Yesterday, fears of a global food crisis swept the world’s commodity markets as prices for staples such as corn, rice and wheat spiraled after the US government warned of “dramatically” lower supplies.
The USDA shocked traders by forecasting in its monthly report that the country’s corn farmers would harvest about 12.7bn bushels in the 2010-11 crop year that started in September. This is down 4 per cent from the USDA’s previous estimate. The drop would slash the country’s stocks to 900m bushels, the lowest level since 1996-97. The USDA also cut wheat and soya production estimates. [Source: Financial Times, October 8, 2010]
In 2008 millions of people were shoved into food insecurity and starvation because of Goldman Sachs and today it is happening all over again. The Financial Times is careful to lay out other reasons such as drought, etc. to excuse the rise of the prices. However, there is one thing that you can be certain of–the prices would never rise as high as they are going to for food this fall if it were not for the involvement of these Wall Street middlemen.
Have your eyes glazed over yet? If so please bring them back into focus and continue to read. I beg you. Our world is counting on you and people just like you. You ARE the Messiah, or at least one of them.
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It is exactly because of dire situations like this that we need to elect people to Congress like John Lingenfelder who understand the relationship between people starving and Wall Street instead of people like Sam Johnson and Christine O’Donnell. Do you think that people like Sam Johnson and Christine O’Donnell are even smart enough to understand what is happening, much less even give a damn if they did? I don’t. Sam Johnson doesn’t care and he proves that daily. He is the guy who thought it was a good solution to murder millions and bomb Syria off the face of the planet. Do you think he gives a damn if people of the world starve to death so that the rich get richer? Hell no. Like most Republicans, he most likely thinks that it is their God-given right to get rich any way they can. There are a few Democrats in Congress who feel that way too.
But I know that John Lingenfelder is smart enough and cares enough because I talk to him about it. Please help elect like John Lingenfelder to Congress. John is a man who 1) cares and 2) is smart enough to understand and 3) is tough enough to stand up to greedy liars–whether they are Congressional colleagues or Wall Street crooks. Please go here and give every penny that you can spare: John Lingenfelder for Congress!
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We are busy people. On top of it all, many of us, myself included, are looking for work. Still it is critical that we keep abreast of what is happening in the world and understand the capacities, or lack of them of the people that we send to Washington. People like Sam Johnson, Joe Barton, Pete Sessions, Christine O’Donnell, Sarah Palin, Joe Miller, etc. are not intellectually equipped to understand worldwide complexities and worse, these people don’t even care. They probably could not tell you the connection between Wall Street, Goldman Sachs and world starvation if their lives depended on it. John Lingenfelder can.
COME TO HIS WINE AND CHEESE EVENT TONIGHT OCTOBER 9, 2010
MEET AND TALK WITH JOHN LINGENFELDER!
6:00 PM
PARKWAY VILLAGE CLUBHOUSE
4242 Capistrano Drive
Dallas, Texas
If you care–about yourself and your family–you will take a little time to learn yourself before you vote blindly and solely on the basis of your emotions and/or how your parents voted and/or what pimps for the rich like Glenn Beck tell you and/or because you hate President Obama–none of those are rational reasons for seeking the best candidate to represent you and your family.
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YOU CAN UNDERSTAND THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN TRADING FOOD AS A COMMODITY AND WORLD STARVATION:
When food is traded as a commodity, like any other piece of stock then these futures affect the real cost of our daily bread. It is not some theoretical observation. It becomes a real fact of life on Main Street. The bankers on Wall Street literally manipulate the price that we pay for the bread that we purchase in the grocery store on Main Street. This fact was clearly demonstrated during the food crisis of 2008.
In 1991, Goldman Sachs introduced a brand new idea that completely transformed the market. They decided to start trading food products. They selected eighteen food products (such as coffee, corn, hogs, etc.), which were then passed through the black box of estimation, elixirs, sums, and mathematical formulas that is financial instrument development. It was dubbed the Goldman Sachs Commodities Index.
This brand new food index attracted buyers, whose shares rose in value, which then proved that food was a fabulous investment. Investors poured into food commodity index funds. And so the food bubble began to grow.
Farmers and brokers have hedged the price of wheat and other commodities for centuries and have made agreements to sell their wheat at a given price in the near future. Thus, this guaranteed future sale protected them from falling prices. So, why was the Goldman Sachs invention any different from what farmers and brokers had been doing for years?
The difference lies in the fact that the managers of these new commodities indexes, instead of buying and selling as everyone else did, were only buying. And kept buying, rolling over, and buying more of these historically unprecedented wheat futures. The investment banks introduced a completely unnatural and artificial demand for wheat, and sent the price through the roof. In early 2008, everything boiled to the surface. The banks were fueling this artificial demand, and speculation drove wheat prices out of control.
Hard red wheat, the world’s most commonly produced wheat variety, generally trades between $3 and $6 per bushel. On February 25th, 2008, hard red spring futures settled at $25 per bushel. Media coverage kept speaking of food shortages. The real irony here is that 2008 was the greatest wheat-producing year in world history.
It was this irony that prompted Frederick Kaufman to write an article that published in Harpers Magazine this August, entitled “The Food Bubble: How Wall Street Starved Millions and Got Away with It” The article chronicles Kaufman’s attempt to get to the bottom of the 2008 food crisis, and the real reason behind why millions of people were shoved into food insecurity and starvation in 2008.
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What this artificial food bubble created by Goldman Sachs caused in 2008:
Many of us were so taken with the 2008 election that we didn’t even notice. A few of us did. I posted a few blogs in my Queen site regarding the food riots that were happening all over the world. But by and large most Americans didn’t even notice the crisis.
While many of us felt the pinch of it in our food budgets, we were not affecting as drastically as other countries. Most Americans spend between 15 to 20% of their income on food. But most people in the world spend close to 50% of their daily earnings on food. For many, the food bubble pushed that up to 80%, and thus right into food insecurity, malnutrition, and starvation.
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THIS ALL BOILS DOWN TO A MORAL QUESTION FOR ME.
Should the price of food be gambled, thrown about on a trading floor in pursuit of profit as prices rise and people of the world starve to death?
We are not talking derivatives, currency, or bonds – this is food.
DOES GOLDMAN SACHS HAVE THE RIGHT TO DO THIS?
I SAY NO. REPUBLICANS SAY YES.
MARKETS DON’T ADJUST THEMSELVES.
CORPORATIONS LIKE GOLDMAN SACHS ADJUST MARKETS.
AND THAT IS WHY I AM VOTING FOR JOHN LINGENFELDER.
He understands the connection between Wall Street and people starving to death.
I ask you to go to his site and contribute all you can–even if you don’t live in Texas.
John will be one more person in Washington D.C. who is on your side.
According to the United Nations 18,000 children starve to death every day.
Are you going to continue to follow the party who tells you to not be concerned with social issues?
You get to decide with your vote in November.
ADDENDUM
And do you think that tomorrow that the Sunday pundits will be discussing world starvation and Wall Streets direct connection to that? No, of course they won’t. Mainstream media is funded by Wall Street. Instead the Sunday pundits will be discussing non-issues such as projections as to which candidate has the best chance of winning, or whether someone believes that President Obama is really an American citizen, or whether the Republicans will take control of the House.
