The global shortage of grains has reached a geopolitical tipping point, and governments around the world are taking action. Marla Dial reports.

http://www.stratfor.com/podcast/food_crisis_2008_tipping_point

April 18, 2008
OP-ED COLUMNIST
How Obama Fell to Earth

By DAVID BROOKS
Back in Iowa, Barack Obama promised to be something new — an unconventional leader who would confront unpleasant truths, embrace novel policies and unify the country. If he had knocked Hillary Clinton out in New Hampshire and entered general-election mode early, this enormously thoughtful man would have become that.

But he did not knock her out, and the aura around Obama has changed. Furiously courting Democratic primary voters and apparently exhausted, Obama has emerged as a more conventional politician and a more orthodox liberal.

He sprinkled his debate performance Wednesday night with the sorts of fibs, evasions and hypocrisies that are the stuff of conventional politics. He claimed falsely that his handwriting wasn’t on a questionnaire about gun control. He claimed that he had never attacked Clinton for her exaggerations about the Tuzla airport, though his campaign was all over it. Obama piously condemned the practice of lifting other candidates’ words out of context, but he has been doing exactly the same thing to John McCain, especially over his 100 years in Iraq comment.

Obama also made a pair of grand and cynical promises that are the sign of someone who is thinking more about campaigning than governing.

He made a sweeping read-my-lips pledge never to raise taxes on anybody making less than $200,000 to $250,000 a year. That will make it impossible to address entitlement reform any time in an Obama presidency. It will also make it much harder to afford the vast array of middle-class tax breaks, health care reforms and energy policy Manhattan Projects that he promises to deliver.

Then he made an iron vow to get American troops out of Iraq within 16 months. Neither Obama nor anyone else has any clue what the conditions will be like when the next president takes office. He could have responsibly said that he aims to bring the troops home but will make a judgment at the time. Instead, he rigidly locked himself into a policy that will not be fully implemented for another three years.

If Obama is elected, he will either go back on this pledge — in which case he would destroy his credibility — or he will risk genocide in the region and a viciously polarizing political war at home.

Then there are the cultural issues. Charles Gibson and George Stephanopoulos of ABC News are taking a lot of heat for spending so much time asking about Jeremiah Wright and the “bitter” comments. But the fact is that voters want a president who basically shares their values and life experiences. Fairly or not, they look at symbols like Michael Dukakis in a tank, John Kerry’s windsurfing or John Edwards’s haircut as clues about shared values.

When Obama began this ride, he seemed like a transcendent figure who could understand a wide variety of life experiences. But over the past months, things have happened that make him seem more like my old neighbors in Hyde Park in Chicago.

Some of us love Hyde Park for its diversity and quirkiness, as there are those who love Cambridge and Berkeley. But it is among the more academic and liberal places around. When Obama goes to a church infused with James Cone-style liberation theology, when he makes ill-informed comments about working-class voters, when he bowls a 37 for crying out loud, voters are going to wonder if he’s one of them. Obama has to address those doubts, and he has done so poorly up to now.

It was inevitable that the period of “Yes We Can!” deification would come to an end. It was not inevitable that Obama would now look so vulnerable. He’ll win the nomination, but in a matchup against John McCain, he is behind in Florida, Missouri and Ohio, and merely tied in must-win states like Michigan, Minnesota, New Jersey and Pennsylvania. A generic Democrat now beats a generic Republican by 13 points, but Obama is trailing his own party. One in five Democrats say they would vote for McCain over Obama.

General election voters are different from primary voters. Among them, Obama is lagging among seniors and men. Instead of winning over white high school-educated voters who are tired of Bush and conventional politics, he does worse than previous nominees. John Judis and Ruy Teixeira have estimated a Democrat has to win 45 percent of such voters to take the White House. I’ve asked several of the most skillful Democratic politicians over the past few weeks, and they all think that’s going to be hard.

A few months ago, Obama was riding his talents. Clinton has ground him down, and we are now facing an interesting phenomenon. Republicans have long assumed they would lose because of the economy and the sad state of their party. Now, Democrats are deeply worried their nominee will lose in November.

Welcome to 2008. Everybody’s miserable.

From The Times
April 18, 2008
China passes US as second-biggest exporter
John Zaracostas in Geneva
Global trade growth is expected to slow to a six-year low of 4.5 per cent this year but China has overtaken the US as the world's second-biggest exporter, the World Trade Organisation (WTO) said yesterday.

Heavily influenced by the turmoil in financial markets and the sharp economic slowdown in leading western economies, global merchandise trade is forecast to rise by 4.5 per cent this year, against last year's 5.5 per cent.

But the WTO gave warning that a stronger slowdown in global economic growth “could cut trade much more sharply, to significantly less” than the projected level of 4.5 per cent.

Dr Patrick Low, WTO chief economist, said that in view of the downside risks, the agency will probably have to revise its projections in the third or fourth quarter of this year.

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The turmoil in the financial markets, he said, “has not yet fed through, as it might, in the real economy.”

WTO economists are also sceptical about how long emerging developing countries that have spearheaded global growth “can maintain a strong pace in the face of sluggish demand in major developed markets and rising inflationary pressures.”

In 2007, buoyed by strong performances by dynamic emerging economies such as China. India, Brazil, and Russia, world merchandise trade in value terms increased by 15 per cent to $13.6 trillion (£6.8 trillion).

Emerging countries accounted for more than half of the world's trade growth last year, Mr Low added.

Meanwhile, trade in commercial services, boosted by big increases in transport and travel services, last year increased by 18 per cent to $3.3 trillion, said the WTO.

Another stellar performance by China, which recorded a 26 per cent rise in its merchandise exports to $1.2 trillion, enabled it to surge ahead of the US to be ranked the world's second biggest exporter and is breathing down the neck of top-placed Germany.

The UK's decline in recorded exports of 3 per cent to $436 billion, associated with fraudulent VAT declarations, pushed it down one slot to eighth place behind Italy.

However, the UK retained its position as the world's second largest commercial services exporter, after the US, by registering a 17 per cent increase to $263 billion. Pascal Lamy, WTO director-general, said that the turmoil had not so far led to a disruption in global trade but cautioned, “protectionist pressures are building as policymakers seek answers to the problems that confront us.”

He said that the best way to reinforce the global trading system would be to conclude the Doha global trade talks, which were launched in November 2001.

Mr Lamy told senior trade envoys yesterday that with the global economy “in rough waters”, concluding the Doha round “can provide a strong anchor for the world economy.”

Ministers from about 30 leading trading nations, including the EU, the US, Brazil and India, are tentatively expected to meet in Geneva in the second half of next month to try to reach a breakthrough deal to lower barriers to trade in farm products, industrial goods and commercial services. Previous efforts had ended in failure.

HAVE YOUR SAY
The reason the German numbers are consistently high (in $$ terms) is because of the type of product they export: high end Industrial machinery, precision equipment, tools, etc as well as large numbers of transport machines, ranging from (very expensive) high speed trains to high end cars, as well as chemicals & raw steel (much in demand). They also export a lot of niche food products, especially to the US. It is difficult for competing countries to capture this market, and lots of other countries need/want the products. China is competing with low end, mass volume products on a huge scale. It may catch up within the next 5 yrs or so, but Germany will be in the top 2-3 for many more years.
F. McKane, Fremont, California, USA
Remember, these exports are based off value, and medical equipment techonology, machining technology, and advanced engineered products are Germany's specialty. In terms of tonnes, China certainly exports the most. In terms of finished goods, it would be the US. Germany leads the way in value of exports.
Chris, Scottsdale, USA/AZ
I expect the rankings are proportional to GDP, not absolute, hence Germany's unexpectedly high position.
Arturo Calzino, Elizabethtown, PA, USA

April 17, 2008
Google Profit Exceeds Forecast

By REUTERS
Filed at 4:30 p.m. ET

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - Google on Thursday posted a better-than-expected profit, defying fears the company is facing an Internet advertising slowdown and sending its shares past the $500 mark in extended trade.

The Web search leader, one of the hottest technology stocks of 2007, had seen its shares erase last year's 50 percent gain since the start of 2008 on investor concerns that the online ad industry was maturing and vulnerable to a U.S. economic downturn.

"It's a good time to be a Google bull," said Colin Gillis, an analyst with Canaccord Adams. "The boys delivered."

On Thursday, the company said first-quarter net income rose to $1.31 billion, or $4.12 per diluted share, from $1 billion, or $3.18 per share, in the year-earlier quarter.

Excluding one-time items and stock option expenses, profit was $4.84 a share, ahead of the average Wall Street forecast of $4.53 per share as compiled by Reuters Estimates.

Gross revenue rose 42 percent to $5.19 billion. By contrast, Google's revenue grew at a 63 percent rate in the same quarter a year ago.

Revenue had been expected, on average, to grow 40 percent to $5.13 billion, according to Reuters Estimates.

Traffic acquisition costs -- the cut of advertising revenue Google pays out to affiliated sites that run its ads -- amounted to 29 percent of ad revenue in the first quarter. A year ago, the proportion was 31 percent.

In addition to its own site, Google supplies Web search advertising to partners ranging from Time Warner Inc's AOL and IAC InterActiveCorp's Ask.com to News Corp's MySpace.

Google shares shot up as much as 11.5 percent to $501 in extended trading from its close of $449.54 on the Nasdaq earlier on Thursday.

(Reporting by Eric Auchard and Michele Gershberg in New York; Editing by Braden Reddall)

http://online.wsj.com/public/page/8_0004.html?bcpid=315802049&bclid=86272812&bctid=1485891296

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