5 ms·

The UN reported back in April 2020 that lockdowns would cause over 130,000,000 people to starve. That's close to half of the US population. Most of countries i

by hajile 5y ago

The UN reported back in April 2020 that lockdowns would cause over 130,000,000 people to starve. That's close to half of the US population. Most of countries in South America pay an average of $1-3 per hour. Bangladesh pay as little as $0.09 per hour and Sudan pays a mere $0.04 per hour. Dozens of poor, African and Asian countries pay less than $0.30 per hour. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_minimum_wage https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_minimum_w... When international food prices go up, the "poor" in the US become inconvenienced. Elsewhere across the world, hundreds of millions starve.

freewilly1040 5y ago
Have those predictions come to pass?
- ekianjo 5y ago
  Ever heard of something called the Arab Spring?
- hajile 5y ago
  Yes More precisely, they say 118M extra people in 2020 which is 12M less than projected, but that's small comfort to the hundred-million people who can't get enough to eat. https://www.worldbank.org/en/topic/agriculture/brief/food-security-and-covid-19 https://www.worldbank.org/en/topic/agriculture/brief/food-se...
  - danans 5y ago
    That's not all due to the pandemic, according to your own link: > Hunger was trending upward even before the COVID-19 pandemic, which exacerbated existing effects from extreme climate events, conflict, and other shocks to economic opportunities.
    - hajile 5y ago
      COVID death toll across the entire world is only around 5M. Only a tiny fraction of that 118M is needed to make COVID look like nothing in comparison.
      - danans 5y ago
        118M is the increase in people facing chronic hunger. 5M are deaths. Those aren't the same thing. Nobody would say that chronic hunger isn't horrible - it is - but it is highly disingenuous to compare it directly with deaths. Chronic hunger is a systemic issue. There are simply too many confounding factors to arbitrarily place the blame for a given % of hunger increase on COVID mitigation measures. We know it had some significant effect, but can't say much beyond that, and certainly can't draw any conclusions about whether the measures were appropriate or optimal based on that. To do so would be lying with numbers to advance an agenda. Furthermore, letting the virus run wild and kill millions more could have resulted in tremendous increase in hunger itself - economies and supply chains don't handle mass death well, ever. Now you might say that is speculation, but it's no moreso than the % of 118M argument that you forwarded. It's far to early to be Monday morning quarterbacking the pandemic - we are still very much in all dimensions of it.
      - random314 5y ago
        > COVID death toll across the entire world is only around 5M. Gross underestimate, india itself has an excess mortality of 5M or more.
sudosysgen 5y ago
That's a bullshit argument. Farmers have never been stopped seriously by lockdowns outside of the first world where migrant workers are used. The food is there. Those countries have price controls, so the food won't be burnt.
- hajile 5y ago
  International food prices have gone up 25%. Many regions like Sudan or warring regions don't have enough locally-grown food. There are famines going on in FOUR countries at the moment and food growth has generally slowed the past couple years too. Your suggestion of price controls is like a certain French queen telling her starving population to just eat cake. It's easy to dismiss what these people are going through because it's far away and out of sight. I don't want to be that person. https://www.worldbank.org/en/topic/agriculture/brief/food-security-and-covid-19 https://www.worldbank.org/en/topic/agriculture/brief/food-se... https://www.un.org/en/food-systems-summit/news/2021-going-be-bad-year-world-hunger https://www.un.org/en/food-systems-summit/news/2021-going-be... https://news.un.org/en/story/2020/09/1072712 https://news.un.org/en/story/2020/09/1072712 https://news.un.org/en/story/2021/06/1094472 https://news.un.org/en/story/2021/06/1094472
  - sudosysgen 5y ago
    I'm not dismissing them. I'm telling you that international food prices do not matter. These farmers do not sell their food at international prices. That's something that's allowed in very few third world countries. I'm not making a suggestion, I'm informing you of the reality. If my family growing up had to pay international food prices I'd be dead or severely stunted. It's not far away and out of sight, I come from a third world country myself. If it weren't for these laws 99% of the food would be exported and people would starve. It's definitely an issue for regions that cannot grow their own food, yes. There are not enough of those for 130 million people to starve. And while yes, there are multiple ongoing famines, none of them are caused by lockdowns. Instead, their root cause is either drought, crop failure or predominantly war. It's important we find the right causes. Food growth has not slowed. The growth in food growth has slowed. Food production is still increasing every year. I don't mean to say that hunger is not an issue. It is. It's just that lockdowns have not been a significant issue in this respect. In the places where hunger is a deadly issue, international food prices simply do not matter.
megablast 5y ago
They get paid 1-3 an hour, and pay a fraction for their food.
- hajile 5y ago
  A fraction for their food is true, but a much larger fraction than people in the US. Furthermore, the 25% worldwide price increases matter more. An average person in the US spends $2,641 per year on food. If you're a dev making 100k per year, that's less than 3% of your income. Increase that by 25% to $3,301 and it's still just a little over 3%. https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2016/12/this-map-shows-how-much-each-country-spends-on-food/ https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2016/12/this-map-shows-how-mu... Some countries spend as much as 50% of their income on food. A 25% increase bumps that up to almost 63% of their income. Would you consider yourself in trouble if you were spending 60-65K per year on food? That's still not equivalent because your excess of 30-35K is still enough to buy lots of nice things. If you're making 5K per year, that leaves just 1-2K for everything else you need. Remember, consumer goods aren't really cheaper in these countries.
  - abcmer 5y ago
    > An average person in the US spends $2,641 per year on food. If you're a dev making 100k per year, that's less than 3% of your income. Increase that by 25% to $3,301 and it's still just a little over 3%. $2,641 per year is just over 7 bucks a day. If a $100k salaried dev is able to pull that off, it’s only because they are milking the free office food.
    - jandrewrogers 5y ago
      It simply isn’t that hard to live on $7/day in most of the US. Been there and done that. Loads of cheap, good food has always been available. Even in tech country (where I live). Eggs are $0.75/dozen here right now. Tuna is $0.79/can. Legumes round to free. Meals aren’t free but they aren’t expensive. You can live damn well on $7/day if you are remotely competent and have even basic cooking skills available to everyone. Food in the US is very inexpensive.
EdwardDiego 5y ago
Why would lockdowns cause starvation? Genuine question.
- syshum 5y ago
  Do you believe that food is just magically produced and just appears in the store shelves? Lockdowns impact the entire system, and proclaiming some jobs as "essential" and other as "non-essential" is the highest form of arrogance as all employment is essential to the business that employs the person or they would not have the employee. Supply Chain's are very fragile, as the world has come to see, you toss a monkey wrench in the center of that by have governments attempt a top down mandated lock down where they deiced by fiat who should work, who should not, well you are going to have a bad time. As history has shown now. Central Planning never works, never has worked, and never will work. People need to stop trying it
  - EdwardDiego 5y ago
    > Do you believe that food is just magically produced and just appears in the store shelves? Yes, that's obviously what I believe. Thanks for the condescension, I see we're off to a great start. > Lockdowns impact the entire system, and proclaiming some jobs as "essential" and other as "non-essential" is the highest form of arrogance as all employment is essential to the business that employs the person or they would not have the employee. Okay, but presumably a smart government would decide that all jobs involved in the production and transportation of foodstuffs are essential. I know my country's government did. > Supply Chain's are very fragile, as the world has come to see, you toss a monkey wrench in the center of that by have governments attempt a top down mandated lock down where they deiced by fiat who should work, who should not, well you are going to have a bad time. And how do you distinguish the monkey wrench of "government fiat" from the monkey wrench of "lots of people who work in the supply chain getting sick"? https://interactive.aljazeera.com/aje/2020/covid-19-in-us-poultry-plants/index.html https://interactive.aljazeera.com/aje/2020/covid-19-in-us-po... > Central Planning never works, never has worked, and never will work. People need to stop trying it I haven't seen any evidence that anyone tried to implement Central Planning, but I'm happy to read any you might have.

by hajile 5y ago

freewilly1040 5y ago

Have those predictions come to pass?

ekianjo 5y ago
Ever heard of something called the Arab Spring?
hajile 5y ago
Yes More precisely, they say 118M extra people in 2020 which is 12M less than projected, but that's small comfort to the hundred-million people who can't get enough to eat. https://www.worldbank.org/en/topic/agriculture/brief/food-security-and-covid-19 https://www.worldbank.org/en/topic/agriculture/brief/food-se...
- danans 5y ago
  That's not all due to the pandemic, according to your own link: > Hunger was trending upward even before the COVID-19 pandemic, which exacerbated existing effects from extreme climate events, conflict, and other shocks to economic opportunities.
  - hajile 5y ago
    COVID death toll across the entire world is only around 5M. Only a tiny fraction of that 118M is needed to make COVID look like nothing in comparison.
    - danans 5y ago
      118M is the increase in people facing chronic hunger. 5M are deaths. Those aren't the same thing. Nobody would say that chronic hunger isn't horrible - it is - but it is highly disingenuous to compare it directly with deaths. Chronic hunger is a systemic issue. There are simply too many confounding factors to arbitrarily place the blame for a given % of hunger increase on COVID mitigation measures. We know it had some significant effect, but can't say much beyond that, and certainly can't draw any conclusions about whether the measures were appropriate or optimal based on that. To do so would be lying with numbers to advance an agenda. Furthermore, letting the virus run wild and kill millions more could have resulted in tremendous increase in hunger itself - economies and supply chains don't handle mass death well, ever. Now you might say that is speculation, but it's no moreso than the % of 118M argument that you forwarded. It's far to early to be Monday morning quarterbacking the pandemic - we are still very much in all dimensions of it.
    - random314 5y ago
      > COVID death toll across the entire world is only around 5M. Gross underestimate, india itself has an excess mortality of 5M or more.

sudosysgen 5y ago

That's a bullshit argument. Farmers have never been stopped seriously by lockdowns outside of the first world where migrant workers are used. The food is there. Those countries have price controls, so the food won't be burnt.

hajile 5y ago
International food prices have gone up 25%. Many regions like Sudan or warring regions don't have enough locally-grown food. There are famines going on in FOUR countries at the moment and food growth has generally slowed the past couple years too. Your suggestion of price controls is like a certain French queen telling her starving population to just eat cake. It's easy to dismiss what these people are going through because it's far away and out of sight. I don't want to be that person. https://www.worldbank.org/en/topic/agriculture/brief/food-security-and-covid-19 https://www.worldbank.org/en/topic/agriculture/brief/food-se... https://www.un.org/en/food-systems-summit/news/2021-going-be-bad-year-world-hunger https://www.un.org/en/food-systems-summit/news/2021-going-be... https://news.un.org/en/story/2020/09/1072712 https://news.un.org/en/story/2020/09/1072712 https://news.un.org/en/story/2021/06/1094472 https://news.un.org/en/story/2021/06/1094472
- sudosysgen 5y ago
  I'm not dismissing them. I'm telling you that international food prices do not matter. These farmers do not sell their food at international prices. That's something that's allowed in very few third world countries. I'm not making a suggestion, I'm informing you of the reality. If my family growing up had to pay international food prices I'd be dead or severely stunted. It's not far away and out of sight, I come from a third world country myself. If it weren't for these laws 99% of the food would be exported and people would starve. It's definitely an issue for regions that cannot grow their own food, yes. There are not enough of those for 130 million people to starve. And while yes, there are multiple ongoing famines, none of them are caused by lockdowns. Instead, their root cause is either drought, crop failure or predominantly war. It's important we find the right causes. Food growth has not slowed. The growth in food growth has slowed. Food production is still increasing every year. I don't mean to say that hunger is not an issue. It is. It's just that lockdowns have not been a significant issue in this respect. In the places where hunger is a deadly issue, international food prices simply do not matter.

megablast 5y ago

They get paid 1-3 an hour, and pay a fraction for their food.

hajile 5y ago
A fraction for their food is true, but a much larger fraction than people in the US. Furthermore, the 25% worldwide price increases matter more. An average person in the US spends $2,641 per year on food. If you're a dev making 100k per year, that's less than 3% of your income. Increase that by 25% to $3,301 and it's still just a little over 3%. https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2016/12/this-map-shows-how-much-each-country-spends-on-food/ https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2016/12/this-map-shows-how-mu... Some countries spend as much as 50% of their income on food. A 25% increase bumps that up to almost 63% of their income. Would you consider yourself in trouble if you were spending 60-65K per year on food? That's still not equivalent because your excess of 30-35K is still enough to buy lots of nice things. If you're making 5K per year, that leaves just 1-2K for everything else you need. Remember, consumer goods aren't really cheaper in these countries.
- abcmer 5y ago
  > An average person in the US spends $2,641 per year on food. If you're a dev making 100k per year, that's less than 3% of your income. Increase that by 25% to $3,301 and it's still just a little over 3%. $2,641 per year is just over 7 bucks a day. If a $100k salaried dev is able to pull that off, it’s only because they are milking the free office food.
  - jandrewrogers 5y ago
    It simply isn’t that hard to live on $7/day in most of the US. Been there and done that. Loads of cheap, good food has always been available. Even in tech country (where I live). Eggs are $0.75/dozen here right now. Tuna is $0.79/can. Legumes round to free. Meals aren’t free but they aren’t expensive. You can live damn well on $7/day if you are remotely competent and have even basic cooking skills available to everyone. Food in the US is very inexpensive.

EdwardDiego 5y ago

Why would lockdowns cause starvation? Genuine question.

syshum 5y ago
Do you believe that food is just magically produced and just appears in the store shelves? Lockdowns impact the entire system, and proclaiming some jobs as "essential" and other as "non-essential" is the highest form of arrogance as all employment is essential to the business that employs the person or they would not have the employee. Supply Chain's are very fragile, as the world has come to see, you toss a monkey wrench in the center of that by have governments attempt a top down mandated lock down where they deiced by fiat who should work, who should not, well you are going to have a bad time. As history has shown now. Central Planning never works, never has worked, and never will work. People need to stop trying it
- EdwardDiego 5y ago
  > Do you believe that food is just magically produced and just appears in the store shelves? Yes, that's obviously what I believe. Thanks for the condescension, I see we're off to a great start. > Lockdowns impact the entire system, and proclaiming some jobs as "essential" and other as "non-essential" is the highest form of arrogance as all employment is essential to the business that employs the person or they would not have the employee. Okay, but presumably a smart government would decide that all jobs involved in the production and transportation of foodstuffs are essential. I know my country's government did. > Supply Chain's are very fragile, as the world has come to see, you toss a monkey wrench in the center of that by have governments attempt a top down mandated lock down where they deiced by fiat who should work, who should not, well you are going to have a bad time. And how do you distinguish the monkey wrench of "government fiat" from the monkey wrench of "lots of people who work in the supply chain getting sick"? https://interactive.aljazeera.com/aje/2020/covid-19-in-us-poultry-plants/index.html https://interactive.aljazeera.com/aje/2020/covid-19-in-us-po... > Central Planning never works, never has worked, and never will work. People need to stop trying it I haven't seen any evidence that anyone tried to implement Central Planning, but I'm happy to read any you might have.