FOOD SHORTAGES in Japan? This is getting a lot of (probably exaggerated) attention in the survivalosphere. Those folks are like Paul Krugman, having predicted 9 of the last 0 food crises, but the news story, at least, is real.

I wonder, though, if this isn’t something like a bank run: “Costco Wholesale Corp. is seeing higher-than-usual demand for staple foods such as rice and flour as consumers worry about a global food shortage, according to a Tuesday report by the Reuters news service.” Of course, the solution to a bank run is to pass out the cash until people get tired. But it’s easier to create cash on demand than food. Today’s supply-chain practices tend to produce skimpy inventories, too, which makes it easier for stores to sell out, and thus for consumers to panic.

UPDATE: Stephen Clark sends along Spengler’s take on the global food shortage. “The global food crisis is a monetary phenomenon, an unintended consequence of America’s attempt to inflate its way out of a market failure.”

ANOTHER UPDATE: What food shortages in Japan? asks a blogger . . . in Japan. What, press reports unreliable?

MORE: And here’s a blogger in Thailand who says that news reports of food riots there are bogus. More here.

STILL MORE: M. Simon thinks Spengler is wrong.