Tom offers his top ten foreign policy wish list for 2008. Two excerpts. On his #8 I would like to know more about the demand and supply-side factors explaining the food price increases. We know the biofuels craze is part of the story. And Tom is correct about the transitioning population out of poverty generating growing demand. Neither of these factors seems popular with the media, who are more interested in writing about the “widening income gap”.
8. More attention to rising global food prices.
By adding half the world to the global economy over the past generation, globalization dramatically raised income levels for hundreds of millions. The result? They all want to eat better. That demand raises food prices just as global warming and the push for biofuels re-jigger regional production patterns, adding further upward pressure. With global food stores tighter than ever, we need some innovative political leadership.
7. Less demographic demagoguery from nativist know-nothings.
CNN’s sad decline - see Lou Dobbs and Glenn Beck, if you must - means America now has a choice in immigration fear-mongering (look out, Fox!). Amid a worldwide boom in tourism and transnational job commuting, the U.S. makes itself as unwelcoming as possible. As presidential candidates vie to promise the highest fence, we trash a national brand that’s long been the envy of the world. Have you no shame, sirs?
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