This is Sick!!! Wall Street Makes Big Gains over Food Price Hikes while Million Starve Because of It

[Fight2Win]

This is immoral and unacceptable. Martin Luther King Jr would be marching on DC to end this sadistic greed.

Powerful firms like Goldman Sachs have made hundreds of millions of dollars in food future trades. Critics accuse them of profiting off starvation and market manipulation, while traders claim their profits are due to increasing consumption in China.

­World food prices tracked by the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) have more than doubled in the past 10 years. The FAO’s Food Price Index, which baskets prices for five prime food commodities, peaked in 2008 and 2011, each time rising more than 50 percent from the previous year. The latest price spike was one of the key factors that triggered the series of uprisings in the Arab world resulting in the fall of several governments. The year 2013 may see another price hike, following the worst draught in the US in 50 years and poor harvests in Russia and Ukraine. The UN has warned that the world may be approaching a major hunger crisis.

At the same time, the industry is bringing millions in profits to those who rushed to invest in food. Goldman Sachs made an estimated $400 million in 2012 from investing its clients' money in a range of "soft commodities," from wheat and maize to coffee and sugar, according to an analysis by the World Development Movement (WDM).

"While nearly a billion people go hungry, Goldman Sachs bankers are feeding their own bonuses by betting on the price of food. Financial speculation is fueling food price spikes and Goldman Sachs is the No, 1 culprit," Christine Haigh of the WDM told the British newspaper The Independent.

http://12160.info/page/profiting-off-hunger-wall-street-makes-big-gains-over-food-price

[donco]

1. How would

you put a stop to future trades?

[Sekhmets Daughter]

2. The original purpose of the futures market

was so ranchers and farmers could manage their incomes. Today anyone can invest in the futures market and never have to take delivery ... that means it is total speculation, which serves only to drive up prices. I'd make it mandatory to take delivery on any futures contracts anyone purchases (or have the capacity to take delivery)...that would end the speculation. You buy a contract for a carload of wheat, you take delivery of the damned wheat. You buy futures of oil, you better have a refinery to which it can be delivered...or holding tanks. Airlines invest in futures for fuel, they have a legitimate reason to do so and take delivery when the contract expires.

[donco]

3. Hhmm...

Don't guess i could interest you in a couple thousand hog bellies then eh?

[Sekhmets Daughter]

5. Nope...

One day back during 1975/76 my boss took a call from a good friend of his that sent him into paroxysms of laughter. Turns out the friend had invested in "frozen pork bellies" ... bought a carload and then forgot about them. He called my boss in desperation because the contract had expired and he received a call asking him where he wanted to take delivery! He eventually sold them, at a loss, but it was frantic day.

As announced in CME Group Special Executive Report (SER) S-5853 on July 15, 2011, CME delisted Frozen Pork Bellies futures and Frozen Pork Bellies options effective trade date Monday, July 18, 2011.

So no, you can't.

[Egalitarian Thug]

6. Thank you. n/t

[Fire Walk With Me]

4. Monstrous.

[libtodeath]

7. Just another example why capitalism kills

[Fight2Win]

8. kick

nt

[HiPointDem]

9. again