"Other key drivers are ethnic, religious and tribal divisions many within national borders, corruption, repressive regimes, wealth disparity and a failure in some countries to more equitably share the wealth of oil revenues."

If this paragraph is put throught the filter of many recent OLO comments we end up with:

Other key drivers [of feelings of instability is the perception of] ethnic, religious and tribal divisions within Australia's borders, corruption, repressive regimes, wealth disparity and a failure to more equitably share the wealth of this country's natural resources revenues.

Hmmm...

The west might not be able to do a lot about instability in the developing world, but it can at least avoid fanning the flames.

Biofuels are increasing food prices and contributing to civil unrest. Unrest leads to death and misery. On top of that, biofuels are nothing more than a rich green indulgence. It's time the farce was ended.

Well said, Julie Bishop.

Oh if only it were that simple. Julie forgets the law of unintended
consequences. Fact is that it costs money to grow food. Oil,
fertilisers, machinery etc, all need to be paid for. As it is
farming is already one of the least profitable of industries, so
if prices went down too much, people would simply not bother growing
the stuff. In fact we could grow alot more food, if it was worth
doing.

I sold some oats a couple of weeks ago. In my pocket will land up
around 18c a kg for those oats. They will be turned into breakfast
cereal and flogged to you people for 5-8$ a kg. What they paid me
has little to do with what they charge you.

Wheat has gone from 20c a kg to 30c. That might just let farmers
scrape through another year, given near drought like conditions and
keep paying the bankers, given their 59 billion$ of debt in Australia.

If wheat remained at 20c, more of the near bankrupt farms would
have to be flogged off to the Chinese or no crop at all grown.

The ever teeming mass of people is not going to be solved by bankrupting
farming. Try some good old family planning. In places
like Yemen they still breed like rabbits. No wonder they can't feed
them all.

"Other key drivers are ethnic, religious and tribal divisionsmany within national borders, corruption, repressive regimes, wealth disparity and a failure in some countries to more equitably share the wealth of oil revenues."

Julie et al,

Australia and the U.S. are heading in the same direction, as the gap between the haves and the have-nots increases. This scenario is also exacerbated by the influx of tribal and religious refugees who hate one another in their home lands and bring this hatred to ours. Believe me, it is not going to get better.

David

What is the author advocating? Is the Deputy Leader of the Opposition advocating that more grain be converted to ethanol so that more vicious dictators are overthrown or that less be converted so people continue to starve less under brutal dictators?

I like the points Wm Trevor made as they point out the problems associated with having society composed of the 1% and the 99%.
How do the incomes of the likes of the CEO of ANZ (and other pigs at the trough executives) get usefully spent in the economy. They don't!

Basically those salaries add to inflationary pressure on asset prices and are thus a burden on those seeking houses to live in.

When BHP had some manufacturing activities, the salary ratios between the about six steps from front line supervisor to CEO was about 1.4 so the CEO reward was 6 to 8 times that of the FLS, or should have been.

Many CEO aren't geniuses and the only sure recipe for success for a large company is that it has an effective executive committee with no dictator.

It looks like Foyle and Trevor are memebers of 99% and the Occupy movement. I think the recent movie about these groups was great, espcially when the big guy with the mouth guard bashed everyone and blew up things.

Oh wait, that was that stupid Batman movie.