Thought for food

Going by the events of the 10 days, it looks like Lady Subprime who has been grabbing all our attention has serious competition. The 'World Food Crisis' threatens to take us back to the basics and make us forget all about CDOs, Ninja loans, mortgage, etc. Many countries like India, China, Philippines, Thailand and most of Asia have taken extreme measures to curb the runaway inflation of food commodities. Most of them have banned export of rice and other food grains to curb rising prices and address shortages. The Middle East countries (GCC states) who have traditionally operated on 'oil for everything' model now face a converse scenario on food. They now look exactly as what the oil consuming countries face on fossil fuel.
This to me, looks like we are on a crisis of such fundamental nature that people will stop thinking about banks and financial market woes! Egypt witnessed the worst food riots in recent history. Ruling governments are all jittery over the mass demonstrations and protests over food prices. Much has been made of the effects of global warming, diversion of agricultural land to alternative fuel inputs, commodities trading and even GM foods.
So, we are going to see a mass movement of economists, analysts and social scientists to analyzing whether old Malthus has finally arrived on his theory. How is this going to affect the banking industry? The big S word - Stagflation promises to be the buzzword. Any hopes we had on emerging markets being decoupled from the US crisis is under question now. Emerging markets now find the very 'feel good' growth that was being hailed is a major cause of inflation.
The final irony may be in the US morphing into an attractive destination - with low prices and adequate food supply! The economic wheel may twist around to where we started.