edging Closer To A Biblical Commodity Price Increase Scenario" - Reid also reminds us that emerging
markets are more vulnerable to this trend, since their consumers spend a
far greater share of their income on food than those in the developed
world.
---The French Revolution of 1789, which overthrew the Ancien 
Régime, came
after a succession of poor harvests that led to major rises in food
prices.
---It was a similar story at the time of Europe’s 1848 revolutions
too, which followed the failure of potato crops in the 1840s and the
associated severe famine in much of Europe.
---And the 1917 overthrow of
the Tsarist regime in Russia took place in the context of food shortages
as well..............given the hardship that’s already occurred thanks to the
pandemic, a fresh wave of unrest would be no surprise on a historical
basis...." ZeroHedge