Tuesday, May 06, 2008

The World Hunger Is Growing (Updated)

My last post

I am really glad that my first thoughts about this calamity is proved right after all this depressing news. The Bankers lost money from the bloody fracas they created out of bad credit. Now they want to make the money back. So how do they proceed. Buy the food stocks of the world and stockpile them. Then hold it increasing the price. Lots of people will die but who cares about it except lttle people like me who cry from inside. Everytime I throw a little bit of food, as they go bad I cringe from guilt. But the Bankers do not my dear friend. they laugh all the way to the.....

Listen to this article if you are not sure.

"Speculation in commodities – the first culprit

The immediate cause for the rise in food prices is the speculation in commodities mainly at the Chicago stock exchange. According to Jean Ziegler, one thousand billion dollars of the world money supply have been lost between October and January through market speculation on the world's stock exchanges. The big speculators, the hedge funds – that's not the Red Cross, says Jean Ziegler – now speculate in soya, rice, millet, wheat and corn. They are looking for maximum profit in agricultural raw materials and are thus pushing the prices up to an explosive level. They can buy up Brazil's entire soya harvest with only 5 % of real capital. This way they risk very little if the harvest turns out to be less than expected but they stand a good chance of making astronomical profits.

The cause is the speculation in commodities, the hedge funds that create money with money. It doesn't make money from production, from an industry, from creating something of value. It is a way of making gold with air ("Ils font de l'or avec du vent"). The speculators are not bothered with food security in the world; they go where they have to go to make maximum profits.

One thousand billion dollars of inherited property have been lost since October in the world's money markets which are no more profitable. The financial markets have collapsed. The margin of profit is negative. So where do they go? They go where the speculation is worthwhile and that is in agricultural raw materials.

Those speculators are criminals because we are dealing with crimes against humanity.

Since the bi-polar world system that existed before 1991 and the fall of the Soviet Union, there have been no obstacles to the savage capitalism that has now conquered the world.

UNCTAD – United Nations Conference on Trade and Development – is trying to rein in the WTO, which is the neoliberal institution that above all supports deregulation and privatization. UNCTAD is making efforts to exert a stabilizing influence on speculation in the commodities markets. However, capitalist market forces are too strong to be subdued by the well-intentioned efforts of a UN organization."


The rest of the reasons for the problem is in the article.

If you cannot find the links in this blog, I have majority of them filed, Email me!

4 comments:

dar4 said...

The Chicago Stock Exchange does not trade commodities. That would be one of the futures exchanges such as the Chicago Board of Trade or Chicago Mercantile Exchange (which have now merged).

Always said...

droeschley

Sorry about the delay about this as I am still awaiting a reply from the authour of the article. Thanks for the comment

Always said...

This is the email I sent to Siv O'neal the authour.
'Insurrection of the Famished – Causes and Possible Remedies of the World Hunger Crisis',

Dear Mr O'Neall,
In this article you made this statement:

"The immediate cause for the rise in food prices is the speculation in commodities mainly at the Chicago stock exchange."

The Chicago Stock Exchange does not trade commodities. That would be one of the futures exchanges such as the Chicago Board of Trade or Chicago Mercantile Exchange (which have now merged). Could you please verify this. Thank you for your time and patience.

Ahem and this is what I recieved from her, so sorry that I did not know O'Neal's gender. My god what a mess?

Dear Always Shariff,

I am Mrs Siv O'Neall, but aside from that, what I have to say in answer to your complaint is the following:

I was basing my writing of the essay 'Insurrection of the Famished – Causes and Possible Remedies of the World Hunger Crisis', which you are obviously referring to, on an interview with Jean Ziegler (La faim du monde - World Hunger), former United Nations Special Rapporteur on the Right to Food, who says in his interview "The immediate cause of the recent explosion in world prices [of food] is speculation at the stock exchanges, principally at the Chicago Stock Exchange, in other words the stock exchange for raw materials, the oldest Stock Exchange in the world, because in the Midwest (- and secondly biofuels, etc. etc.) That's what is important in my opinion.

After re-listening to the interview with Jean Ziegler I made the following notes - among other things the exact wording of the excerpt concerning the Chicago Stock Exchange.


Commodities

The French equivalent is "produit de base" or "matière première" like energy, goods, or industrial raw materials

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Commodity

Jean Ziegler is talking about the Chicago Stock exchange and if he is somewhat imprecise, that is definitely not my problem. I am not going to check up on or correct Jean Ziegler. Besides, whether what he's talking about is the Chicago Stock Exchange or the Chicago Board of Trade has very little, if any, importance in this case. The important point is that there is speculation in food prices and that that is THE MAIN FACTOR responsible for the sudden and enormous rise in commodity prices. 'Commodities' translates as 'matières premières' and 'matières premières' is 'raw materials'. 'Commodities' is explained in Webster as 'raw materials' and is translated in French as 'matières premières' or 'produits de base'.

The exact text in French is: "Ce qui est immédiatement, maintenant, la cause de l'explosion c'est la spéculation boursière, essentiellement à Chicago, donc la Bourse des matières premières à Chicago, une des plus vieilles bourses du monde, parce que située dans le Midwest (et – deuxièmement les biocarburants …)"

http://www.la-bas.org/article.php3?id_article=1424

At http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/110534/Chicago-Stock-Exchange

I am told about the Chicago Stock Exchange

..role as a trading centre. The city’s rapid early growth and its location as the rail hub amid the country’s farm belt made it the logical site for commodities trading. In 1848, traders created the Chicago Board of Trade to rationalize the process of purchasing and forwarding grain to Eastern markets. Over the years the scope of its trading expanded to include a number of commodities, and in...
So it should be the Chicago Board of Trade, but Ziegler clearly simplifies because he's speaking to a French audience. Since I am translating the way Jean Ziegler says it, I don't see any need to correct anything, but I'll ask Paul Harris to make a footnote of the exact French wording.


All the best,
Siv O'Neall

Always said...

And a further email from Siv. Thank you again Siv

Dear Always Shariff,

I meant to add the exact text in French to the sentence where I write
"The immediate cause for the rise in food prices is the speculation in commodities mainly at the Chicago stock exchange." - but it turns out it's too late and the essay has already disappeared from my list of posted articles.

It is Jean Ziegler who calls it the Chicago stock exchange and there is nothing very much I can do about that.
I was going to add with an asterisk the following:

The exact text in French is: "Ce qui est immédiatement, maintenant, la cause de l'explosion c'est la spéculation boursière, essentiellement à Chicago, donc la Bourse des matières premières à Chicago, une des plus vieilles bourses du monde, parce que située dans le Midwest...

But clearly, I can not change the way Jean Ziegler says the stock exchange (la Bourse) even if you are perfectly right in saying it's the Chicago Board of Trade that is the body that is the global commodity futures exchange. Ziegler was however speaking to a French audience so he wasn't expecting any complaints about inexactitude. There is just nothing I can do about that except quoting Jean Ziegler exactly the way he said it. Only, as I said, I can't even do that since the essay is gone from my list.

All the best,
Siv O'Neall