Climate change as the whipping boy for Goldman Sachs

http://money.msn.com/business-news/article.aspx?feed=BLOOM&date=20110215&id=13006515&GT1=33009

Yes there have been floods and draught and other nonsense, and that is likely contributing somewhat to food prices.

But when food prices rocketed two years ago the primary culprit was speculation on food in the same way that idle hands speculate on gold and oil.

Goldman Sachs was the primary architect of this strategy of turning food into a luxury and introducing lots of extra do-nothing middlemen between the producer and the consumer.

These should be regarded as something like speculation welfare bums. They add nothing, their role is parasitic.

If it means that hundreds of millions face famine, they don’t care.

These games can have particularily tragic consequences if the wrong governments are toppled or changed due to riots.

Take China for instance- if allowed to continue on its’ present course, it will eventually become a liberal democracy.

Radically destabilize it and someone will have to seize control.

Whether that turns out to be imperialistic nationalists or a return of communist hard liners the result is more likely to be bad than good. It could lead to world war 3.

I have an idea for how to fix this.

How about a return to capitalism? The idea that you get paid for actually doing or contributing something.

I don’t see capitalism and socialism as inherently enemies or even inconsistent. They do however have a common enemy of speculationism.

This is something like socialism turned on its’ head. Billionaire welfare bums get paid enormous sums for not only doing absolutely nothing of value, but actively and aggressively making the world a worse place to live in.

Both the Bush administration and the Obama administration have close ties to Goldman Sachs and I don’t really see any change coming from that direction for that reason. Goldman Sachs party A was pushed out of power by Goldman Sachs party B and the games go on.

A key question for all 2012 candidates should be, are you going to take Goldman Sachs and similar predators head on, as well as the regulatory system that enables rather than regulates them while providing a veneer of accountability.

Because if you aren’t, F off.

If some speculators screw other speculators on, say, gold, that is dubious but the lack of availability of gold to the general population is frankly not a priority.

Treat food in the same way though and you create mass instability.

Do we really want to see what happens if nuclear superpowers like China and India, which can also put potentially tens of millions of soldiers into the field, start starving?

They’ll take what they need to take, that’s what.

If that ever happens it’s a whole different world.

The same problem would be likely to happen in other countries leading to lesser but still devastating food wars.

And don’t forget the similar situation of the Irish potato famine, when many Irish died while the Brits were shipping food oout of the country because it could be sold for more elsewhere. The Irish have never forgiven the Brits for that.

Toying with gold futures is one thing. Toying with lives in order to get unearned profit, well, that can generate animosity that lingers for centuries.

That’s too high a price.