‘BUSH vs MEHTA’

IN MEDIA

  • Indians bristle at American criticism

    Deccan Herald, June 2, 2008
    The recent statement by US President that the rise in food price globally due to economic prosperity of Indians was sharply denounced by academicians and experts.

  • Editorial: Food fight

    www.Canadianbusiness.com, May 29, 2008
    To imply that tubby Americans or ravenous Indians chowing their way up the food chain are somehow responsible for inflation on the scale we now see is absurd. However, the Bush vs Mehta fight illustrates a larger point.

  • He started it! Did not!

    www.agweb.com, May 16, 2008
    Mehta threw the proverbial sand in the eyes of Americans, including the President, who keep trying to explain the reason commodity prices are increasing is due to improved diets and more demand for food around the world.

  • Oil Shock: Trying to make the complex simple

    www.pennlive.com, May 16, 2008
    A seemingly innocent comment by President Bush’s in Missouri about India’s growing middle class and worldwide rising food prices: “When you start getting wealth, you start demanding better nutrition and better food, and so demand is high, and that cause prices to go up”.

  • Beta Beats Alpha

    The Daily Reckoning, May 16, 2008
    The reason food prices were going up, Bush guessed, was because people in India had more money in their pockets and now they wanted to eat more. Then, striking low, they said Americans ate too much; if they just slimmed down to the weight of middle-class Indians, said Pradeep S. Mehta, “many hungry people in sub-Saharan Africa would find food on their plates”.

  • Indians bristle at U.S. criticism on food prices

    Tehran Times, May 15 & International Herald Tribune, May 13, 2008
    Criticism of the US has ballooned in India, particularly after the Bush administration seemed to blame India’s increasing middle class and prosperity for rising food prices. Critics from India seem to be asking one underlying question: “Why do Americans think they deserve to eat more than Indians?”

  • The Blame Game

    The Grinder, May 15, 2008
    Indian officials and newspaper op-eds condemned the President, saying the United States is responsible “many times more” than India for the world food crisis, pointing out that the average American uses more resources than the average Indian.

  • India to US: stop blaming us for your rising food costs!

    www.walletpop.com, May 14, 2008
    The idea of America’s President Bush blaming increased consumption in India for rising food prices is laughable. It is like Ralphie May telling Amy Winehouse to get off the couch because she’s taking up too much room.

  • Indians Find US at Fault in Food Cost

    The New York Times, May 14, 2008
    Instead of blaming India for the rise in food prices, Americans should rethink their energy policy – and go on a diet. That has been the response, of politicians, economists and academics, who are angry at statement by US that India’s rising prosperity is to blame for food inflation.

  • CII to set up task force

    The Hindu, May 05, 2008
    “George Bush’s remarks on India being the cause for high food prices reflects his utter lack of intelligence, poor understanding on economics and sheer ignorance of basis statistics on food consumption”.

  • Bush Talking through his Hat

    Thesynergyonline, May 05, 2008
    Bush is well known for talking through his hat, and his remarks on India being the cause for high food prices reflects his utter lack of intelligence, poor understanding of economics, and sheer ignorance of basic statistics on food consumption.

ARTICLE

  • Food crisis: The blame game

    Business Line, May 21, 2008
    The world food crisis, despite all efforts to shift the blame, has been born out of life-style imbalances in the US and like-minded nations, characterised by an excess of nutrition and locomotion.

VIEWS & RESPONSES

  • Yet another leader fails to understand African politics

    What Pradeep S Mehta fails to understand is that the hungry people in sub-Saharan Africa are provided food from around the world in incredible amounts. The issues in Africa involve more than just food, they require the people to take their destinies in their own hands

  • India is developing, but at what cost?

    In reality, India is akin to a poor, under-educated suburb of any major American city where many of the wealth-earners are doing so only because American companies are allowed to illegally profit from the illegal exportation of American jobs.

  • Indians Say Americans Eat Too Much

    Indians point out that per capita, India uses far lower quantities of commodities and pollutes far less than the US. According to an UN study based on 2001-2003 research, the US uses or wastes 3,770 calories a day per capita compared with 2,440 in India.

  • Bush’s food-price remarks infuriate Indian pundits

    While explaining the food price increases, Indian politicians and academics cite consumption in the United States; the West’s diversion of arable land into the production of ethanol and other biofuels; agricultural subsidies and trade barriers from Washington and the European Union; and the decline in the exchange rate of the dollar.

  • Indians Bristle At US Criticism on Food Prices

    Many Indians felt that the remarks of President George W. Bush about rising food prices were more of the same, though this time they seemed to breed a widespread sense of “We’re not going to take this anymore”.

  • Food Price Kerfluffle:”Why Do Americans Get to Eat More than Indians?”

    The food problem has “clearly” been created by Americans, who are eating 50 percent more calories than the average person in India. The money Americans spend on liposuction to get rid of their excess fat could be funneled to famine victims instead.

  • Food Fight–Part Deux–USA vs India

    When explaining the global food crisis of soaring prices and shortages, many in the West point to growing consumption in India. But consumption in the US and Europe is far higher – with the exception of rice, a staple in India.

  • Indians Find U.S. at Fault in Food Cost

    Instead of blaming India and other developing nations for the rise in food prices, Americans should rethink their energy policy — and go on a diet.

  • Fat Americans to blame for the food crisis

    If Americans slimmed down to the weight of middle-class Indians, “many hungry people in sub-Saharan Africa would find food on their plates”. The money spent in the US on liposuction to get rid of fat from excess consumption could be funnelled to feed famine victims.

  • India to US: stop blaming us for your rising food costs!

    Americans – the majority of whom are overweight – are crying their 42-inch waists off over the soaring price of food. Some U.S. officials have suggested that India’s rising prosperity and the resulting increase in demand for food are to blame.

  • People in India Eat Twice as Many Calories Per Day As I Do

    The food problem has “clearly” been created by Americans, who are eating 50 percent more calories than the average person in India.

  • Why do Americans think they deserve to eat more than Indians?

    Critics from India seem to be asking one underlying question: “Why do Americans think they deserve to eat more than Indians?” The food problem has “clearly” been created by Americans, who are eating 50 percent more calories than the average person in India.

  • Food Prices Require a Look in the Mirror

    Pradeep S Mehta said that if Americans slimmed down to the weight of middle-class Indians, “many hungry people in sub-Saharan Africa would find food on their plates”. His comments reflect genuine outrage – and ballooning criticism – toward the US in particular, over recent remarks by President Bush.

  • Why Do Americans Get To Eat More… A diff take

    Bush’s assessment for why food prices are higher is econ centered and consequentialist – more demand, relatively static short run supply = higher prices as an emergent property of a world where millions are making independent decisions.

  • Beta Beats Alpha

    America’s president seems to have an insight. The reason food prices were going up, he guessed, was because people in India had more money in their pockets and now they wanted to eat more. This remark might have gone unnoticed, but for the fact that it was true. The foreigners are getting richer…and uppity.

  • The Blame Game of Rising Food Prices

    Americans are also the largest per capita consumers in any major economy of the most energy-intensive common food source, beef. So who’s more to blame for rising prices, the US or India?

  • 249 Days, 18 Hours, 41 Minutes, 37 Seconds.

    Bush blamed the Indians for the food shortage. The man does not understand Economics, or much of anything

  • For Four Generations, America Has Been the World’s Alpha Nation

    For four generations, America has been the world’s alpha nation – the country with the money, the power, and the answers. Generations of Americans have offered advice to the rest of the planet, confident that they knew best what was good for everyone.

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