[One Degree]

One thing I will note

I did note for the table II-14 you referenced that food exports were falling overall. This may be due to so many agricultural products now being used as bio-fuel, but I don't think so or it would even be larger. It is probably due to using more of the food at home. The bio-fuel industry now accounts for a huge amount of 'food' production in the US. This is another reason why any figures can be very misleading. It is very difficult to determine if they are food or fuel. Using food for fuel places further limits on our ability to feed people.

[Prosthetic Conscience]

I did note for the table II-14 you referenced that food exports were falling overall. This may be due to so many agricultural products now being used as bio-fuel, but I don't think so or it would even be larger. It is probably due to using more of the food at home. The bio-fuel industry now accounts for a huge amount of 'food' production in the US. This is another reason why any figures can be very misleading. It is very difficult to determine if they are food or fuel. Using food for fuel places further limits on our ability to feed people.

Falling for whom? II.14 is just the top 15 importers and exporters, and the only figures given for different years are share of the whole world's trade - if that's what you're looking at, it just shows that world trade is becoming less dominated by just a few countries. Some countries' exports, and imports, rise; others fall.

II.15 does have a monetary figure for the world's export of agricultural products, and it has increased in each time period (though I don't know if that's in 'constant' dollars, ie allowed for inflation, or not). II.19 has export of food, and again, that goes up in each time period.

[Truth To Power]

This has nothing to do with the reality.

It identifies the fact that your view of reality is not reality.

What I mean by 'consistently' is that European countries as a whole, for example, produce at about the same rate they consume. Some years they fall behind and others they don't. There is no drastic fluctuation. China barely breaks even I believe.

So you can't support your claim.

The rest of the world can not feed themselves.

Most can.

These are based upon UN figures which I have used often in the past.

Then where are they?

The only countries that should not be worried about feeding their population (trusting my memory again) are the US, Canada, Australia, Russia, and Ukraine.

Wrong. Lots of countries should not be worried about feeding their populations, because they can export enough other stuff to buy all the food they need.

This is the latest I could find from the UN (in a quick search) http://www.un.org/apps/news/story.asp?NewsID=46647#.WISsx_krLDc

Which offers no support for your claims.

[One Degree]

How Many Countries Regularly Produce more Food than they ...
juliesfreshair.com/general/6087/
Apr 8, 2013 - You know at least one: The United States. Of the 194 countries in the world (U.S. Dept. of State's number), only seven countries produce more food/grains than the country itself consumes, according to the United States Department of Agriculture : U.S., Canada, Argentina, Ukraine, Russia, Vietnam and Australia.

This site, I found in 30 seconds will do. It says 7 countries instead of 5, but close enough for my purposes.

[Truth To Power]

This site, I found in 30 seconds will do. It says 7 countries instead of 5, but close enough for my purposes.

That gives the USDA as the source of the claim, but does not identify or provide a link to the actual document. IOW, it's just another unsupported claim.

[benj]

Mass immigration is not the primary cause of high housing costs in the UK, supply and demand is a thing but the population grows only by a few percent per annum (lower birthrates are also a thing) but so does the housing stock. UK house prices are 4x the prices of 30 years ago... If supply and demand were the cause of that then that would imply that either:
A) incomes had quadrupled
B) 3/4 of the housing stock had been destroyed
or
C) that the population had quadrupled.

None of those things have happened. The reason for stupidly high housing prices in the UK is for much the same reason they are too high in much of the western world because the baby boomer generation bid the prices up in a sustained frenzy of debt fueled asset speculation. It is an asset bubble. The good news is that the bubble will burst soon because:

A) the baby boomers are dying off.
and
B) asset bubbles never last, especially debt fueled ones; they always crash.

Only the UK has more dwellings per capita than ever.

[Truth To Power]

The bio-fuel industry now accounts for a huge amount of 'food' production in the US. This is another reason why any figures can be very misleading. It is very difficult to determine if they are food or fuel. Using food for fuel places further limits on our ability to feed people.

Some years ago I knew a woman who lived in a small town in Ontario, Canada. Winters are cold in Ontario, and she heated her home by burning corn in a stove because it was the cheapest fuel. She was surrounded by 1Mkm^2 of densely forested wilderness, but because of the subsidies, it was cheaper for her to burn corn than wood. You can't make this stuff up.

[snapdragon]

Only the UK has more dwellings per capita than ever.

But who owns them, though? Here in London it's often Russian plutocrats.