More on Food Security and Toppling Governments---look for the underlying "trigger"---I propose we send in Matt Damon--He has the solution!!

I disagree with the "Malthusian" comparison in the article below but I agree with the underlying "trigger" for this potential domino effect of regimes falling across the Middle East---Food security.  You can always get young people in the streets to protest, well, most anything. But to get the bulk of the population, that just wants to stay under the the radar of the authorities, to go out and angrily demand change, then mess with the food supply and food prices. The article mentions other authoritarian governments purchasing additional grain supplies (which in turn will drive up the price and exacerbate the situation).  I suppose those countries should have focused on economic policies instead of creating police states  (See video below)---Do monarchs and dictators understand opportunity costs?? Rhetorical question...

The Guardian: Egypt and Tunisia usher in the new era of global food revolutions

""Political risk has returned with a vengeance. The first food revolutions of our Malthusian era have exposed the weak grip of authoritarian regimes in poor countries that import grain, whether in North Africa today or parts of Asia tomorrow.

The surge in global food prices since the summer – since Ben Bernanke signalled a fresh dollar blitz, as it happens – is not the underlying cause of Arab revolt, any more than bad harvests in 1788 were the cause of the French Revolution.

Yet they are the trigger, and have set off a vicious circle. Vulnerable governments are scrambling to lock up world supplies of grain while they can. Algeria bought 800,000 tonnes of wheat last week, and Indonesia has ordered 800,000 tonnes of rice, both greatly exceeding their normal pace of purchases. Saudi Arabia, Libya, and Bangladesh, are trying to secure extra grain supplies....""

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