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Donnerstag, 8. September 2011
Trading in food and killing the poor
wasistlos, 19:33h
This is my first entry in english language in this blog where usually articles in german language are published. The reason why I’m going to write an english article now is an important one. The german news-magazine “Der Spiegel” (Der Spiegel, No. 35, 29.08.2011) published an article about the consequences of the excessive trading in soft commodities at stock exchanges around the world. These consequences are so severe for the poor that I chose to write an article in English about, so hopefully as many people as possible will read it and act to stop this madness.
The true reason for the rise in food prices
According to the -article which referrs to the United Nations Special Rapporteur on the right of food, Olivier de Schutter, the real and main reason for the rising food prices around the globe in the last few years is the excessive trading in soft commodities – agricultural products. Private investors and big companies and organization have discovered a new and dangerous method of making more profites – Futures contracts. These speculators bet on rising or falling prices of the so called soft commodities, in other words food.
Many believe that the consequences of climate change, biofuel, growing population on earth, etc. are mainly responsible for growing food prices, but this is wrong, as I personally assumed some time ago. Surely these factors also have an impact on food prices, but the main reason for the increase of food prices are egoistic speculators who trade with food for the sake of profit, not because their job or their way of life (for example farmers) depends on stable food prices.
Speculators gain more money and the poor starve to death
Now of course you as wealthy and well-fed inhabitant of rich countries in Europe or the USA could say: “What shall I care, as long as I get my belly full, what do I care about the poor?”. Easy to say that such a way of thining is not only ethically condemable, but also very stupid. We, the people in the so called “rich countries” have to act to prevent injustice which can lead to the death of hundreds of thousands of poor around the globe. Right now there already is a famine going on in Africa and it does not seem to get better, because speculators are continuing their egoistic trading in foods so that these moneygrubbing bastards can increase their wealth.
They are people like Alan Knuckman a (soft) commodity trader at the Chicago Board of Trade who was cited in the Spiegel-article mentioned above. He is one of those egoistic assholes who do not care about other people but themselves and are only interested in grubbing more and more money to spend a life in lavish luxury. They kill for money, they only do it indirectly by buying away food from the markets and so rising the prices, so that poor people can not afford to buy food although there is enough food for everyone. Their hands are full of the blood of those who are starving right now and are going to starve if there is no change.
Idiot Alan Knuckman said to the Spiegel: “I do not believe in politics, (...) I believe in the market which is always right.”. He further states that he is there to make money and that the time of cheap food is over which would be good for the American, because they over-fed anyway. The fact that his acting and the acting of egoists of his kind is causing suffering, hunger and death is, according to Alan Knuckman, “an unwanted side effect of the market.”.
A naive way of thinking
Knuckman and other egoistic and inhuman speculators proof that they have naive and short-run way of thinking which serves only their own egoistic needs. They think that they can go on with making profits at the expense of the poor and other people. They believe that that such a system of exploitation continues for ever or even for their own life time.
But this is wrong. The current financial and economic crisis are merely the first act of the fall of this system. A system where only a few get rich at the expense of a majority that stays poor and suffers under high prices for food and commodities has no future. Maybe Alan Knuckman and his friends believe that the poor and starving around the globe can not defend themselves, but they are wrong. There are still people, even in these “rich” countries, who have something that Knuckman and his club of egoistic money-grubbers do not have: social conscience.
These people with social conscience and moral integrity are ready to fight for the poor. They know where egoists like Knuckman are vulnerable and they will make them pay.
For their own safety Knuckman and his kind of people should stop living a life at the expense of the poor. Now they still can change it and their behaviour, before it these are “made” change. This is inevitable – this “exploiting system” and system of unlimited consumption of limited ressources has no future and everyone who can think logically, understands this.
When the system is going down, money-grubbers like Knuckman will be crushed by the falling debris of this system.
Act now, before it is too late (for you)!
The true reason for the rise in food prices
According to the -article which referrs to the United Nations Special Rapporteur on the right of food, Olivier de Schutter, the real and main reason for the rising food prices around the globe in the last few years is the excessive trading in soft commodities – agricultural products. Private investors and big companies and organization have discovered a new and dangerous method of making more profites – Futures contracts. These speculators bet on rising or falling prices of the so called soft commodities, in other words food.
Many believe that the consequences of climate change, biofuel, growing population on earth, etc. are mainly responsible for growing food prices, but this is wrong, as I personally assumed some time ago. Surely these factors also have an impact on food prices, but the main reason for the increase of food prices are egoistic speculators who trade with food for the sake of profit, not because their job or their way of life (for example farmers) depends on stable food prices.
Speculators gain more money and the poor starve to death
Now of course you as wealthy and well-fed inhabitant of rich countries in Europe or the USA could say: “What shall I care, as long as I get my belly full, what do I care about the poor?”. Easy to say that such a way of thining is not only ethically condemable, but also very stupid. We, the people in the so called “rich countries” have to act to prevent injustice which can lead to the death of hundreds of thousands of poor around the globe. Right now there already is a famine going on in Africa and it does not seem to get better, because speculators are continuing their egoistic trading in foods so that these moneygrubbing bastards can increase their wealth.
They are people like Alan Knuckman a (soft) commodity trader at the Chicago Board of Trade who was cited in the Spiegel-article mentioned above. He is one of those egoistic assholes who do not care about other people but themselves and are only interested in grubbing more and more money to spend a life in lavish luxury. They kill for money, they only do it indirectly by buying away food from the markets and so rising the prices, so that poor people can not afford to buy food although there is enough food for everyone. Their hands are full of the blood of those who are starving right now and are going to starve if there is no change.
Idiot Alan Knuckman said to the Spiegel: “I do not believe in politics, (...) I believe in the market which is always right.”. He further states that he is there to make money and that the time of cheap food is over which would be good for the American, because they over-fed anyway. The fact that his acting and the acting of egoists of his kind is causing suffering, hunger and death is, according to Alan Knuckman, “an unwanted side effect of the market.”.
A naive way of thinking
Knuckman and other egoistic and inhuman speculators proof that they have naive and short-run way of thinking which serves only their own egoistic needs. They think that they can go on with making profits at the expense of the poor and other people. They believe that that such a system of exploitation continues for ever or even for their own life time.
But this is wrong. The current financial and economic crisis are merely the first act of the fall of this system. A system where only a few get rich at the expense of a majority that stays poor and suffers under high prices for food and commodities has no future. Maybe Alan Knuckman and his friends believe that the poor and starving around the globe can not defend themselves, but they are wrong. There are still people, even in these “rich” countries, who have something that Knuckman and his club of egoistic money-grubbers do not have: social conscience.
These people with social conscience and moral integrity are ready to fight for the poor. They know where egoists like Knuckman are vulnerable and they will make them pay.
For their own safety Knuckman and his kind of people should stop living a life at the expense of the poor. Now they still can change it and their behaviour, before it these are “made” change. This is inevitable – this “exploiting system” and system of unlimited consumption of limited ressources has no future and everyone who can think logically, understands this.
When the system is going down, money-grubbers like Knuckman will be crushed by the falling debris of this system.
Act now, before it is too late (for you)!
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