The last period of time time food/grain prices spiked this badly was in 2008, and the cause was in part because of bad weather tanking crop yields in Ukraine. This in turn was one of the major underlying causes of the Arab Spring, given that the Arab world is broadly bad for agriculture and must thus be a major net importer of food; the price of grain especially is a perennial hot-button political issue for people living there, and so any spike in the global price of grains and food oils is a potential risk to the political stability of the region.
Now that prices have started spiking again since early-mid 2022 with profit-driven artificial inflation, and the Black Sea grain deal is dead, a major world exporter of grain and food oils has been severely curtailed. Worse, Ukraine specifically had been a major exporter of grain to the Middle East, with Egypt (for example) importing ~85% of its wheat from Russia and Ukraine, and with only a couple of months' worth of wheat stockpiles on hand in the country.
Thus we ask: will the aftershocks of the fall of the Black Sea grain deal result in at least one mass movement in at least two of the 20 UNAIDS-defined MENA (Middle East/North Africa) countries listed below whose aim is a decrease in the price of bread or food more generally, and which comes to also demand Arab Spring-esque civic goals including and exemplified by but not limited to: increased democracy/representation, curtailment of corruption, and improved human rights?
The market resolves YES if at least any two of the above countries have, by the end of 2025, each experienced at least once such mass movement as described. It resolves NO if no more than one has. It resolves N/A if a majority of those countries cease to exist as independent political entities for any reason, be it from a new Arab League, the foundation of a new Caliphate, a rogue AGI, an asteroid impact, a nuclear war, or even just a lot of minor invasions and annexations.
I will resolve this market on my frank best impression of mass political uprisings, which are famously easy to characterize and categorize neatly. If there's lots of traders and lots of inclarity about the status of any given political movement, I'll open discussion here.
1,000
3.00@AaronKreider Yes, and? I am deliberately making a market about something less restrictive here.
@Lorxus Well a mass movement in two countries could involve 10,000 people doing demonstrations about food prices that don't come anywhere close to toppling governments. Another Arab Spring is very unlikely (1%-5% odds). Food price demonstrations are more likely (10%-20%).
@JakeTeale You want me to dig up links? I'll dig up links. Corporate greed was, unfortunately, a major driver of that price spike - not just (or even predominantly) supply chain hiccups, else we'd have seen that in late 2020 as well.
@Lorxus You can posts links if you think they’re relevant.
Corporate Greed is constant, so it can’t why we saw a larger than normal rise in the price level between 2021-2023. Unless the idea is that corporate greed was low in 2019, began rising in 2020/2021, peaked in 2022, and has been declining since.
Corporate profits increased because the economy overheated. It was an excess demand problem. And that’s not necessarily a bad thing! In the pandemic we erred on the side of potential future inflation (through stimulus spending etc) to guard against the risk of recession. Combine that with excess savings built up during the period of lockdowns and some inflation was predictable.
It was worse than expected because of supply chain issues + some FED bungling at first, but we’ve got over it in the traditional way without having to do price controls or other policies that supposedly target corporate greed.