Ellen Brown's Great Piece on Banks starving the Third World
Thursday, February 3, 2011 at 4:38PM Today, sugar prices reached a three-decade high. More scary, the United Nation's Food and Agricultural Food-Price Index reached an all-time high for January, up 3.4% over December, logging its 7th consecutive monthly increase. Meanwhile, the price of crude oil per barrel topped $100.
Because his family isn't starving, World Bank President, Robert Zoellick characterized this as a trend driven by excess demand in third-world countries (and not say, traders using that excuse to turn up the speculative heat) telling Reuters, ""This can put pressure but also create opportunities."
These price spikes across the spectrum of food and other necessary commodities, are happening for a reason, and it's not because of a collective third world sweet tooth. It is not a coincidence that this is concurrent with the revolts in Egypt and other countries, either. These events are part of a vicious global speculative cycle that has traders profiting excessively on the starvation and economic strangling of ordinary people.
Ellen Brown, author of the wonderful book, Web of Debt, posted this compelling article on Truthout - entitled "The Egyptian Tinderbox: How Banks and Investors are Starving the Third World" about this phenomenon. You gotta check it out.
Egypt, Ellen Brown, Global Speculation, Starvation, Third World 
Reader Comments (5)
Nomi, thanks so much for your wonderful posts. I enjoy reading every single one of them!
I just saw you on Russia Today with Keiser. Great stuff. I hope this doesn't sound as sexist as it probably is, but I gotta say to see such an attractive woman that doesn't just lean on her looks, but has a sharp mind is so great. Hope you will keep up the fight on the lack of solid financial regulations, ENFORCEMENT of the regulations, and getting a stronger SEC in the future. I'm extremely sorry to say I haven't bought the book yet, but I'm playing catch-up with about 20 books on my list. Hopefully in the future. I'm not the fastest reader and it's hard to keep up with all the good finance books, math books, and good fiction literature without some books getting lost in the heap.
There is so much financial illiteracy in America right now. You and guys like James Kwak, Mike Konczal, Rick Bookstaber, Satyajit Das, etc. are American heroes in my book. If you keep posting regular I'll be linking here often. Take care.
Robert Zoellick, the longtime unofficial point man for Monsanto, now majority owned, last time I checked, by BlackRock, which is majority-owned by BankofAmerica via their pickup of Merrill Lynch.
The World Banksters should be among the first to go, and thanks for this post.
Ted - thank you for dropping by the site. Like you, I'm constantly catching up on my reading list!
Sgt_Doom - Zoellick also rolled in and out of two management positions at Goldman, to add to his resume.
Hey. :) I just noticed you on Infowars. You're an excellent speaker and really know your stuff! We need more women like you out there. I think other women would be more open to the truth if they saw a fellow lady speak. Good luck with all of your future endeavors. Take care and I followed you on Twitter. :p