Who, Us?

It all started (as so many unpleasant things do) with an unfortunate comment by George W. Bush. In reference to India’s growing middle class, Bush remarked after a May 2, 2008 news conference in Missouri that, “When you start getting wealth, you start demanding better nutrition and better food, and so demand is high, and that causes the price to go up.”

In other words, formerly third world Indians, now doing much better thanks to the global economy and their own constant hard work and excellent educations, are now buying up lots of decent food and in doing so, practically taking the Godiva chocolates right out of the mouths of rich Beverly Hills matrons and their frightened little Yorkshire terriers. What’s a president to do?

Perhaps George didn’t mean it quite like that. It’s hard to say what President Bush means, so much of the time, that might well be useless to even speculate. The only certainty about it was the swift and bitter reaction from across the globe.

Pradeep Mehta, Secretary General of the Center for International Trade responded tartly that if Americans were to slim down to the size of the average middle class Indian, “many hungry people in sub-Saharan Africa would find food on their plates.” Mehta further suggested that perhaps the money spent on liposuction in the US could be diverted to third world countries to feed famine victims.

Indian academics and politicians cite overconsumption in the US for the global rise in food prices, noting that the average American consumes or throws away 3,777 calories per day while the average Indian only consumes 2440 calories. India has been growing as an industrial and economic power for the past ten years, but the spike in global food prices has only happened since the beginning of 2008.

By far the US and Europe are the largest consumers of corn and wheat, as the following graphic shows:

In addition, speculation in the commodities markets and the production of ethanol, both of which are largely Western developments and very recent ones at that, have played a part in the spike in food prices. Shortages are likely to continue, especially with recent disasters wiping out rice crops and world population rising rapidly. President Bush’s unfortunate remarks come at an equally unfortunate time, when millions are suffering and starving in Asian and African nations, and the US is at its lowest popularity worldwide in recent history, largely thanks to the tactless nature of the current administration.

The US and Canada consume more oil per person than all the other nations of the world combined, and Western trade policies arguably undercut food production in fertile parts of Africa, a point that has long been a sore spot throughout the developing world. For the highest official in the US to then suggest that India, a nation with a long history of abject poverty and suffering, is now responsible for worldwide food shortages just adds insult to injury, and worse, it makes the US look exactly like the pigs many already believe we are.

David C. Mumford, US Ambassador to India, in trying to calm the waters, said, “this is a time for increased cooperation among nations to solve this problem and hostile political commentary is not productive.” So true. So maybe our own president could keep his mouth shut for just a little while in the interest of, oh, I don’t know, not making us all look like insensitive asses.

The developing world is emerging as a competitor in the 21st century for US trade. This tide has the potential to lift all boats. We should be welcoming this trend, and working hard to find a cooperative, useful place in this new world. Especially on a topic so serious as food and the third world, we cannot afford to make ourselves into Ugly Americans, not just for the sake of decorum, but because the very people we are criticizing this way (through our president) are on the way up while we are on the way down.

There’s an old saying about that in the world of 9 to 5 work.

Maybe someone ought to explain it George.