2011: YFOR - The Year of Food & Oil Revolutions?

These countries' populations have already been hit by higher food and oil prices coupled with a relatively stagnant economy - large scale civil unrest has been growing, or has begun to grow, in all of them except Taiwan :

Bolivia, Greece, Tunisia, Yemen, Egypt, Taiwan

These countries are desperately worried that events in Egypt and Tunisia will spread to their nations:

Iran, Saudi Arabia, Syria, Libya, Algeria, Jordan, China

The often despotic and autocratic states of the Middle East and North Africa are one of the major blood supply lines for the body of global industry.  If these states were to seek transition to democracy (a messy, complicated and often uneven process that may not in the short to medium term actually deliver the public's desired results - see Taiwan) that would likely undermine stability in global oil and commodity prices.  When the King of Saudi Arabia died in 2005, oil prices spiked on the news.

What is interesting is that it seems Mubarak is playing from the Beijing rule book: cut off internet access, send paramilitary and military units out to pick up, detain and torture individual protestors as a warning to others, blame foreign media for causing domestic trouble and finally, an Egyptian twist but one the hardline KMT leadership will no doubt recognise from the 1990s, refuse to resign but instead oversee a transition that would no doubt leave Mubarak and his dwindling bunch of allies much influence over the resulting state structures.

Why YFOR?

1. We're past peak oil now.  Prices can only rise on average over the medium to long term. That means ...
2. Food importing countries costs for basic commodities like bread will continue to rise. Making this worse will be ...
3. Climate change effects producing more severe weather patterns such as flooding, droughts and extreme measures all of which negatively affect food production.  This will ...
4. Push prices of ordinary goods higher, from utility bills to food to transport costs. That hurts ...
5. Industry, which is still hurting from the 2008-2010 financial collapse and depression, the largest sectors of which are stubbornly holding on to old forms of industry at the expense of the dwindling time available to transform economies into energy and food sustainable entities. (see Hon Hai etc and construction-led economic growth in Taiwan - change threatens the bottom line of the big industries even though their contribution to GDP is a fraction of the resources they consume to operate - short term fixes for the economy (ECFA) do little to ease the burden of ordinary people, most of which work in the chimerical service sector.)

Overreaction? Under-reaction?

UPDATE: Now World Bank also warning about food prices.