Ellen Brown's Great Piece on Banks starving the Third World

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.