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Incredible but true...

Due to the incredible rise in price of cereals worldwide, 33 countries have issued warning that there may be civil unrest since the population cannot afford to pay for staple foods. Most of these are third world or evolving countries.

FAO has issued a plee to World Bank to intervene. EU countries are being urged to review thier outdated agricultural policies immedietly to try and revert this world emergency.

Crazy isn't it? Here we are, paying susidies all over the western wrold to cut down on cereal productin, when all of a sudden, half the globe cannot afford to buy thier daily bread.

The mind boggles.

Are you cereal? You cannot be cereal about this story...can you link the source?

Its like as if some huge bloodsucker has removed all of the money out of circulation and theres little opportunity for the common man to earn even enough to feed their families - I really do not know what this world is coming to - I really dont

Its like the monetary system is killing off the people who keep it all in motion - its eating itself........... theres a crisis in lots of areas at the moment, lending rates, mortgages and credit are all suffering - those who have it arent relinquishing it too easily for some reason

Theres a lot creamed off towards the war machine profiteers too - seems to me that greed is winning the game just now. Theres nothing like the amounts of gold in any of the treasuries to cover the paper money in circulation - let alone the loans etc............

heres a link to a United Nations doc;

http://www.unrisd.org/unrisd/website/document.nsf/d2a23ad2d50cb2a280256eb300385855/d7ee58f01e903b2fc1256dd60046e504/$FILE/patnaik.pdf

Thanks sweetheart

This forum really needs clickable links....

ATLAS IS SHRUGGING!!!!!

wouldnt surprise me in the least Conrad

next best thing is the windows live toolbar and a deft bit of cut n paste I have found

Hello sir!

He could hardly be blamed if he just dropped the ball and kicked it!

That'd stir up some chit eh?

Yeah, we best be careful he doesnt shrug too hard hey

Yeah, I know. It's just a pain in the ass for all that work instead of just clicking on a link and presto.....

cest la vie we do have it pretty good here on lots of scores though

copied from The International Womens League;

3. Globalization and the new ruling class

‘Globalization’ means the integration of the entire world into one system, which many term as the ‘capitalist system’. It is promoted by giant transnational corporations (TNCs) and financial interests, and is facilitated by economic policies that are adopted to further those interests. ‘Globalization’ is the term used to describe the contemporary process of financing, producing, and trading goods and services including food, clothing, consumer goods, communications, banking, culture, and entertainment. Although TNCs receive assistance from the governments of the countries in which they are headquartered, they owe their primary allegiance to their stockholders. Their main objective is to maximize profit as rapidly as possible. With this uppermost in mind, TNCs decide upon what will be produced; where and how goods will be assembled, transported, marketed, priced and sold; with whose labor; with what natural resources and what type of technology; and how the often toxic waste products are to be disposed of. This often involves relocating production in countries that offer enabling infrastructure, cheap labor, little interference from trade unions, weak environmental regulations, repatriation of profits, and tax holidays. It also involves providing for the protection of property and, in particular the protection of intellectual property through patents, trade marks and copyrights. The globalization process is weakening the role of the State and the bargaining position of workers everywhere.

In 1998, as the indigenous peoples of the Americas celebrated 500 years of resistance against colonization and foreign domination, many people argued that there was nothing really new about ‘globalization’ and the ‘new world order’ declared by President Bush. What is happening today, many believe, is simply a continuation of the old world order that began when Columbus set sail for the Americas at a time that the European empires were seeking global expansion, slave labor, cheap raw materials, new markets, and higher profits. The globalization of production controlled by today’s TNCs, they say, will simply complete the domination of the ‘Third World’ by expropriating everything that has not yet been plundered. The corporations are systematically combing the earth for the tiniest particles of genetic materials (including the genes of indigenous peoples), seeds, plants, art forms and other indigenous knowledge which they could manipulate, patent, and profit from, and to which they could lay claim.

Others argue that the structures and mechanisms of today’s economic system are fundamentally different and that it is important for us to understand how. Writing in The Financial Times, James Morgan describes the ‘new’ imperialism as

"the construction of a new global system...orchestrated by the Group of 7, the International Monetary Fund (IMF), the World Bank and the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade [now the World Trade Organization or WTO. But it works through a system of indirect rule that has involved the integration of a system of indirect rule that has involved the integration of leaders of developing countries into the network of the new ruling class...A developing country can receive large, cheap loans if it adopts the programs embodies in the orthodoxy of (more or less) balanced budgets, devaluation, privatization investment. The evolution of structural adjustment programs has involved the total integration of the IMF and World Bank into the life of the target countries".3

Behind the Washington, D.C.-based World Bank and IMF (which are also known as the international financial institutions or the Bretton Woods institutions) lie powerful national economic interests. These are the owners of capital, primarily huge transnational banks and corporations which promote the ‘neo-liberal’, free-market’ ideology. Their lobbyists influence politicians and the newly created World Trade Organization (WTO) to adopt policies friendly to corporate interests even though they are known to be harmful to human beings and the environment. Generous contributions to election campaigns make this kind of lobbying especially successful. In this way, laws protecting workers, the air, water, and environment are being eliminated and legal restrictions on the activities of private businesses are being removed. This is known as ‘deregulation’, and it is happening everywhere under the more popular rubric of ‘economic reform’.

The loans referred to in the quote above go back to the 1970s when banks were flooded with dollars and looked for ways to make even more money by giving loans that would be repaid with interest. In this way, the banks maximized short-term profits without considering the risks.4 The US administration was spending more than it was earning, mostly to pay for the war in Vietnam and to project military power elsewhere to prevent the spread of communism. It did away with the gold standard in 1971 so that it could print more dollars to cover its debt. This enabled the US to meet its deficits and to continue spending more than it had. In addition, huge deposits of Middle Eastern petrodollars, after oil prices rose in 1973, and higher deposits from the industrialized countries enabled the banks to begin lending aggressively.

Most third world countries and many US farmers were targets of the lending spree. In the case of the US, farmers were encouraged to borrow, but many of them were unable to pay back their debts. Due to their indebtedness and other economic factors, a great number of bankruptcies occurred. Heartbreaking stories of mental health disorders and murder-suicides among farmers and their families multiplied in the midwestern states of the US. A way of life was brought to an end and food production became dominated by agri-business as never before.

In the case of the ‘Third World’, the banks found many profitable placements for their money. Both borrowers and lenders acted irresponsibly. Much of the money borrowed was not invested productively. It was used to purchase oil and weapons; to erect huge, environmentally destructive projects such as dams and nuclear power plants or oversized factories; to import foreign goods consumed mostly by the middle and upper classes; and subsequently to make interest payments. Much of the money that was lent ended up as capital flight (money that is sent back to the banks as deposits by wealthy individuals, government officials and companies).5


All this bonanza helped the rise of interest rates dramatically in the 1980s. Railing against the criminal effects of interest rate increases, journalist Alexander Cockburn in 1984 wrote, "Every time Paul Volcker puts the US prime interest rate up one point, $4.5 billion is added overnight to Third World debt service. Volcker might just as well take several thousand undernourished African babies into a field and machine-gun them. As chairman of the Federal Reserve Board, Volcker has been responsible for more deaths than the combined total of every ‘terrorist’ group on the State Department’s list. Volcker is not, as far as I know, personally a murderer, but he represents a system called capitalism, in which the US is a dominant force".6

Sorry had problems with my lap top tonight.

Source: 20.00 news RAI 1 (Italian National TV) News.

Apparently there already are some violent protest in various countries going on.

It's cool and thanks...

In the meantime thanks to all those who have added other information for reading to the original line of thought.

Sorry again for not being able to be there while you were doing it all.

Thanks again.

"Its like the monetary system is killing off the people who keep it all in motion - its eating itself........... theres a crisis in lots of areas at the moment, lending rates, mortgages and credit are all suffering - those who have it arent relinquishing it too easily for some reason
Theres a lot creamed off towards the war machine profiteers too - seems to me that greed is winning the game just now. Theres nothing like the amounts of gold in any of the treasuries to cover the paper money in circulation - let alone the loans etc............" quoted from Trish


Could it be that the scheduled chaos dates have been moved up???
Betting pools are still favouring odds that new war and economic chaos are going to be the reasons that Bush will declare an 'emergency' and not leave office...not a good sign...

It could well be Solitare, yes - I was thinking that too - but more along the lines of whoever is pulling Bush' strings............

I keep reading "America losing the drugs war in Afghanistan" and have to ask just how difficult it can be to introduce a parasite or something which affects pollination to the poppies? I believe opium production was at an all time high for the last 3 years so whats happening?

Theres lots of money to be made from being at war and its in their interests to keep it going.

It used to be that any monies issued by a bank had to be within something like 20% of what was held in gold in their vaults, not a bad way to run things, but now, that rule is long gone, along with anything like the gold reserves to back it all up. Its all just numbers on computers now, very like an online game of monopoly and all the paper money in circulation is rapidly becoming just as worthless as monopoly money. I see it as government sanctioned abuse - or supremacists at play!

I think future historians will have much to humour them from this era, even if it is only ironically. As Abe Lincoln said, "money should be the servant of humanity, not the master"............

You found out. "Emperor Bush" I see it in the cards.

Yes, it' all about gettin the numbers on the screens to go up, up, and higher.

Somewhere along the line it seems that we have forgotten the meaning of the word sustainibility.

The entire global industry of armaments, not just that of the US, is so huge, that it is a financial necessity for wars to continue.If you spend billions in the development of a specific weapon, then you must be assured of a market for it.

There is a similar situation in combatting illicit drug production worldwide. There is so much money flying about in things like DEA and other such agencies, that industries supplying materials and support reuqire 'the enemy' to remain. If efforts to wipe out illegal drug production succeeds, a load of people in the west would go bankrupt wouldn't they? They NEED the drug production to be there for them to make money out of fighting it.

Without providing a doom day scenario, but yes, ultimately I believe we will soon reach a point for a new world order to evolve. It must, if we are to save this planet we live on from being sucked dry of it's life support capibilities.