Welcome to the latest installment of 'How Humanity Fails at Basic Sustenance,' a recurring series where we examine our species' singular ability to turn a biological win into a socio-economic funeral. The current headline across the financial rags—those glossy pamphlets for the aspiring sociopath—is that grain prices have plummeted to a five-year low. To a normal, functioning brain, this might sound like a victory. After all, the basic building block of human civilization is now cheaper than it has been since we were all pretending to care about social distancing. But in the inverted, funhouse-mirror logic of global markets, an abundance of food is not a blessing; it is a systemic catastrophe.

Only a couple of years ago, the professional alarmists on both sides of the aisle were performing their finest renditions of 'The Sky is Falling.' The Left was shrieking about a permanent global famine caused by geopolitical instability and the inevitable heat death of the planet, while the Right was busy hoarding survival buckets and blaming 'woke' fertilizer regulations for the impending bread lines. They both had one thing in common: they were salivating at the prospect of scarcity. Scarcity is easy to monetize. Scarcity allows politicians to play savior while agribusiness giants hike prices under the guise of 'supply chain disruptions'—that delightful catch-all phrase used to explain why a loaf of bread now costs more than a decent bottle of bourbon.

But nature, in its infinite and bored indifference, has decided to provide. We are currently drowning in a feast. The silos are bulging, the harvests are record-breaking, and the commodity traders are weeping into their overpriced lattes because their precious margins are evaporating. The sheer absurdity of the situation is breathtaking. We live in a world where 'record-breaking wheat production' is reported with the same somber tone usually reserved for an industrial chemical spill in a playground. The financial pundits are genuinely worried that there is too much food. Read that again and let it sink into whatever remains of your critical thinking faculties: in a world where millions still go hungry, the primary concern of our intellectual betters is that wheat is too affordable.

Of course, the consumer—that pathetic creature at the end of the line—will see none of this 'feast.' Do you honestly think the price of your artisanal sourdough or your processed breakfast sludge will drop just because the raw materials are at a five-year low? Don't be naive. The mid-level vampires—the distributors, the retailers, the logistics conglomerates—will find a thousand reasons to keep prices high. They will cite 'labor costs,' 'energy volatility,' or perhaps the psychological trauma suffered by the executives who had to watch their stock portfolios fluctuate. The 'famine' was used as a pretext to raise prices; the 'feast' will be ignored to maintain them. It is the perfect, frictionless machine of human greed.

And what of the farmers? Those salt-of-the-earth figures both political parties love to use as props for their campaign ads? They are, as always, the sacrificial lambs. The Right will offer them thoughts, prayers, and perhaps a few more tariffs to ensure they remain tethered to a dying model of industrial monoculture. The Left will lecture them on carbon sequestration while they watch their livelihoods dissolve into a sea of cheap grain. Neither side actually cares that the producer is being squeezed between falling commodity prices and rising input costs. The farmer is only useful as a backdrop for a photo op in a flannel shirt; once the cameras are off, they are just another line item to be liquidated by the banks.

We are a species that has mastered the art of the lose-lose scenario. When there is a shortage, we starve; when there is a surplus, we face an 'economic crisis.' It is a testament to the fundamental rot of our systems that we cannot handle a simple abundance of calories. We have built a world so fragile, so dependent on the misery of the many to fuel the dividends of the few, that a good harvest is seen as a threat to national security. The grain is cheap, the silos are full, and yet the vultures are circling. It would be funny if it weren't so predictably pathetic. But then again, that’s the human story in a nutshell: we prayed for bread, and now that we have it, we’re complaining that it’s devaluing our debt-leveraged portfolios. Enjoy your cheap wheat, if you can find a way to buy it that doesn't involve enriching a dozen middlemen who view your survival as a rounding error.