Food Rationing
Confronts Breadbasket of the World
MOUNTAIN VIEW,
Major retailers in
At a Costco Warehouse in
“Where’s the
rice?” an engineer from
The bustling
store in the heart of
“You can’t
eat this every day. It’s too heavy,” a health care executive from
The Patels seemed headed for disappointment, as most Costco
members were being allowed to buy only one bag. Moments earlier, a clerk
dropped two sacks back on the stack after taking them from another customer who
tried to exceed the one-bag cap.
“Due to the limited availability of
rice, we are limiting rice purchases based on your prior purchasing history,” a
sign above the dwindling supply said.
Shoppers
said the limits had been in place for a few days, and that rice supplies had been
spotty for a few weeks. A store manager referred questions to officials at
Costco headquarters near
An employee at the Costco store in
The curbs
and shortages are being tracked with concern by survivalists who view the
phenomenon as a harbinger of more serious trouble to come.
“It’s
sporadic. It’s not every store, but it’s becoming more commonplace,” the editor
of SurvivalBlog.com, James
Rawles, said. “The number of reports I’ve been
getting from readers who have seen signs posted with limits has increased
almost exponentially, I’d say in the last three to five weeks.” (As their warehouse system is bled dry)
Spiking food
prices have led to riots in recent weeks in
“I’m
surprised the Bush administration hasn’t slapped export controls on wheat,” Mr.
Rawles said. “The Asian countries are here buying
every kind of wheat.”
Mr. Rawles said it is hard to know how much of the shortages
are due to lagging supply and how much is caused by consumers hedging against
future price hikes or a total lack of product.
“There have
been so many stories about worldwide shortages that it encourages people to
stock up. What most people don’t realize is that supply chains have changed, so
inventories are very short,” Mr. Rawles, a former
Army intelligence officer, said. “Even if people increased their purchasing by 20%, all the
store shelves would be wiped out.” A few years
ago there were commercials from UPS about an inventory-less model where store
no longer carried any back stock but that they instead received daily the stock
that they were to sell – The add boasted that this was smart and savvy business
– at the I told my children that this was very bad, as if there would come a
time that a shortage would occur, or buying demand would increase in a panic –
like what happens in Florida when a hurricane’s landfall is imminent food,
plywood tarps generators are suddenly all gone for 100 miles or more in the
area and the result is for weeks the items are in short supply in the entire
area or business zone.
Not too long ago companies carried backstock
in the store every supermarket and store had their own warehouse in back – well
since the 1990’s that was all done with as all the company’s leaned themselves
out to the limit removing the cost of holding this inventory, and moving to a
completely fluid state of stock in the store to maximize profitability. In other words the stores and store chains
have become poorer and are only big hollow fronts, these chains have also
removed many local warehouses in their systems so that they have now only regional
hubs that have
only a few days or a weeks supplies at best.
This is no accident. This nation is being
humbled by the hand of God. We are suffering drought in parts of this nation at
a time when there should be an abundance of rain, God is beginning to put the squeeze
on this once great nation, the nation is not being troubled for the actions of
the unsaved though they do evil in the eyes of the Lord, Not it is the Klesia,
King Saul that lives in wealth and avarice that has forsaken Jesus Christ and
His blood that purchases and redeemed these.
God will bring this nation to its needs if those that are called by His
Name within our borders do not repent and forsake their perverse ways, and put
from them that which the Lord hates.
At the
moment, large chain retailers seem more prone to shortages and limits than do
smaller chains and mom-and-pop stores, perhaps because store managers at the
larger companies have less discretion to increase prices locally.
Mr. Rawles said the spot shortages seemed to be most frequent in the
Northeast and all the way along the West Coast. He said he had heard reports of buying limits
at Sam’s Club warehouses, which are owned by Wal-Mart Stores, but a spokesman for the company, Kory Lundberg, said he was not aware of any
shortages or limits.
An anonymous high-tech professional
writing on an investment Web site, Seeking Alpha, said he recently bought 10
50-pound bags of rice at Costco. “I am concerned that when the news of rice shortage
spreads, there will be panic buying and the shelves will be empty in no time. I do not intend to cause
a panic, and I am not speculating on rice to make profit. I am just hoarding
some for my own consumption,” he wrote.
For now,
rice is available at Asian markets in