Multinationals Make Billions In Profit Out of Growing Global Food Crisis
Speculators blamed for driving up price of basic foods as 100 million face severe hunger
Giant agribusinesses are enjoying soaring earnings and profits out of the world food crisis which is driving millions of people towards starvation, The Independent on Sunday can reveal. And speculation is helping to drive the prices of basic foodstuffs out of the reach of the hungry.
The prices of wheat, corn and rice have soared over the past year driving the world’s poor - who already spend about 80 per cent of their income on food - into hunger and destitution.
The World Bank says that 100 million more people are facing severe hunger. Yet some of the world’s richest food companies are making record profits. Monsanto last month reported that its net income for the three months up to the end of February this year had more than doubled over the same period in 2007, from $543m (£275m) to $1.12bn. Its profits increased from $1.44bn to $2.22bn.
Cargill’s net earnings soared by 86 per cent from $553m to $1.030bn over the same three months. And Archer Daniels Midland, one of the world’s largest agricultural processors of soy, corn and wheat, increased its net earnings by 42 per cent in the first three months of this year from $363m to $517m. The operating profit of its grains merchandising and handling operations jumped 16-fold from $21m to $341m.
Similarly, the Mosaic Company, one of the world’s largest fertiliser companies, saw its income for the three months ending 29 February rise more than 12-fold, from $42.2m to $520.8m, on the back of a shortage of fertiliser. The prices of some kinds of fertiliser have more than tripled over the past year as demand has outstripped supply. As a result, plans to increase harvests in developing countries have been hit hard.
The Food and Agriculture Organisation reports that 37 developing countries are in urgent need of food. And food riots are breaking out across the globe from Bangladesh to Burkina Faso, from China to Cameroon, and from Uzbekistan to the United Arab Emirates.
Benedict Southworth, director of the World Development Movement, called the escalating earnings and profits “immoral” late last week. He said that the benefits of the food price increases were being kept by the big companies, and were not finding their way down to farmers in the developing world.
The soaring prices of food and fertilisers mainly come from increased demand. This has partly been caused by the boom in biofuels, which require vast amounts of grain, but even more by increasing appetites for meat, especially in India and China; producing 1lb of beef in a feedlot, for example, takes 7lbs of grain.
World food stocks at record lows, export bans and a drought in Australia have contributed to the crisis, but experts are also fingering food speculation. Professor Bob Watson - chief scientist at the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, who led the giant International Assessment of Agricultural Science and Technology for Development - last week identified it as a factor.
Index-fund investment in grain and meat has increased almost fivefold to over $47bn in the past year, concludes AgResource Co, a Chicago-based research firm. And the official US Commodity Futures Trading Commission held special hearings in Washington two weeks ago to examine how much speculators were helping to push up food prices.
Cargill says that its results “reflect the cumulative effect of having invested more than $18bn in fixed and working capital over the past seven years to expand our physical facilities, service capabilities, and knowledge around the world”.
The revelations are bound to increase outrage over multinational companies following last week’s disclosure that Shell and BP between them recorded profits of £14bn in the first three months of the year - or £3m an hour - on the back of rising oil prices. Shell promptly attracted even greater condemnation by announcing that it was pulling out of plans to build the world’s biggest wind farm off the Kent coast.
World leaders are to meet next month at a special summit on the food crisis, and it will be high on the agenda of the G8 summit of the world’s richest countries in Hokkaido, Japan, in July.
Additional research by Vandna Synghal
© 2008 The Independent
Let’s see. Am I surprised?
We shall reap what we are busily sowing. The depths of corruption and indifference of which people are capable is starting to shock even those who have been apathetic up to now.
no wonder the rich want the Cuban system to collapse, and along with it a food industry which is thriving and exposes the modbidity of what the rich offer us.
Yes, let’s see.
.
We have a treacherous government, a politically cowardly or bought off opposition, complicit — if not by their words, then by their silence — media, a silent church,and an apparently disinterested or inert electorate. All of which leaves the people, Americans and around the world, at the mercy of the greed and power goons. We have exactly what we deserve and it will remain as it is or probably get worse until we suffer the inconvenience and discomfort of DOING SOMETHING ABOUT IT.
Exactly ncycat. All you have to do is pay f attention and then get damn angry. Every where you turn, you are getting screwed in one form or another. Can’t go anywhere anymore because of the gas, you are cutting back on unnecessary groceries, oh yes, you no longer have insurance and your house payment is in default. We are embedded in this world crisis and still I see people in this country just sitting back complacently like it hasn’t hit home yet. I used to hear the old “it has to hit them in the pockets before they pay attention,” well hello. We are all in this as deep as we can be while the fat cats are still on top getting richer laughing their way to the bank as they take food from our tables.
Wow. What a surprise. And it just sprang up, fully formed, right out of the blue like that - boom! and nobody was expecting that would happen. Nobody could have seen that coming. After all, 35 years isn’t enough time to catch on to the shell game, is it?
Where the blinketyblank have all the watchdogs been all this time? Hasn’t it been glaringly obvious for some time now that you really shouldn’t trust the fox to guard the hen house (no matter how charming the pro-corporate fairytale)?
First, you need to stop drinking the anti-government koolaid. The government is you - see to it that the people you hire do their job properly, that is, take care of business for you the way you want it done. Shift the dynamic. Reclaim it. Be vigilant. The govt is not your nanny, it’s your servant. Stop paying attention to the “anti-government” manifesto because the corporations are the biggest welfare queens around. That whole anti-government gospel was a big manipulation. And they’re laughing at you, and not just for falling for it over and over. Remember Enron’s comments on grannies and the manufactured power failures and how they laughed? Remember how they laughed at you then? Newsflash: they still are. It’s the same laugh you hear from the mugger in the street.
This is it - the ruling spirit of our age - you are plunder, nothing more than farm animals, criminals by default, deadbeats, cannon fodder, needy, fearful little ids to be pushed around.
The corporate predators must be leashed again. The shorter the chain the better. If global starvation, drought, environmental depletion, degradation aren’t enough to show you that the system is faulty to the core and killing people, and to mobilize you, you need a brick upside the head.
It was government action that gave your parents and grandparents the good life you resent them for now. Their mistake was their lack of vigilance coupled with complacency. You must see to getting your government back shaped the way you want it, and you will be able to end these rapacious practices that are killing millions. And become citizens again.
There will be blood.
To the neo-con’s is what capitalism is all about folks…..
It takes the meaning of capitalism from economic system of private ownership of capital to profit at the expense of others. They believe what they are doing is their God given right and they will kill millions and denounce anyone who thinks otherwise.
The age of soylent green is upon us. how sad is that.
The first step in Changing the process that got us Here, would be in my View,For Congress to pass 100% Public Campaign Finance legislation. This would be first step of many. the Next step would to establish A counter balance to Corporate Power, allow Labor Unions the right to Organize workers. Labor Unions have changed over the years, they support not only Issues that directly effect there members, you may find them supporting local Envirnmentalist, Or anti-war activists. Thats what I mean by Counter balance.
Kill them, the heads of the oil companies, and the heads of the health insurance companies. Throw in some defense contractors.
We need national socialism in this country. I wish you lefties would wake up. You are right about the economy and about these corporate scum, but you have no solution. You even support some aspects of globalism like illegal immigration. We need to seal our borders and defend our culture to the death.
Neo-con’s defintion of capitalism: a social and economic system which enslaves man by stripping them of life neccessites and free will.
Another shock, per Naomi Klein, is brewing today, shocks beings times when social norms are more or less dynamited into fluidity, creating the opportunity for a redirection of public opinion and the institution of new agendas. The shock will be the economic crunch, thousands more homeless people, thousands more hungry and unable to access health care or the basic necessities of life. The crime rate will soar, law enforcement will become increasingly draconian and brutal, and Americans will, for the first time in their pampered history since 1929, find themselves in a state of desperation. We have a history of anger and violence when our well being is threatened, so look for the social fabric, our “domestic tranquillity,” to come somewhat unglued. We’ll be looking for somebody to blame, so there, according to Medusa, would be our opportunity to reach the exasperation point with predatory corporations and pull their fangs.
The trouble with seeing this as means to liberating our hostage society, is that “we”, the people who supposedly “own” the government, are still a disorganized rabble. Social opportunism is getting to be an exact science for the people who hold the megaphones, and the crowd (a notoriously gullible beast) will go after whatever scapegoat these professionals point us to. If you believe there is a limit to our credulity, I can only refer you to the fact that most Americans believe a satisfactory explanation for 911 and our Mideast wars lies in the existence of a Batman comic book archvillain named Osama bin Laden who lives in a cave and directs a shadowy worldwide army of freedom hating necrophiliacs to destroy good republicans everywhere. “We” had better get a damn sight more organized and globally cohesive before I will have any faith in the just comeuppance of Exxon et al. Sometimes catastrophic privation gives us a Thomas Jefferson and sometimes it gives us a Hitler. It all depends on who grabs the microphone.
Progress: “You are right about the economy and about these corporate scum, but you have no solution.”
We are the solution to the problems we all face. We have the numbers, let us do something big. Anything. Something, please.
Progress, for example, has got the microphone and suggests we bring back swastikas and target Mexican immigrants.
Let’s face it once Bush makes the Federal Reserve controller and owner of this countries wealth we all becomes slaves. They own this country and the governmnent are their puppets. They screw us just as they screw the world. Don’t blame us progressives. It is going take the entire country united to change it.
It will take at least 3/4 of the population of this country to change it. Everyone feels threatens by this change so no one is taking the iniative. This upcoming election is just another sham, nothing is going to change. If anything this country will further go down the drain. I guess it is going to have to totally collapse before something is done about it.
Ahh, it will be so good when water gets privatized so that is can be fairly distributed. The profits that is, split fairly between the politicians and the corporate powers.
What’s not to like? Why shouldn’t we the taxpayer bail out the corporations whenever they have a loss, yet not share the wealth when they profit obscenely.
Nader addresses this problem. Hillary, Obama, McCain don’t. Go figure.
Let’s face it I don’t get a dime without the government knowing about it. I can’t imagine that this doesn’t get to people, especially business people. I mean, if someone knows every move you make how do you rise above those who are out to destroy you? This whole country just gets to me.
I think there should be a science experiment. One with rats that get abused all the time and one with rats that get their needs met and publically show how they act towards one another. The lack of intelligence in this country flores me. I might have dyslexia and it might show up in my writing but most of what I read purely doesn’t make any sense at all.
Making Sense out of Nonsense
First, the non-sense:
“There are too many people and not enough resources.”
Second, making sense of it:
1) Remove indigenous peoples from ancestral lands, resources and lifestyles.
2) Put fences around them so that overcrowding occurs. Deny them access to anything outside the fenced area including food, water & shelter. Bring limited quantities of basic necessities to the fenced area. And then tell them:
a) This is a situation of overcrowding.
b) We do not have sufficient resources.
c) We must create some order (police state) to insure fair rationing.
d) And… a system to reward those most deserving (competition for ‘limited resources’ with valuations decided by elite self-interests).
There are many proofs that can amply demonstrate that this is the most basic two-step principle of elitist domination as well as how those dominated come to ‘understand’ their chances for personal ‘success.’
______________ Example _____________
The 12 Myths of Hunger
(excerpt copied from http://www.foodfirst.org/en/12myths)
Why so much hunger?
What can we do about it?
To answer these questions we must unlearn much of what we have been taught.
Only by freeing ourselves from the grip of widely held myths can we grasp the roots of hunger and see what we can do to end it.
Myth 1: “Not Enough Food to Go Around”
Reality: Abundance, not scarcity, best describes the world’s food supply. Enough wheat, rice and other grains are produced to provide every human being with 3,500 calories a day. That doesn’t even count many other commonly eaten foods - vegetables, beans, nuts, root crops, fruits, grass-fed meats, and fish. Enough food is available to provide at least 4.3 pounds of food per person a day worldwide: two and half pounds of grain, beans and nuts, about a pound of fruits and vegetables, and… enough to make most people fat! The problem is that many people are too poor to buy readily available food. Even most “hungry countries” have enough food for all their people right now. Many are net exporters of food and other agricultural products.
Please go to http://www.foodfirst.org/en/12myths to learn about all the myths, including the Overpopulation Myth.
___________________________________________________
And remember, the original and most destructive MYTH of all is: Humans Are Omnivores.
The Fact is that Humans Are Herbivores with a nature determined place in a naturally abundant ecology.
So, how does the empire best obscure these ecological facts? By the systematic destruction of natural habitats such as the burning of the rainforests. Until they are ALL gone, someone might figure it out, that nature really did abundantly provide for humans just as it provided for every other functioning member of the ecology.
The Herbivore Awareness Project http://allinharmony.org
There are many proofs that can amply demonstrate that this is the most basic two-step principle of elitist domination as well as how those dominated come to ‘understand’ their chances for personal ‘success.’
THANK YOU VERY MUCH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
But people want to be controlled by their government…that is something I WILL NEVER, EVER, NEVER, EVER understand.
My God in heaven the IRS is SO deceptive.
Vox, excuse me? I didn’t say anything about targeting mexicans, and I certainly have no response to you calling me a nazi.
National socialism doesn’t mean nazis, it means government acts in the economic interests of the country, and that if these interests conflict with those of multi-national corporations, the government wins and not the corporations. It means we tell foreign creditors to take a hike and we hunker down and deal with the effects for a decade or so. It means government controls certain key industries like health care, water and food production/distribution, and heavy industry. It means we say screw the global economy and work on the american economy. It also means, yes, closed borders.
I should have made that clearer…..I don’t know why anyone would want to have their money controlled by the government and interest free no less. This will NEVER be brought about in the Corporate media.
It seems that anything that comes about that should be made for progress is actually being made to be used against us. Women’s rights were abused. The latest development……computers. I hardly want to go on it anymore.
Regress,
Can you be so incredibly dense to really not know what kind of baggage comes with the term ‘national socialism?’
Perhaps this will help:
Na·zi 1. a member of the National Socialist German Workers’ party of Germany, which in 1933, under Adolf Hitler, seized political control of the country, suppressing all opposition and establishing a dictatorship over all cultural, economic, and political activities of the people, and promulgated belief in the supremacy of Hitler as Führer, aggressive anti-Semitism, the natural supremacy of the German people, and the establishment of Germany by superior force as a dominant world power. The party was officially abolished in 1945 at the conclusion of World War II.
2. (often lowercase) a person elsewhere who holds similar views.
[Origin: 1925–30; < G Nazi(ionalsozialist) National Socialist]
But, you DO know what that term really means, don’t you Regress? So maybe you aren’t a LITERAL nazi, meaning you do not belong to a German political party banned since 1945. But you’d like to see their agenda translated and updated for 21st century America, wouldn’t you?
Record oil and Ag company profits. Off shore hiding of defense contractor profits…
Any chance this is the last grab for the money before Marshal Obama cleans up Dodge? He’s gonna have at least one “high noon” episode if he wants to “change” all this BS.
Progress, do you think that there might be a twin dimension in the spirit world? Could you see having to get a passport from God in order to go to Russia?
I honestly believe in capitalism but NOT “corporate welfare”.
04 May 2008 18:15:03 GMT
Source: Reuters
JERUSALEM, May 4 (Reuters) - The United Nations is set to halt delivery of humanitarian aid to the Gaza Strip on Monday because its vehicles have run out of fuel, a U.N. official said.
Gaza has been facing a fuel shortage because of Israeli restrictions on supplies and a strike by Palestinian fuel distributors.
.
.
.
Does this mean that, thanks to Rice and the Jews, there will be one and a half million fewer mouths to feed?
Study world history more.
Hitler was sent on a COINTELPRO style mission (http://www.monitor.net/monitor/9905a/jbcointelpro.html ) for the German army (under the direction of Kaiser Wilhelm, Queen Victoria’s grandson) when he began attending the meetings of one of Germany’s socialist parties.
Hitler’s rise to power was also a matter of international participation… a drama coach was hired to train him. A eugenics tutor was sent from England to prepare him in the ‘his’ new philosophy of eugenics…
Following WWII, all human experimental data and findings were distributed to the ruling elite throughout Europe. Additional funding was made available for refinements to these experiments and new venues/opportunities for continuing even in the US (research: MK-Ultra and Paperclip) were established.
The CIA was formed also from remnants of the German SS and today works hand in hand with other secret services including MI6 in matters of information control and disinfo, surveillance programs, terrorist training and selection, the world wide drug trade, arms smuggling, currency scams (such as the one perpetrated in Argentina not so long ago)…
Gladio operations throughout Europe depended heavily to CIA and German Nazi expertise. These operations are not unique to Europe but have been a feature of empire for millennia (”by deception you will make war”) and (by deception the people will be made to fear freedom and demand more police control… 9/11 is a good case in point but small local operations are being run through FBI’s tactical offices; http://www.copi.com/articles/guyatt/gladio.html and http://www.monitor.net/monitor/9905a/jbcointelpro.html)
The secret services protect, bolster and help extend the rule of the corporate/military elite order; who have ruled in Africa, Asia, South America, Europe, etc. for quite sometime. It is a Nazi model of government and it is based upon genocidal policies to maintain elite rule.
Progress - I am sorry I called you a nazi. We could do with less invective labeling and more solutions. I also think multinational corporations are today’s bad guys, and if they are not controlled by government then I don’t know who will do it. However government can also be the bad guy if it is owned by private interests (as per real nazis) and does not really represent the peoples’ interests. The nationalization of health care and essential industries sounds attractive to me if it could be done as many Europeans have, with the interests of the population foremost both in the system and in the minds of public servants. I worry that we will not be able to shake a history of profiteering banditry. We have a positive instinct to become robber barons, and to turn pubic service into private monopoly.
Globalization, unless we dismantle all communication technology and go back to village life, is probably inevitable at this point. I don’t think it is necessarily a bad thing, even though it is monstrous in its present form. If food distribution and trade were conducted, as per the ideal national system, in the interests of populations rather than profiteers, it would be fine with me. Isolationism is unhealthy and smacks of fear. Why not engage with the world in some capacity different from domination? We need a world in which mutual interest trumps self interest, and universal security assures national security. Don’t ask me how we get there from here.
I live on the border, and I have a subjective response to the border closing mentality. I have no problem with the mixing of cultures. If I may relapse into invective, the people I meet who favor a border fence have been, without exception, thinly disguised racists. They tend to be uneducated, uncharitable, defensive xenophobes, stingy, myth-ridden right wing paranoids, every single one of them, especially after you get to know them better. Like I said, it’s a personal aversion to a nasty streak in otherwise nice people of my acquaintance, standard arguments pro and con notwithstanding. I am afraid of Dick Cheney. I will not be afraid of a Mexican immigrant.
Its time to fight back, or shall you all lay down and die? stop paying the government,and vote every incumbent out. get be hind what you say and feel. That’s what our constitution say’s we can do,even the highest court in the land ,has turned its back on us. Its main job is to decide what our constition means, but refusses to hear our calls to tell us what the last ten words mean. We want our grievances heard,and to hold our government accountable,also to withhold our support,but this tyrannical government,has gone too far and we the people need to make them pay.
Why is it that in France the government is afraid of the people and in the USA, the people are afraid of the government? Let’s all get off our collective asses and act. None can do it alome.
Capitalist corporations are soon going to reap their just rewards. Starving people will rise up and take back that which belongs to them by force.
Capitalism, which worships greed, is destroying itself. May its end come quickly. May all those who’ve made billions via exploitation become paupers and get a taste of what they’ve inflicted on millions of powerless people!
Capitalism is a cancer!
Why on earth should any of this be a surprise? It’s simply corporate capitalism working as it’s designed to do.
Milton Friedman, the god of neoliberalism, went so far as to say that any corporation failing to maximize profits should be sued by stockholders.
Nothing personal, just business.
Global corporations are ruthless, amoral entities generally run by ruthless, amoral, very rich, very insulated executives, regardless of the product or service. This is neoliberal capitalism at its purest. The ONLY WAY to slow this rapacious trend, let alone turn it around, is to recognize the acute difference between the people of the world being victimized by these policies and the elite governments that are facilitating them, and in the process betraying the common interests of their constituents. While there is still a remote chance, these elites have to be replaced in office by people with vision and courage to make structural and paradigmatic changes in the government’s priorities and operations.
When it manifests here in the loss of homes, rising food prices, record fuel costs and rates of increase, profound corruption and tax avoidance, goverment bailouts for the rich and “let-them-eat-cake” for ordinary citizens, soap opera elections and propaganda disguised as journalism, it is the emerging vanguard of major economic catastrophe, a perfect storm no one politician can stave off with soothing rhetoric or empty promises. The shit has already broken the fan.
Despite the chaos of the 1960’s, the riots in the streets, the demonstrations all over this country, the destruction of property, the loss of life in the Viet Nam war and here at home (Kent State), there was a galvanized energy among the mostly young citizenry, a driving passion to challenge and speak truth to power in huge numbers, to reverse the course of this nation away from the insanity of that war and its consequences. Without such driving energy, we’re stuck in a dark version of the movie “Pleasantville”, where we stand by helplessly, powerless, as our government continues its unchecked imperialism, the “opposition” remains paralyzed or apathetic, and our society further regresses back to 19th century Social Darwinism, except with cell phones and omnipresent pornography.
I’ll have died of illness or old age by the time this happens, but you’ll have to live in this Bizarro future. Do something soon, or kiss your ass, along with the Constitution and your personal freedom, goodbye. Next stop, Rwanda Redux. What ahppened there can–easily–happen here.
“Milton Friedman, the god of neoliberalism, went so far as to say that any corporation failing to maximize profits should be sued by stockholders.”
Speaking of Uncle Miltie ( yes he was my uncle and no I wasnt to blame) I remember sitting at the dining room table at my Grandpa’s house listening to Milton exposit on the food business. He noted that ( and this was in the fifties) the average family paid exactly the same percentage of income for food that they did in 1910. He fully expected that this would change dramatically….wrong by only a few decades
http://www.commondreams.org/news2008/0502-12.htm
This stuff is beginning to be really obvious.
The corporation is an interesting phenomenon (i.e. The East India Company… how did it acquire its monopoly… and who protected it?)
… a vehicle whereby the owners (shareholders) are effectively shielded from personal accountability for any ‘externalities’…
…and the actual owners may be anyone; hiding behind an investment group; or another corporate entity or a stand-in financial agent.
Furthermore, the degree of criminality, conspiracy, even murder that is planned at the highest levels (shrouded in secrecy) of corporate pyramids would astound most…
… e.g. genocide in Indonesia to set the stage for revision to a slave economy with an obscenely wealthy upper class…
The conspiracies of some of the major corporate players; Rockefeller, GE, GM, United Fruit are truly outrageous… and our political, military, academic institutions and secret services fully support their actions.
Recently, an excellent expose on the machinations of Monsanto and the threat its GMO program poses for all life was removed from Google video.
The video is called “The World According to Monsanto”… in which you will discover that hunger is actually a managed and desired outcome of corporate policy… “strategic” as one woman says…
Capitalism? Communism? Socialism? Islamic State? Yeah right! Iran was being run by German secret services during the time that the CIA had its hands full directing the war room in Iraq.
This is not a ‘free-wheeling’ situation. It is highly controlled. Genocide… find out what it means in all its aspects… then take another look… who is deciding? With whom are they conspiring… forego the disinfo sources of the elite… including the false histories that are written for mass consumption and mass manipulation and deception called text books.
progress-regress — “It means we tell foreign creditors to take a hike ”
Really ? So we take their money and ask them to f__k off ? We take over Iraq and their oil and ask them to f__k off. We do what we bloody well feel like and ask them to f__k off. It seems to me we ARE really practicing a form of National Socialism of the variety practiced by Germany in the 40’s. Might is right … screw the world. This head in the ass attitude fits our collective persona like a glove.
Youre comments on this forum and the others are a reflection of your inner right-wing, zionist, ultra-conservative, isolationist asswipe attitude.
Haiti is a good example, there are no old people there the median age is 26 and a mere 3% of the population is 65 or older. The same thing in Viet Nam although the median age is a little higher. Iraq will be next…no history but a young work force that doesn’t know any better. Haiti is a good example because they were subsistance farmers with an intact social structure…now they export thier resources and starve.
As the author reports, it is immoral and wrong for the companies and particularly the speculators, to be making the immense profits they are, off of the backs of the poor, and destitute. Is it any real surprise though, the free enterprise system, for the large companies, is not free enterprise at all, but a totalitarian fifedom, designed and legislated into existence to benefit only a few, and those few seem to have very little conscience. Money has become their god and they do not care who gets harmed or killed in their quest for higher profits, or greater market share. There is a God and my guess is He won’t allow this kind of evil to go on without some retribution.
I think this may be the leading edge of the invisible hand of Malthus. If we didn’t have so many rich farmers on welfare, corporate interests to defend, and Arabs on top of our oil to deal with, maybe we could really do something truly constructive.
We are about to witness famine caused by movement of commodity via WTO agreement.
Prof. Amitrya Sen has published economic analysis why faminies happened in 20th century. It was dicovered that the commodity moved to where people could afford the high prices. The movement of commodity was regional.
This famine will be caused by movement of commodity produced in poor country being shipped to rich countries under the guise of WTO agreement. The movement of commodity will be international.
We in rich countries with empathy for this disaster must put pressure on this movement of food stuff across international borders. Most affective pressure will be to boycott food grown outsite our own borders. Reduced demand will turn this tide.
I don’t see this as boycott against farmers, rather boycott against traders who are inclined to take advatange of food shortage.
Good luck to all who read this.
Please read the article ‘Perhaps 60% of today’s oil price is pure speculation’ at http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=viewArticle&code=ENG20080502&articleId=8878
It is about “the US Commodity Exchange Act (CEA) which states, “Excessive speculation in any commodity under contracts of sale of such commodity for future delivery . . . causing sudden or unreasonable fluctuations or unwarranted changes in the price of such commodity, is an undue and unnecessary burden on interstate commerce in such commodity.”” However the article explains a giant loophole to this act which is allowing the speculation that is driving the price of oil and basic commodities up. Money that had been invested in this whole subprime mortgage mess is now diverted to speculation on commodities… And may end up killing many people.
wait until the chickens come home to roost - then maybe America will wake up
So much for the Global Economy and multinational monopolies…
This might sound crazy, but does anyone consider NOT participating with the drama and strife? I decided a long time again that THIS is not MY Reality. Don’t let them fool you into believing you HAVE to be a “member of society”.
(What is that, anyway? I didn’t help build this society.)
This Age is passing. Let it go. We don’t have to be limited and angry about it.
What can you do in the interim? I stopped flooding the Collective Consciousness with fear- and/or drama-based karmic patterns. Instead of focusing on all the things I was against, I thought about everything I was FOR.
So, instead of getting sick to your stomach raging against the FDA, Iraqis shot in their sleep or the birds, bees, bats and amphibians all dying…visualize a world you would be proud and ecstatic to live in. Live that vision. Imagine It, and Live It. It has been 10 years that I first tried “Living Heaven”, and let me tell you, doing what makes you happy every second of every day gets easier every single time you do it.
STOP GM FOOD
GM crops are part of the problem, not part of the solution.
In one week in April 1999 all major European food manufacturers went GM free. This can happen in the USA.
This is a lot of very interesting of reading, but click on this item and then read/scroll down and find how “Grassroots Consumer Action Could Halt Use of GM Crops in US”
http://www.organicconsumers.org/articles/article_10691.cfm
People are starving while elites are gorging. Everyone is asking what to do, what to do? Well, you have to have a goal, right? Try land, water, and food rights for all. And K-12 civics class for all, including a lesson that first explains through stories how various communities were victimized by their dependence upon elites for food. Then it develops the reasons for citizens to place land, water, food security at the top of their civic priorities, and explains how to achieve them and keep them.
Last week they said biofuels were starving the people. This week it’s the multinationals. At least they are making progress and moving their finger closer to the real culprits - the elites themselves who are running the show, and the people who enable the elites by doing exchange/association with them. If you’d like to contribute in an individual way, you can shift your exchange/association away from the elites and toward your local community.
The wikipedia article on speculation quotes the lamest rationalization - something like speculation cushions supply/demand transients. That’s like saying after you’ve been in an accident, and the hospital has managed to stop the bleeding, a speculator should suck your blood to smooth out the abrupt changes in blood loss. There’s really no legitimate reason for speculation or any of the elites’ business activities. The elites SHOULD be starving for business - then we will have nirvana.
“…Try land, water, and food rights for all. And K-12 civics class for all, including a lesson that first explains through stories how various communities were victimized by their dependence upon elites for food. Then it develops the reasons for citizens to place land, water, food security at the top of their civic priorities, and explains how to achieve them and keep them.”
I really like this. And, it is really easy and there is actually NO reason NOT to do it. In fact, we Have to do it!
“This might sound crazy, but does anyone consider NOT participating with the drama and strife? I decided a long time again that THIS is not MY Reality. Don’t let them fool you into believing you HAVE to be a “member of society””.
I am truly trying to make that effort, but society has a way of discouraging this kind of life. It makes you secretive and evil.
“If I may relapse into invective, the people I meet who favor a border fence have been, without exception, thinly disguised racists. They tend to be uneducated, uncharitable, defensive xenophobes, stingy, myth-ridden right wing paranoids, every single one of them, especially after you get to know them better.”
I have to agree with this other poster that people can’t seem to stop trying to control other people’s lives. They can’t seem to accept anyone different than themselves. This is happening within our country. What is frightening is the force that is being used.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ToyZZ8AFxUU
No meaningful reversal of this situation will ever occur unless at least two prerequisites are met: 1) A worldwide shift away from an animal-based diet to a plant-based diet (which is far less resource intensive) and 2) zero population growth. There are quite likely additional measures that can be taken that would be beneficial, however, this writer can foresee a scenario for lasting improvement that does not include both of the aforementioned measures.
Does the political will exist for these changes to become a reality? No, and probably not anytime soon. The most likely outcome — widespread famines and wars that will eventually reduce the world’s population to a more sustainable level.
Unfortunately, there seems to be little interest in reducing the number of new people entering this world (aka birth control), however, there seems to now be far more interest in eliminating those same people once they are born.
Can such objectives be attained with lesser measures, remembering that people who are thirsty and hungry will engage in actions they could never have imagined at an earlier time? Sadly, the answer would seem to be self-evident.
In the old days in India, if there was a famine, some of the rich would buy up grain stocks so that they could make big profits while people were starving to death (as was being tried in the Phillippenes just recently). Now that the speculators know the consequences of their actions, they too are guilty of the same crime against humanity.
If a village family had a misfortune, they would have to go to the money-lender who charged userous interest rates in the hopes of confiscating their property.
Ghandi and Nehru tried to change that by
instituting cooperative banks. But when the poor farmer went to the bank, he had to pay an exhorbitant bribe to one or more bank officials (pay-day loans anyone?).
Too many of our so-called religious leaders do not speak out about the greed that is embedded in too many of our psyches and that is rampant in too many of our societies.
I have posted one of the following quotes more than once:
“Politics without principles;
commerce without morality;
wealth without charity;
science without humanity;
education without character;
are not only useless, they are
positively dangerous.
“Mankind should strive for the ideal
of human unity by recognizing the Divinity that is present in every human being.”
“If there is righteousness in the heart, there is beauty in the character.
If there is beauty in the character,
there is harmony in the home.
If there is harmony in the home,
there is order in the community & nation.
If there is order in the community and nation — then there can be peace in our world.”
Bless
Corrected post:
No meaningful reversal of this situation will ever occur unless at least two prerequisites are met: 1) A worldwide shift away from an animal-based diet to a plant-based diet (which is far less resource intensive) and 2) zero population growth. There are quite likely additional measures that can be taken that would be beneficial, however, this writer cannot foresee a scenario for lasting improvement that does not include both of the aforementioned measures.
In fact, some experts have indicated that planet earth is capable of sustaining only 500 million to 1 billion people on a long-term “pay-as-you-go” basis. The current population has been estimated at something like 6.7 billion people. There is no easy way to achieve this kind of reduction, however, through strict birth control measures, perhaps such a goal could be reached before other much more sinister forces (i.e., widespread wars, famines, disease, etc.) coalesce to effect the same outcome.
Despite the many signs of its imminent decline, the people on Easter Island could not or would not alter their practices to ensure their continued survival. Someone decided to cut down the last tree, further sowing the seeds of their own demise. The wealthy on that island had the dubious privilege of being the last to die. Jared Diamond’s excellent books, “Guns, Germs and Steel” and the sequel, “Collapse” should be required reading for every citizen of this planet.
Does the political will exist for these changes to become a reality? No, and probably not anytime soon. The most likely outcome — widespread famines and wars that will eventually reduce the world’s population to a more sustainable level.
Unfortunately, there seems to be little interest in reducing the number of new people entering this world (aka birth control), however, there seems to now be far more interest in eliminating those same people (through exceedingly profitable measures such as wars)once they are born.
Can such objectives be attained with lesser measures, remembering that people who are thirsty and hungry will engage in actions they could never have imagined at an earlier time? Sadly, the answer would seem to be self-evident.
“If a group of people can be made to share the responsibility for what would be a sin in an individual did it, the load of guilt rapidly lifts from the shoulders of all concerned.” - Karl Menninger
The movies The Corporation and Enron the Smartest Guys in the Room tell you all you need to know about morality and money.
This has been the plan all along and here is a next phase of it. The way out…grow your own food, build soil, refuse to cooperate with the monsanto and war machine so called “governments” in the so called “developed” world.
The really sad thing is that there are people, I guess they are human beings, who are so greedy and monstrous inside themselves (bush, clinton, cheney, mccain, etc) that they have engineered the deaths of billions so they and theirs can survive…and of course it won’t work.
“World leaders are to meet next month at a special summit on the food crisis, and it will be high on the agenda of the G8 summit of the world’s richest countries in Hokkaido, Japan, in July.”
Hmmmmm…..by the time they meet and think about doing something about this crisis, world population figures will have decreased by a few more million. Of course, the longer they wait to rectify this crisis, the higher the death toll.
As curmudgeon May 5th, 2008 8:51 am stated:
“Unfortunately, there seems to be little interest in reducing the number of new people entering this world (aka birth control), however, there seems to now be far more interest in eliminating those same people (through exceedingly profitable measures such as wars)once they are born.”
Hey, I’m starvin’ here. Can anybody loan me a ‘hundred?
I’m afraid based on the size ,scope and finance of the gov’s Safety forces little can be done till the bottom falls out of the corporate system. Unfortunately its hard to say when that will happen , it will happen, but when? It will help to elect as many alternative candidates as possible, but even that is limited in a capital formulated and dominated social/political system.
Big companies making a lot of money and a lot of people not being served–sounds a lot like American health care.
The take home message from the 07 Nobel for economics is that free markets don’t work well when public goods are involved–it is called mechanism design theory. But then we already knew that didn’t we.
“No meaningful reversal of this situation will ever occur unless at least two prerequisites are met: 1) A worldwide shift away from an animal-based diet to a plant-based diet (which is far less resource intensive) and 2) zero population growth.”
These two points are connected in ways not always apparent. And evidently not apparent to this author.
In the first case, there is no question that ceasing to consume animal products would alleviate a drain on the environment: the land required to produce a western-style meatarian diet is !!50 Times!! what is required to produce an exclusive plant based diet. Think of that.
Next, the control structures that do not allow for the dissemination of this fact generally nor the fact that humans can ONLY be healthy on an exclusive plant based diet (because contrary to what is being taught in schools, humans are irrefutably and undeniably a type of herbivore) are the same interests that PROMOTE overpopulation and GENOCIDE!
In those countries that experience the highest birth rates, there is both: programs to insure widespread poverty and programs to insure high death rates… and then a solution is promulgated… have more children… so at least some may survive and the genocide will not result in total annihilation.
Furthermore, teen pregnancies are VERY high in areas where there is poverty… due very much to the increased rate of child/teen prostitution.
So, beware those who espouse the 500 million carrying capacity of earth. The military and especially the secret services are ALL inculcated with the belief that overpopulation is the gravest threat to civilized life… and like everything else they are taught, it is contrived of a number of gargantuan fallacies and artificially generated appearances.
To get some reality focus on this, consider the species losses, especially the great herds (20 million buffalo, etc.), the tribes of monkeys, etc. When you look at population, look at All large animal populations and add up the numbers of what would have been likely before man entered the war-making phase and began the systematic destruction of ecospheres.
All of these herds and communities were amply supported in nature. Our planet is not only NOT overpopulated, it is quite decidedly UNDERPOPULATED and becoming more so every day… and these animals have gone extinct not because of local hunting so much as systematic programs to eradicate wild life… the story of the American buffalo is hardly unique!
In our antiseptic realities, where we live in concret boxes and foodstuffs appear on our grocery shelves from distant lands we hardly know… it is very hard indeed to realize that 1/4 acre is sufficient land to adequately produce for a family of four… and with very little effort! Plant some squash, corn, fruit trees, some beans… now, who told you one would have to work all day in the field to eek out a bare living? Rubbish!
(excerpt below from http://foodfirst.org/en/12myths)
Myth 3
Too Many People
Reality: Birth rates are falling rapidly worldwide as remaining regions of the Third World begin the demographic transition - when birth rates drop in response to an earlier decline in death rates. Although rapid population growth remains a serious concern in many countries, nowhere does population density explain hunger. For every Bangladesh, a densely populated and hungry country, we find a Nigeria, Brazil or Bolivia, where abundant food resources coexist with hunger. Or we find a country like the Netherlands, where very little land per person has not prevented it from eliminating hunger and becoming a net exporter of food. Rapid population growth is not the root cause of hunger. Like hunger itself, it results from underlying inequities that deprive people, especially poor women, of economic opportunity and security. Rapid population growth and hunger are endemic to societies where land ownership, jobs, education, health care, and old age security are beyond the reach of most people. Those Third World societies with dramatically successful early and rapid reductions of population growth rates - China, Sri Lanka, Colombia, Cuba and the Indian state of Kerala - prove that the lives of the poor, especially poor women, must improve before they can choose to have fewer children.
Myth 4
(on ‘carrying capacity’ or environmental tradeoffs, follow link above.)
“If a group of people can be made to share the responsibility for what would be a sin if an individual did it, the load of guilt rapidly lifts from the shoulders of all concerned.” - Karl Menninger
Every military in the world operates on this principle as do all the corporations that deprive populations of basic necessities. No one is guilty, no one is responsible… yet, the suffering that was orchestrated did not have to happen and it required the involvement of many… none of whom are in the least guilty!
This ‘first-world’ of miltary and police state facilitators, corporate drones, follow-the-rules addicts is devoid of any who are guilty for any of the horrors that are the everyday reality of hundreds of millions of other lives… yet these horrors can only continue due to the activities of the facilitators!
Truly a perfectly psychotic reality!
Greed and corruption in high places is sowing the seed for another Hitler, which will bring even more misery and chaos. And what ever happened to humanism? Must have died in the 60’s.