Food Summit Opens With Censure of Greed, Speculation
By Karl Maier and Jeffrey DonovanNov. 16 (Bloomberg) — A United Nations summit on food security opened with leaders slamming rich nations for worsening world hunger by allowing speculation in agricultural markets and using subsidies that hurt production in developing nations.
Pope Benedict XVI cited “greed which causes speculation to rear its head even in the marketing of cereals, as if food were to be treated just like any other commodity.”
Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, who called hunger “the most terrible weapon of mass destruction,” urged rich nations to meet their commitments to boost investment in agricultural in poor nations and to end “shameful” farming subsidies.
“They sabotage emerging agriculture in the poorer countries, wiping out their hope to create a bridge to development,” Lula said.
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buzz
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thabet
Who said Muslims were immune to capitalism and consumerism?
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thabet
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thabet
Matt Taibbi on Goldman Sachs and “the Wall Street Bubble mafia”.
(Via Ali Eteraz.)
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thabet
Over one lunch time recently I saw an edition of HARDTalk with two corporate ‘whistleblowers’, Sherron Watkins (formelry of Enron) and Paul Moore (formerly of HBOS).
Watkins argued for a change in American attitudes towards wealth, and even suggested society as a whole needed to (re?)learn about ’shame’ in order to prevent the sort of corporate greed that has led to the current problems. She cites Japan as an example, although I don’t know how good an example that is.
I expect conservatives would be sympathetic to this viewpoint.
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haroon
It’s socialism for capital, and capital for labor. If AIG is too big to fail, the administration must then believe that you the average American are in fact small enough to fail.
