Is this the most sickening thing you'll read in 2010?

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Fri, 2010-07-02 16:12

brooosh

Is this the most sickening thing you'll read in 2010?

I'm not knowledgeable enough about financial markets to know if this is true, but it sounds plausible.

If it has any basis in reality, we surely need to take the writer's advice at the end:

"decent people in developed countries need to shout louder than the lobbyists."

http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/commentators/johann-hari/johann-har...

Fri, 2010-07-02 17:22

chuck

The argument is always that speculation is an integral part of a healthy free market economy. As long as people in the wealthy countries get their pizzas, burgers and gourmet dinners nobody will complain much.

Fri, 2010-07-02 17:39

Mangone

Reading comments below the article I discovered the following link which gives a lot more detail such as… “ The Senate investigators found that commodity index fund traders had driven up wheat futures prices from US$3/bushel in 2006 to over US$11/bushel in mid-2008, collapsing to US$3.50/bushel by the end of 2008. Investors in commodity index funds, such as those of Goldman Sachs or Morgan Stanley, bet on the price movements of indices bundling up to 24 commodity futures contracts, including energy, agricultural, base metal and precious metal contracts. “ http://iatp.org/iatp/commentaries.cfm?refID=107252

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