Tony Franklins Other Shoe said:

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If the rains keep up, I wonder when these videos dry up. Chicoms don't appreciate evidence floating around.

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Not to put too fine a point on it but if the rains keep up and that dam fails, much of China will look like North Korea at night, no lights. There won't be power.

At this point it seems like China is facing catastrophic devastation or death due to flooding or starvation, is that a fair assessment?

This speculation has been going on for sometime now but I haven't seen anything that would suggest the dam is near failure. Is there something out there other than a satellite photo?

Also, does anyone know how bad/widespread the flooding is?

AnScAggie said:

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At this point it seems like China is facing catastrophic devastation or death due to flooding or starvation, is that a fair assessment?

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Not sure about starvation. They are buying up every major store of Ag commodity they can. Record grain and bean purchases and we aren't even into September.

fightingfarmer09 said:

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AnScAggie said:

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At this point it seems like China is facing catastrophic devastation or death due to flooding or starvation, is that a fair assessment?

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Not sure about starvation. They are buying up every major store of Ag commodity they can. Record grain and bean purchases and we aren't even into September.

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there's not enough surplus in the world to feed them for long.

also if their purchases drive up local food prices too much here domestically, expect trump to step in and curtail exports to them.

the next covid?

KorbinDallas said:

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I am a meat popsicle

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Luc Besson scratches a sweet spot for me at times. Writer, director, & producer of B movie pulp, sci-fi, action, and even indie art-house (la femme Nikita) he's like a rich man's Roger Corman with an actual budget.

Fifth Element wasn't a great film, but I loved it. Transporter was a guilty pleasure too.

Ags4DaWin said:

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fightingfarmer09 said:

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AnScAggie said:

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At this point it seems like China is facing catastrophic devastation or death due to flooding or starvation, is that a fair assessment?

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Not sure about starvation. They are buying up every major store of Ag commodity they can. Record grain and bean purchases and we aren't even into September.

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there's not enough surplus in the world to feed them for long.

also if their purchases drive up local food prices too much here domestically, expect trump to step in and curtail exports to them.

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Not likely. We are rapidly approaching one the best corn and soybean crops in recent memory, while also operating in a very depressed commodity market. Trump steps in he is an idiot.

Your food prices go up because of processors and distributors, not commodity prices.

74OA said:

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fasthorse05 said:

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Y'all can tell me if you agree with this comment, but it's the way I see most dictator/communist countries. There have been some posts about the very high academic achievements of the Chinese college students, which tends to be rote learning. I don't doubt that's the case.

My thought is the difference between high academic achievement and practical application is profoundly different. I'm not saying the Chinese don't have excellent, or quality, STEM employees, or that the 3 Gorges dam wasn't built well, but as a whole, they're not as likely to have the standards, the experience, and certainly regulations from hundreds of years of trial and error.

We screw things up to, but tend to learn from our experience, except politics.

Point being, whether it's the bridge, or a dam, I'm rarely surprised by communists projects being faulty. This applies to millions of bytes of stolen information from America. They still have to know how to apply it.

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That perspective is aging as evidenced by the dozens of airports, hundreds of bridges and thousands of kilometers of high-speed train lines Chinese engineers have designed and constructed in the last couple of decades--many of which are cutting-edge designs.

There was a time in which "Made in China" was synonymous with cheap goods but, as in Japan, that time is rapidly passing. We discount China's progress at our peril.

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If we took exception to that would it be an example of American Exceptionalism?

lead said:

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Also, does anyone know how bad/widespread the flooding is?

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This analysis is from almost two weeks ago. The recent typhoon has made matters worse since: Agriculture Damage

fightingfarmer09 said:

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Ags4DaWin said:

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fightingfarmer09 said:

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AnScAggie said:

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At this point it seems like China is facing catastrophic devastation or death due to flooding or starvation, is that a fair assessment?

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Not sure about starvation. They are buying up every major store of Ag commodity they can. Record grain and bean purchases and we aren't even into September.

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there's not enough surplus in the world to feed them for long.

also if their purchases drive up local food prices too much here domestically, expect trump to step in and curtail exports to them.

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Not likely. We are rapidly approaching one the best corn and soybean crops in recent memory, while also operating in a very depressed commodity market. Trump steps in he is an idiot.

Your food prices go up because of processors and distributors, not commodity prices.

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I say this assuming a total failure-

the pork belly shortages of a few years ago due China's massive loss of pork production disagree. (swine diseases that decimated their pork production that caused massive spikes in pork prices in the US)

I agree that normally ur are right but we are talking catastrophic levels affecting hundreds of millions of people and a huge region that will devastate their economy and ag production for at least this year's harvest and deeply affect next year's planting season. That is two year's food supply gone and that is just grown food. That doesn't include cattle production lost.

and it will be probably 5 years before they are even close to producing at the pre failure level.

You honestly think that there is enough production domestically that if china starts buying up our ag production en masse to make up for that kind of loss for 2 years there would not be some sort of pricing offset domestically?

I just find that hard to believe.

Quote:

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You honestly think that there is enough production domestically that if china starts buying up our ag production en masse to make up for that kind of loss for 2 years there would not be some sort of pricing offset domestically?

I just find that hard to believe.

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Some sort, not a lot.

December corn futures jumped to $3.60 a bushel when the flooding started in July, but are back down to $3.40 now, about where they were before July.

Recall that futures hit $8.00 back in 2012. There was a lot of whining, but little actual high food prices and it was back down to $4.23 by the next fall.

Also, back in 1974, corn hit $3.63 a bushel, a little more than it is now. Adjusted for inflation, that would be $19.08 in 2020 dollars.

We survived. Heck, we prospered, because the farm economy was strong.

Ags4DaWin said:

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fightingfarmer09 said:

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Ags4DaWin said:

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fightingfarmer09 said:

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AnScAggie said:

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At this point it seems like China is facing catastrophic devastation or death due to flooding or starvation, is that a fair assessment?

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Not sure about starvation. They are buying up every major store of Ag commodity they can. Record grain and bean purchases and we aren't even into September.

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there's not enough surplus in the world to feed them for long.

also if their purchases drive up local food prices too much here domestically, expect trump to step in and curtail exports to them.

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Not likely. We are rapidly approaching one the best corn and soybean crops in recent memory, while also operating in a very depressed commodity market. Trump steps in he is an idiot.

Your food prices go up because of processors and distributors, not commodity prices.

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I say this assuming a total failure-

the pork belly shortages of a few years ago due China's massive loss of pork production disagree. (swine diseases that decimated their pork production that caused massive spikes in pork prices in the US)

I agree that normally ur are right but we are talking catastrophic levels affecting hundreds of millions of people and a huge region that will devastate their economy and ag production for at least this year's harvest and deeply affect next year's planting season. That is two year's food supply gone and that is just grown food. That doesn't include cattle production lost.

and it will be probably 5 years before they are even close to producing at the pre failure level.

You honestly think that there is enough production domestically that if china starts buying up our ag production en masse to make up for that kind of loss for 2 years there would not be some sort of pricing offset domestically?

I just find that hard to believe.

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When times are really tough for the Communist leadership, i.e. when they sense a threat to their power, famine is just another policy tool. During the Great Leap Forward when Mao confiscated metal cookware and utensils to be melted down so that China could be an exporter of steel tens of millions of Chinese died of starvation as they tried to stay nourished on small amounts of raw food and the inability to efficiently cook with clay pots. That was less than 70 years ago. Culling 50-100 million people from the agrarian peasant population is not a big deal to Xi as long as the photos and the videos do not get out. The communists reformulate the philisophical question of whether a tree falling in the wood makes noise if nobody is there to hear it to the question of whether a million people die and the newspapers of the world don't report it did they really die? That's why bringing down the Great Firewall is so important.


Here's another tragic video from farther down in the replies to the one linked above. Really tragic for man and animal alike.

So who needs corn when you have ready-made beef stew that'll last until next spring?

There's a chart in the link I posted just above ("Damage") showing withdrawals from China's strategic food reserves thru the end of July. I imagine even more has been distributed during August.

Anyone have any idea if the tonnage in the chart is significantly large or how much of the reserve those numbers represent?

TJaggie14 said:

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thomas20:29 said:

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CanyonAg77 said:

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74OA said:

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CanyonAg77 said:

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Quote:

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Xi doesn't care about it's people....he hasn't even visited that area since it started.

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Exactly what what would be fixed by Xi flying over the damage in a helicopter and frowning at it?

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Xi only cares about the CCP, but he has visited flooded areas. For example from the link just above:

"President Xi Jinping had visited another region of China, Anhui Province, on Tuesday. State media reports 21 rivers in the province have exceeded flood-limit levels."

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My real point is that I despise the mind set that politicians have to "care", and that anything is gained by having them visit disasters.

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why would he frown? That's millions of mouths he doesn't have to feed anymore.

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I think he is making a reference to Bush 43 flying of New Orleans & hurricane Katrina. The image of Bush looking out the window was spun to say "George Bush doesn't care about black people" - Kanye West (future president).

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I'm making reference to the whole tradition of Presidents going to disaster areas. It costs millions, and it doesn't do a damn thing to help people. If anything, it interferes with rescue and recovery efforts.

I'd be thrilled if a President had the guts to announce:

"I'm not going to fly down there and get in the way of the recovery efforts. You people have been harmed enough. I'm staying here at work, and using that money to send FEMA and the National Guard in.

I do care about you. I care about you so much, I'm not getting in your way."

rab79 said:

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looks like my performance last night

What's the context for that picture?

I'm assuming it's the opening of spillways to the dam and the amount of water that is released downstream.

aggiehawg said:

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What's the context for that picture?

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all gates are open...wuhan gonna flood. Maybe Shanghai as well.

akm91 said:

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I'm assuming it's the opening of spillways to the dam and the amount of water that is released downstream.

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I thought all of the spillways were already open?

aggiehawg said:

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akm91 said:

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I'm assuming it's the opening of spillways to the dam and the amount of water that is released downstream.

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I thought all of the spillways were already open?

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they have been for like a week now

CanyonAg77 said:

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Quote:

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You honestly think that there is enough production domestically that if china starts buying up our ag production en masse to make up for that kind of loss for 2 years there would not be some sort of pricing offset domestically?

I just find that hard to believe.

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Some sort, not a lot.

December corn futures jumped to $3.60 a bushel when the flooding started in July, but are back down to $3.40 now, about where they were before July.

Recall that futures hit $8.00 back in 2012. There was a lot of whining, but little actual high food prices and it was back down to $4.23 by the next fall.

Also, back in 1974, corn hit $3.63 a bushel, a little more than it is now. Adjusted for inflation, that would be $19.08 in 2020 dollars.

We survived. Heck, we prospered, because the farm economy was strong.

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Wasn't that $8 corn more due to domestic ethanol "demand" for corn than export demand? There's also the "feed" vs "food" corn factor. Does China use a lot of feed corn?

B-1 83 said:

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CanyonAg77 said:

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Quote:

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You honestly think that there is enough production domestically that if china starts buying up our ag production en masse to make up for that kind of loss for 2 years there would not be some sort of pricing offset domestically?

I just find that hard to believe.

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Some sort, not a lot.

December corn futures jumped to $3.60 a bushel when the flooding started in July, but are back down to $3.40 now, about where they were before July.

Recall that futures hit $8.00 back in 2012. There was a lot of whining, but little actual high food prices and it was back down to $4.23 by the next fall.

Also, back in 1974, corn hit $3.63 a bushel, a little more than it is now. Adjusted for inflation, that would be $19.08 in 2020 dollars.

We survived. Heck, we prospered, because the farm economy was strong.

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Wasn't that $8 corn more due to domestic ethanol "demand" for corn than export demand? There's also the "feed" vs "food" corn factor. Does China use a lot of feed corn?

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uncle Jessie making moonshine again. Saving us during COVID.

$8 corn was due to total demand. Low global carryover stocks, weak dollar, high demand (from places like China) Ethanol demand hasn't changed since then, corn is cheap again.

I don't know much about China's Ag economy, but I do know they have been eating more meat as their economy improved over the last decades, which takes more feed grain.

$8 corn was in 2013. Corn today is around $3.

Here's a graph of US ethanol production

thomas20:29 said:

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aggiehawg said:

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akm91 said:

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I'm assuming it's the opening of spillways to the dam and the amount of water that is released downstream.

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I thought all of the spillways were already open?

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they have been for like a week now

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Thanks!

CanyonAg77 said:

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$8 corn was due to total demand. Ethanol demand hasn't changed since then, corn is cheap again.

I don't know much about China's Ag economy, but I do know they have been eating more meat as their economy improved over the last decades, which takes more feed grain.

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They don't have any pigs left to feed.

74OA said:

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There's a chart in the link I posted just above ("Damage") showing withdrawals from China's strategic food reserves thru the end of July. I imagine even more has been distributed during August.

Anyone have any idea if the tonnage in the chart is significantly large or how much of the reserve those numbers represent?

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LINK

nortex97 said:

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AnScAggie said:

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At this point it seems like China is facing catastrophic devastation or death due to flooding or starvation, is that a fair assessment?

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Chinese will eat absolutely anything. I doubt they run out of insects and stuff.

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Also they like to eat corona bats.

Quote:

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They don't have any pigs left to feed.

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Probably a fair point.

But again, I have little knowledge. Are these floods wiping out 10% of their Ag lands? 50%? 100%?

CanyonAg77 said:

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Quote:

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They don't have any pigs left to feed.

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Probably a fair point.

But again, I have little knowledge. Are these floods wiping out 10% of their Ag lands? 50%? 100%?

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I read that the floods are also causing a resurgence of last year's swine flu.

They are going to be hurting for pork for a bit