Wheat Prices in Vancouver

Seriously. This is what I need to to talk about right now. It might not be as popular as Bed Bugs in Vancouver, but hey, its ruining my life. I work at a deli. A very, very popular deli called So.cial at Le Magasin. We recently adjusted our prices to the ridiculous inflation of wheat prices not once but twice. I will say this once people, there are people fucking rioting in the streets to get a bag of grain. $14 for a humongous sandwich and a bag of chips isn't a bad deal. Suck it up you self-important schmucks, this is the realization that an economy structured entirely around the myth of an endless bountiful of energy, a system that is unable to subtract, unable to reflect the true price of things. This is the world of Peak Food. Jesus, even the National Post have figured it out by now.

I get paid 10 bucks an hour to feed what feels like the entire population of Gastown, and all I hear are people complain. Yes, it actually costs us a dollar to wrap your sandwich into two separate packages. That's because you're douche-bag friends on Howe Street are raking it in on Wheat Futures. Can you believe there is such a thing as Wheat Futures in the first place? What's next, water futures? Or is that totally already happening? Fuck it, all I know is that your sammich is 14 dollars and either pay or don't. Sorry if I come across rude, I just don't really want to hear about it from you becuase I'm super busy, mmm kay? Next...

Thats why Canada has thus far postponed the coming depression. Commodity prices such as softwood lumber, wheat, electricity, gold have allowed for neo-conservative regimes across the board to enjoy the populism of tax cuts while refusing to ameliorate impending social and environmental collapse. Instead they are pouring back into futuristic gadgetry, twiddling knobs on an obsolete economic machine, propping it up with duct tape and 'security spending'. But its OK, the arctic is opening up soon, and we just landed on Mars. So. Things are looking up.

Meanwhile, the connection between the Oil Economy, the PetroDollar, a warming climate, urban domestic poverty and institutionalized racism, were all exposed back in 2005 when Katrina hit and all of a sudden gas prices spiked. I remember the signs were too and had to be changed like some weird flashback to Y2K. Back in 2005 I was shocked that the Government wanted to twin the Port Mann as well as make a new crossing at Maple Ridge as the Patullo was falling into disrepair and while Peak Oil was beginning to crest. In fact, and I do bring this up often, but this is why I wanted to run as a candidate for the Green Party. They were the only ones against highway expansion. Now, only 3 years later we're starting to feel the effect. But its cool because we'll have a nice new road to Deltaport through our ever-shrinking Agricultural Land Reserve. I mean can you believe the irony? As wheat prices skyrocket because farmers are using land for ethanol so we can keep driving everywhere all the time, we're expanding our ports so we can import our food from across the world at staggering prices, while we use up the last of our arable land. Meh, we can always tear up the suburbs and turn them back to farmland.

PS No Morning Brew tomorrow I don't have a computer anymore...

image by Murray Siple.