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[Clansgian AT wmconnect.com]

> > As oil and 
> gas get more expensive again, food prices will go up more. People will sigh 
> and pay it. 

Lynn, the wrinkle in this is that food production and distribution has become 
a business with investors, financial backers, futures, margins, leveraging, 
etc.

Look at Zimbabwe (coming to a country near you!).  The white farmers were 
businessmen and were so successful conducting business that Zimbabwe was 
food-wealthy and supported the food needs of all its neighboring countries.  
When the 
business model was destroyed by land "redistribution", production fell to 
nothing.

In Zimbabwe, it wasn't just a matter of food getting more and more expensive. 
 Rather the food producing mechanism went out of business completely.  Very 
little food is produced there now and the country depends heavily on imports 
and starves at that.

Like that, in this country food production is a business.  It is utterly 
depenedent on investors and financial backing.  Once that isn't there, 
there's no 
motivation whatever to engage in the business.  The danger Kuntsler (rightly) 
sees is that given the right circumstances, the mega-farms and 
mega-agribusiness companies one day simply look at the bottom line and say, 
"Not this year, 
no point in planting, no profit to be made, we'll just invest our money some 
place else."