TigerSoft News Service 4/19/2008
www.tigersoft.com updated 2/8/2010
Rice Riots, Famine, Hoarding
And Wall Street Hyper-Speculation in Commodities.
Far-Reaching Consequences
The Costs of the $3 Trillion Bush/Cheney war in Iraq and
Hellicopter Ben's $650 Billion Ben's of Elite US Banks
Will Cost A Lot More Than Even Their Critics Might Suggest.
Trend-following herds of instutions and hedge funds have made
food costs rise faster and further with their speculation. They
can buy 1 million dollars worth of wheat, rise, oats, soybeans
by depositing only $70,000.<1> Commodity ETFs have made
it even easier to speculate. And since the ETFs do not expire,
longs can lock up a commodity for a very long time. In my opinion,
until excess speculation in foods is curbed, the bubbles will only
keep occurring. No one should starve because of Wall Street greed.
Withour regulation of derivatives, CFTC regulation means nothing.
That means Obama will have to get off the fence. (3/8/2011). Europe
will take steps ahead of laissez-faire America <2> C learly speculative
positions and margin requirements must be regulated. <3>
<1> There is lots of evidence of this: http://wallstreetpit.com/65589-starbucks-sbux-ceo-says-rising-commodity-prices-are-a-result-of-speculation
> Indonesia to bring food commodity speculation issue in G20 Summit
> Lieberman seeks limits to reduce commodity speculation
> Wall Street Grain Hoarding Brings Farmers, Consumers Near Ruin
<2> EU to rein in commodity speculation
<3> http://www.thenation.com/article/159078/will-federal-regulators-crack-down-oil-speculation
Commodity Market Reform: Wall Street versus the regulators
As The Price of Crude Oil and Rice Double,
The Spectres of Food Riots, Famine and
Starvation Become All Too Real.
Every 2.4 seconds someone dies in agony from starvation.
It never stops. The deaths go on and on. 85% of those who
die are under 6 years old. 50,000 die per day from starvation,
water-borne diseases and HIV. ( Source: http://www.starvation.net/ )
"The first global food crisis since World War II threatens
20 million of the poorest children "
See http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080422/ap_on_re_eu/world_food_crisis
4/23/08 - Update:
Sam's Club and Costco Limit Rice Purchase. U.S. rice futures soared
to an all-time high Wednesday as investors bet that surging world demand will continue to pressure
already dwindling stockpiles. Rice for the most actively traded July contract jumped 62 cents to
$24.820 per 100 pounds on the Chicago Board of Trade, after earlier rising to a record $24.85.
by William Schmidt, Ph.D. (Columbia University)
(C) 2008 All rights reserved. Reproducing any part of this page without
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Rice's Doubling Raises Very Real Spectre
of Food Riots, Famine and Starvation
( Source: http://www.cartoonstock.com/directory/f/famine.asp )
The price of rice has almost doubled in the last four months. The FED and other
central banks are adding hundreds of billions of new "funny" money. That has
made matters worse on the inflation front. Runaway global inflation has now added
explosive volatility to many countries' politics. Vietnam, India, Egypt and Cambodia --
have sharply limited their rice exports so they can be sure they can feed their own people. The
Washington Post reports that since January, thousands of troops have been deployed in Pakistan
to guard trucks carrying wheat and flour. Protests have erupted in Indonesia over soybean shortages,
and China has put price controls on cooking oil, grain, meat, milk and eggs. Food riots have
erupted in recent months in Guinea, Mauritania, Mexico, Morocco, Senegal, Uzbekistan and
Yemen."
World Bank President Robert Zoellick warns that food and oil inflation are apt to cause
severe turmoil and unrest in 33 countries. Global inflation has become embedded into the
psyche of billions of people around the world. Inflationary expectations like these
will be difficult to stop now that it has started. Bush's war and the Fed's bailout of
elite US banks with billions is going to cost many mor elives than even their critics
suggest.
Riots are the exception. But they do get attention from
policy-makers. The truth is that a silent and painful famine is
sweeping the Globe because sharply higher energy prices
make transportation of foods and powered irrigation
much more expensive. What's worse? Corn is now used
for clean fuel, rather than food. As oil prices rise, so do
chemicals and thus fertilizers. The rising food prices
that result mean hunger from Haiti to Pakistan to North
Korea to Indonesia to Egypt and much of East Africa.
Millions may starve. "While people in richer countries have noticed higher
supermarket prices, the effect is far more pronounced in developing countries where
50-60 percent of income goes to food compared with just 10-20 percent in the developed
world. "
(See = http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/L11338105.htm )
Dairy prices are rising, too, because it is more expensive to keep
cattle. Many are being slaughtered. Hence, the decline in
beef and hog prices. "More people are eating meat and dairy products in Asia,
which increases the demand on the animal-feed industry. Milk powder prices rose from
$2,000 to $4,800 per tonne last year as rising consumption of milk products in Asia coincided
with shortages in the Western world. Drought in Australia has worsened the problem as have
government policies in Europe and America to increase the use of biofuels."
(See = http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/environment/article3500975.ece )
Countries may start to hoard their foods. The President of the Phillipines appealed
to the President of Viet Nam to keep supplying promised rice. India and Argentina have
restricred the export of grains. Stockpiles of wheat hit a 60-year low in the United States as
prices soared. Almost all commodities, from rice and soybeans to sugar and corn, have posted
triple-digit price increases in the past year or two.
Global warming will make a bad situation much, much worse if drought conditions
expand, as expected, in Africa. Bush and Cheney have created much contempt and
hatred for the US by denying the reality of Global warming. Their denial is seen as
an act of unmitigated selfishness by the US, a country that is the biggest producer
of CO2 emmissions on the planet and by Bush and Cheney, who tied so closely to
the oil and gas (fossil fuel) industry in te US.
"This is the new face of hunger," said Josetta Sheeran, director of the UN's World Food
Program, launching an appeal for an extra $500 million so it could continue supplying
food aid to 73 million hungry people this year. "People are simply being priced out of
food markets. ... We have never before had a situation where aggressive rises in food
prices keep pricing our operations out of reach."
Apr 14, 2008 UNITED NATIONS - A rapidly escalating global food crisis has reached
emergency proportions and threatens to wipe out seven years of progress in the fight
against poverty, Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon warned Monday. He called for short-term
emergency measures in many regions to meet urgent food needs and avoid starvation and urged
longer-term efforts to significantly increase production of food grains. The international community
needs "to take urgent and concerted action in order to avoid the larger political and security
implications of this growing crisis," Ban told international finance and trade officials who came to
a U.N. meeting following weekend talks in Washington.
Bush in the US responded by releasing $200 million in emergency aid to help nations where
surging food prices have deepened hunger woes and sparked violent. By comparison, Bush's
tragic blunder and now criminal face-sacing war in Iraq is costing more than $12,000,000,000 a
month. If the seemingly endless war in Afghanistan's cost is added in, then these wars are costing
each household more than $100 per month.
I submit that if instead of using costly military force to occupy and control a country in the
midst of a civil war, the money was spent to conquer world hunger, the US would gain a
vast amount of good will and be much safer from a terrorist attack. As it is, Bush's war and
reliance on intimidation and bullying have only facilitated the recruitment and training of
legions of new terrorists.
Links:
http://www.democracynow.org/2008/4/8/stuffed_and_starved_as_food_riots
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20080414.wregulytalk0414/BNStory/International/home?cid=al_gam_mostemail
http://209.157.64.200/focus/f-news/2000796/posts
"News you won't find on CNN" - http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article19725.htm
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/c/a/2006/03/30/MNGLEI0INB1.DTL
http://www.starvation.net/
| Watch video 
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Feed the Children Christian Children's Fund
http://www.salvationarmy.org/ihq/www_sa.nsf/vw-sublinks/EBF7FD668BE72BF180257126005765B6?openDocument
The photo is the “Pulitzer Prize” winning photo taken in 1994
during the Sudan Famine.
The picture depicts stricken child crawling towards an United Nations food camp, located a
kilometer away.
The vulture is waiting for the child to die so that it can eat him. This picture shocked
the whole world.
No one knows what happened to the child, including the photographer Kevin Carter who
left the place as soon as the photograph was taken. Three months later he committed
suicide
due to depression.
( Source: http://www.worldsfamousphotos.com/tag/famine
)
| "IMAGINE " Video. Imagine there's no heaven, |
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GLOBAL
INFLATION
Rice riots are not new. Japan 1918.
2010-2011
FOOD PRICE DOUBLE-BUBBLE
June March
Symbol
2010
2011
----------------------------------------------------------
Coffee
135
287
CC1620
Cocoa
2900
3644
CO1620
Live Cattle 90
114
LC1620
Soybeans 950
1382 S_1620
Sugar
16
30
SU1620
Wheat
450
780
W_1620
Orange Juice 140 177
OJ1620
Oats
200
375
O_1620
Corn
350
706
C_1620
Live Hogs 80
89
LH1620
