Europe riots, food prices rise and jobs disappear: whats next for the US?
Almost a year ago I wrote an article on the possibility that food and energy shortages could foment social unrest in the US. (“How Far is the US From Food Shortages and Food Riots?”) A few folk called me nuts. One said it would never happen, and, indeed, I pray that he is right. However, the paranoiac in me knows that it doesn’t take much for human beings to lose that thin veneer of civilization, that some of us possess and start embarrassing the apes, to which some maintain we are related. Europe is already seeing unrest, and many European leaders are worried about the fallout from the high energy prices and skyrocketing food prices. France’s Minister of Finance said as much to the BBC, noting that the world’s leadership needs to send a reassuring message to their citizens. Christine Lagarde said trust in the financial system needed to be restored. Leaders needed to send a clear, understandable signal to ordinary people about how governments were intending to act, she added. (BBC, 1-3
