A Rudderless World: Three Graphs

An excellent Wall Street Journal interactive graphic depicts the tidal wave of unrest sweeping the Middle East.

Far from any sort of organized 'democracy movement', it is worth remembering that the region's civil unrest began for primarily one reason, which is honestly described by Ghana's major online news magazine.

The ongoing popular uprisings in North Africa and the Middle East poses the question if other developing countries, including Ghana, may experience similar or other forms of uprisings in the light of the imminent global food crisis of 2011... ...In 2008 riots from Haiti to Bangladesh to Egypt over the soaring costs of basic foods have brought the issue to a boiling point and catapulted it to the forefront of the world's attention...

...A major IFPRI Report launched in February 2011 stated that the causes of the 2008 global food crisis were similar to that of the 1972-74 food crisis, in that the oil price and energy price was the major driver, as well as the shock to cereal demand (from biofuels this time), low interest rates, devaluation of the dollar, declining stocks, and some adverse weather conditions....

As the dollar has drifted lower (illustrated in the above chart), thanks to a strategy of printing dollars (i.e., "Quantitative Easing") on the part of the Federal Reserve, the price of energy has skyrocketed as it is bought and sold using dollars.

Food prices, dependent upon fuel to farm and transport, have likewise leaped.

Notice a correlation?

The short version of the story is this: the policies of the hard-left Democrats have led directly to hunger, starvation and civil unrest around the world:

• Using food as fuel in bizarre efforts to reduce carbon dioxide, which is a plant food and beneficial to the environment

• And catastrophic deficit spending, adding nearly 60% to the national debt in three short years, which has resulted in the need to print trillions of dollars and enslave our children to debt

Everything the Democrats touch turns to crap, from their utterly reckless and criminal actions in the housing market to their global warming scam; from their country-bankrupting spending policies to their 'War on Poverty' that spreads more poverty and misery than any social program in history.

Everything they do is a failure -- and Barack Obama is their perfect poster-child.