Food and Money
"We know that there is paper out there that we can't trust. We don't know exactly who owns it and how much. And we don't know how they are valuing it."
Douglas Peta Chief Investment Strategist for J&W Siegleman
So they lost track of a few trillion, if you are like me and find all this "financialization" a bit confusing, this should make you feel better. NO ONE has a clue about what is happening. It is a confidence game, a huge ponzi scheme and though, as Lewis Lapham explains in his essay Estate Sale (Harpers May 08) "the rules are hard to exlain" it is "a national pastime, as dearly beloved as baseball." Do you remember the big flap when a Saudi firm wanted to buy a US shipping port? Those "sovereignty" concerns are out the window with this latest crisis. Lapham points to a basic rule:
"Geoeconomics trumps geopolitics. It is the value of the US dollar that imparts meaning to the principles of American democracy: loss of confidence in the former depreciates the character of the latter. Democracy works toward an idea of equality, capitalism moves in the direction of inequality, which is the preferred travel destination."
But there may be a silver lining, for the beauty of capitalism is that in every crisis (and they are constant) ,in every pile of rotting corpses, lies an investment opportunity! Bear Stearns could get back in the game if they were to hoard rice, buy it up and store it till people will pay anything! Supply and Demand! Sure there are already violent protests in Cameroon, Egypt, Ethiopia, Haiti, Indonesia, Italy, Ivory Coast, Mauritania, the Phillipines, Thailand, Uzbeckistan, Yemen, let them eat cake ,or perhaps mud cookies. Social upheaval only creates more investment opportunities for the savy capitalist in arms and ammunition when those "gated communities" need defending. While the old oligarchy of Venezuela is using hoarding to try to bring down the socialist revolution (supported in this effort by duped Christian Missionaries) , foreign investors and Soveriegn Wealth funds (owned and operated by foreign governments like Russia and China, the last Axis of Evil) are using the financial crisis to buy up America. Perhaps the Lincoln Monument would fit in a Saudi palace or in downtown Shanghai?
"The seventeenth century princes of Europe maintained private manageries stocked with Spanish and Italian dwarves; its concievable that the Arab sovereign wealth funds might wish to collect, as rare specimens of an exotic breed, ornamental American CEOs prized for their ability to turn gold into lead. Priceless objects unavailable for purchace with MasterCard, capitalist action figures embodying the treasure of the Christian West, to be as proudly displayed as the peacocks in the gardens of Doha and Riyahd."
Democracy, justice, equality are all just nice concepts. People NEED food and no matter how much head scratching they do on CNN or in Davos or over at the Council on Foreign Relations this is one monster chicken coming home to roost.
posted by troutsky @ 9:59 AM
5 comments
5 Comments:
People NEED food
If they need it, they should grow it themselves, instead of bitching and complaining.
In the last century, billions of people have left the countryside to come to the big cities because food prices were so low, small farmers just couldn't survive economically.
Now, with rising demand from India and China, draughts caused by global warming, and ethanol production, food prices are going up. And they will continue to go up.
Smart people will go back to farming. Stupid leftists will be organizing demonstrations and creating paranoid conspiracy theories about evil capitalists hoarding food somewhere.
Life goes on.
This is the first period in history, where capitalists, didn't have to invest in productivity to make money. For productive enterprise, invest in China. In the US, capitalists have the luxury of investing in things as debt.
Capitalists in Venezuela, have been carrying on a bosses strike, by hoarding food. sabotaging the oil industry didn't work. Getting the oil industry running in Venezuela, was the grandest example of workers control this century.
troutsky,
Several post ago you said Roman, one cost of accepting the status quo is thirty thousand humans dying of starvation every day. The change Im talking about is turning the upside down world right side up.
I agree some MAJOR changes are in order. Obama is way too much of an idealist whose agenda is unknown even to himself. That's dangerous. We need someone who is more of a pragmatist. Hill and Mccain are mirror images of politics as usual. Is there anyone who will insure that no radical attempts at income distribution will result in doubling the 30,000 to 60,000 a day? Unfortunately, we better start investing in the upcoming boom in the business of cremation services.
I believe, sonia,that a great deal of that fertile land then got bought up and turned into industrial farms. Im no food systems expert but large scale operations seem to create more jeopardy for total collapse (Seeds, mono-culture,etc) That or the soil is destroyed, Haiti for example. Then there is the problem of investment for people to get back land and start operations. I am in agreement with local solutions but your smart/stupid dichotomy is inane.Your conviction that hoarding does not occur is naive.The Market will correct and though "life gores on" for you,millions will die of starvation ,disease and social upheaval, a lovely system that Romans pessimism does nothing to correct.I cannot "insure" that a radical redistribution, were it possible to produce suddenly, could avert the current crisis but radical restructuring could prevent future famine.
Troutsky,
radical restructuring could prevent future famine.
From Ukraine in 1932 to China in 1957 to Ethiopia in 1984 to North Korea today, the worst famines were created by Communist "radical restructuring".
that fertile land then got bought up and turned into industrial farms.
Definitely not in Zimbabwe.
, the soil is destroyed, Haiti for example.,
Yes, but only after their 1804 "revolution", when they exterminated all the whites, even those who never owned any slaves.
Your conviction that hoarding does not occur is naive.,
I didn't say that hoarding was a myth. I said that hoarding by "evil capitalists" was a myth. EVERYBODY hoards food when price controls are imposed by the government. You would hoard your food too if I tried to force you to sell it for less than you paid for it.
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