unPoliceYrMind

By A.K. Gupta at ZMAG - (excerpt): “Any number of reasons has been put forth for rising commodity and food prices: diminishing inventories of grains, greater consumption of animal products in Asia, a growing global population, global warming, biofuels, natural limits, financial speculation, the falling dollar, escalating crude oil prices, World Bank and IMF policies, hoarding, export restrictions, and more. In one way or another, all of these factor into inflation. But it’s not a jumble of reasons; there are a few critical causal chains and feedback loops behind the chaos. In broad terms, the nature of the globalized economy—the role of financial speculation, the dumping of subsidized foodstuffs from Western farmers in poor countries forced to “liberalize” their agricultural sectors, the declining dollar, and the overheated oil market—is why prices are shooting up. What ties all these factors together is politics. It’s a political decision to allow rampant speculation in commodities; it’s a political decision to decrease regulation of commodities trading; it’s a political decision to devalue the dollar by increasing deficits and cutting interest rates; it’s a political decision to force poor countries to dismantle supports for their farming sector; it’s a political decision to force the poor to buy food in the marketplace, instead of making access to food a basic human right.”