We'll make a killing out of food crisis, trading boss boasts

[Newsjock]

Source: The Independent (UK)

The United Nations, aid agencies and the British Government have lined up to attack the world's largest commodities trading company, Glencore, after it described the current global food crisis and soaring world prices as a "good" business opportunity.

With the US experiencing a rerun of the drought "Dust Bowl" days of the 1930s and Russia suffering a similar food crisis that could see Vladimir Putin's government banning grain exports, the senior economist of the UN's Food and Agriculture Organisation, Concepcion Calpe, told The Independent: "Private companies like Glencore are playing a game that will make them enormous profits."

Ms Calpe said leading international politicians and banks expecting Glencore to back away from trading in potential starvation and hunger in developing nations for "ethical reasons" would be disappointed.

... Glencore's director of agriculture trading, Chris Mahoney, sparked the controversy when he said: "The environment is a good one. High prices, lots of volatility, a lot of dislocation, tightness, a lot of arbitrage opportunities."

Read more: http://www.independent.co.uk/news/business/news/well-make-a-killing-out-of-food-crisis-trading-boss-boasts-8073806.html

[marmar]

1. Everything, including the essentials of survival, is a money-making opportunity to these vermin.....

...... to be gamed and manipulated, no matter how many people suffer or die. This burns me up.

[jxnmsdemguy65]

3. That's exactly what they are, vermin...

And vermin deserve to die, painfully...time to get really rough with these vermin!

[freshwest]

5. KILLING.. Making a KILLING. Say just what it is... KILLING.

Thanks marmar..

You said it better than I would have.

[woo me with science]

38. [phone] Well said.

Last edited Fri Aug 24, 2012, 06:28 AM - Edit history (2)

This is the core of it. It is the replacement of human ethics with corporate ethics. Profit to be gained from every aspect of life...and killing life.

We are only just beginning to see the human results of ceding our government to corporate control. They are discovering opportunities for profit in fresh water rights, in our food supplies, in surveilling and imprisoning more and more of us....And Americans may soon finally even get a first-hand taste of the bloody wars for profit that have been murdering and devastating countless human beings in other countries, for years.

Human beings do not exist in corporate ledgers. Only "human resources" and opportunities for exploiting them.

[lunatica]

41. Where I work they call us Human Capital Resources and they call themselves

Human Capital Management. I work in UC Berkeley.

They used to use the word Separated when someone ended an appointment or was fired. They now use the word Terminated.

This is true.

[primavera]

48. UC Berkeley is embracing that sort of corporate culture?

Damn, I would have thought that if anyone would have held out and taken the road less travelled by, it would be Berkeley. Now I'm really depressed.

[lunatica]

49. Yes. They're in the throes of centralizing a good bit of the common work that is

pertinent to all departments. It's called "Shared Services" where faculty will have to go to a centralized department to get services that are common to all departments. It will tear every department's staff apart. Everything will be submitted electronically to an off-campus site. Things like reimbursements, purchases, financial analysts, etc will be taken away from the departments and placed in "Shared Services".

This is after three consecutive years of draconian cuts to education from the State. I was already laid of once and was one of the lucky ones to get rehired into a centralized service for the Research Units. Now it's the Academic Departments that will get gutted. It was bound to happen. You can only impose so many furloughs and fire so many people over the years.

[baldguy]

2. Rule Of Acquisition #162

Even in the worst of times someone turns a profit.

[pbmus]

4. Only in this tired old broken capitalistic system .... where everything is a manipulated price.

[Ken Burch]

6. Brecht wrote a play about this mindset years ago...SAINT JOAN OF THE STOCKYARDS.

I'd strongly suggest people re-read it, or read it for the first time.

[Bernardo de La Paz]

7. Trading is necessary and makes markets efficient, but killing is not. Unfortunately people will die.

[KamaAina]

8. I could see this coming a mile away

http://www.democraticunderground.com/1014186745#post4

[Spitfire of ATJ]

9. I tuned in on CNBC a while back and they were crying about falling gas prices...

When are we going to stop linking a happy Wall Street with a happy world?

[woo me with science]

39. Yep. Time to step out of the Matrix.

So many diseased assumptions that we have been purposely fed since birth.

[Spitfire of ATJ]

50. I'm begining to wonder if the Stock Market Crash of '29....

....really was the trigger of the Great Depression at this point.

After all, smaller banks in the country weren't invested there. They should have gotten stronger, not weaker when the big banks lost their shirts. It's more likely panic bank runs caused them to fail rather than actually losing money as a result of the DOW taking a dive. That "evil Liberal" FDIC stopped that.

[triplepoint]

10. We're Now Living in Werner Herzog's "Koyanasquatzi" World

[robinlynne]

12. what a great huge piece of informaiton. Deserves an OP imho!

[Red Mountain]

45. 185 olympic pools of oil per day?

Doesn't seem like enough.

1 barrel = 42 gallons

85,000,000 barrels * 42 = 3,570,000,000 gallons of oil

3,570,000,000 / 660,000 (approx. gallons in an Olympic pool) = 5,409

[Amonester]

13. (Bad quality) Graph here:

I just saw Robmehood has a "plan" (to destroy what's left faster so his buddies will pocket more billions)

[Smilo]

11. Greed is running

Wall Street.

How many houses, cars, toys, etc. does a person need?

These people are betting on death - they are no better than Addelson with his casinos and pimping in China - both systems will result in making people poorer and ultimately some will die.

Opportunity - not for the man on the street. I hope these unscrupulous bastards choke on their opportunity.

[AndyTiedye]

14. Plant a Vegetable Garden

I hope these unscrupulous bastards choke on their opportunity.

Start a vegetable garden if you don't already have one. If you do, make it bigger.
If everyone does that, these vultures WILL lose big.

[JustABozoOnThisBus]

16. Our government is an accomplice

by dictating that gasoline contains some percentage of alcohol (E-10? E-15?), our government is forcing a growing portion of a shrinking corn harvest to be diverted from the food supply. If our government doesn't relax its edict, we are contributing to global misery.

Glencore is no different than oil companies, who rake in billions when the gasoline supply is disrupted by a war, a broken pipeline, or a refinery fire.

[oldsarge54]

18. It is the Drought, not the Government

I only take exception to the first part of your statement. No one anticipated an extended drought having such an affect on oil vs food supply, not that much of the world eats corn, really. (would love some stats on that). The problem is the future, oil IS finite. Do you want a big emergency Manhattan type project for replacing oil, or get started before we find that the light at the end of the tunnel is a freight train?

On the other hand, totally agree with Mitt that corporations are people. Soulless, without a conscience, capable of only self interest, lacking in true altruism, with a huge voice in government and with only one interest, the bottom line. Then again, did I just describe Mitt as well?

[JoeyT]

23. It was anticipated a long time ago

Droughts and floods and extreme weather of all kinds are part of climate change. Scientists have been predicting it for decades.

No one in the government anticipated it because they'd rather listen to economists than scientists.

[oldsarge54]

24. Still no need

Still no need to blame the government. A) Republicans don't believe in climate change. B) most models put change into the far future. This is weather, not climate, this drought. Most predictions are in the 20-30 year range for noticeable changes in climate, and those are the short term estimates. So what is your solution? Drill baby drill and make things worse?

[woo me with science]

26. What a pantload.

Of course the government is implicated...in policies that centralize our food supply in the hands of profit-seeking conglomerates and in economic policy that has devastated our middle class and funnelled wealth to the obscenely rich, while allowing speculators to get rich off of the misery of others. Nobody in a country as wealthy as the USA should have to worry about going hungry....ever. It is unconscionable, and it is precisely the fault of government purchased by corporate interests that we are in this position.

[oldsarge54]

29. Oh come on now.

The government and the corporations are not one and the same. Not yet, anyway. Can you actually point to government policies that encouraged agribusinesses? Really, corporate greed, and the fact that corporations have no one to answer to, thats the problem. If it is the government's fault, what is your solution?

[woo me with science]

30. Don't be ridiculous.

You are the one here throwing out bland, ludicrous, all-encompassing comments like "no need to blame the government." DU is now a prime target of vapid propaganda like this precisely because it is a POLITICAL gathering place, and corporations now have a strong presence in our government and a strong interest in shaping the way that government is perceived. But you have a problem, because people are waking up to the fact that our economic pain is not simply an unfortunate weather event, but the result of a deliberate restructuring of where the money goes in our economy that was POLITICALLY delivered by stooges to corporate interests. If you aren't aware of that and need me to give you examples, then you are either brazenly disingenuous, or you are deliberately out of touch with reality.

[oldsarge54]

31. Yes, I'm Stupid

I must be stupid. I never ascribe to conspiracy when greed and corruption can do the job. There was no master plan to manipulate the government into becomming toys of the industries. True, that was the Republican position since the 1870s, but the destruction of private farms and the middle class is more of a buttlerfly effect. No sane businessman would destroy his market.

[woo me with science]

32. Always the desperate, predictable reach

to "master plans" and "conspiracy" in order to try to discredit what simple observation of the actions of government proves on a daily basis. Somehow greed is more than enough to explain corruption in corporations, but it is "conspiracy" to suggest that the very same motives might operate in Washington, where Presidential election costs now conservatively exceed half a billion dollars, and where lobbyists blanket the streets.

And if you believe that the impoverishment of the middle class in America has "destroyed the market" of the multi-billionaires, you need to pay better attention to what is happening around you. The market is restructured and globalized, not destroyed, as their portfolios clearly show. Our money is pouring into bloody empire, the "security" state, privatization, and other ventures that the one percent and their representatives in Washington have decided are more profitable than this country's historic commitments to civil rights, public works and public education, and the public trust.

[oldsarge54]

34. Almost in agreement.

I'll grant the point on they have found themselves another market, and it sure isn't within the country. However, is it nothing new that the Republicans are subservient to business. It has been that way since after the Civil War (and maybe during). But consider how railroads got free government land. Or for real fun, read about how Warren G Harding, in 11th place at the beginning of the Republican convention, ended up in the White House. I'm lefty, but not so far as to believe in plots. I know what corporations are doing to this country, which is why I'm more of a T Roosevelt progressive than anything else. Profits are ok, but the greater good is more important. However, the destruction of the middle class was not deliberate, but a result of the rule of unintended consequences. Now, the social agenda that approves of anti-gay, anti BC, anti PP, anti NPR, we can agree the Republicans have their heads where the sun does not shine, but that is a separate argument. I think the Republicans are suffering from multiple personality disorder. They are Republicans (business as usual), Social Conservatives (if you don't like it, hit it with a Bible), and Tea Party (we miss the days of the robber barons).

[woo me with science]

37. Nope, that wasn't agreement.

Last edited Fri Aug 24, 2012, 05:09 AM - Edit history (6)

That was claiming we agree but then spinning and glossing over my point in order to distort it into the typical bland, safe criticism of contraceptive-denying Republicans that everyone will agree with....while completely discounting the broader, deadly malignant problem we have with corporate infestation of our representation in Washington. It was the typical bid for passivity and faith that Washington is just fine and not complicit in any of this.

Tell you what....I'll see you after the election. Just in time for the new, bipartisan Grand Bargain for austerity.

[lunatica]

42. Even a well planned 'plot' has unintended consequences but

in order to understand what a conspiracy is, all you have to do is pay attention to who profits and why they profit. Outsourcing jobs is never an accident. Closing plants and ruining businesses for profit like Romney has with Bain isn't an accident. It's something thought out and planned and implemented. That's what conspiracies are all about. When people get together and agree to do something with the intent to gain something. It doesn't have to be wealth. It could be as simple as getting someone fired because they get in your way or you want revenge or you don't like their politics, or they're better at their job than you are.

A conspiracy is when at least two people get together and agree on some form of action, or inaction, to obtain an outcome they want. And unintended consequences don't negate conspiracies. They're part of life and for some it's another way of gaining power or money if they're 'smart' enough. That's what Wall Street is all about. They're just like Casinos who always have the odds in their favor because that's how they deal the cards. They're still bound to lose a few because of unintended consequences, but even then they'll just change the rules to keep their odds stacked in their favor. If someone is on a winning streak the house bans them. That's a conspiracy.

[oldsarge54]

43. Still not agreeing with conspiracy.

The CEO/Bean counter mentalities that replaced entrepreneurs running businesses have one focus, the bottom line. Yes, outsourcing, which actually has been going on for almost 40 years, so I leave the blame game out, is about bottom lines. The fact that in the process that the middle class has been destroyed is not the result of a conspiracy, but of narrow sighted corporate focus on profits. Greed, and a total lack of social awareness is the problem is not the government. What we need is another Theodore Roosevelt, old style progressives. Obama had the potential for that, but it seems he spent most of this term on the defensive.

[lunatica]

44. You still don't understand that it's a conspiracy

The goal being what you call the bottom line, like it's just some accident that there were what you call unintended consequences. The bottom line is just the goal. The agreement on what actions to take to achieve the desired bottom line is a conspiracy. The loss of people's jobs is not accidental. It's all part and parcel of the goal. People must lose their jobs in order for someone to get rich and that person knows it and plans on it.

[oldsarge54]

47. We are missing each others point.

Conspiracy also indicates secrecry in a long term goal. The goal was profits, now the destruction of the middle class. Conspiracy is when you have whole groups planning together different industries or an entire industry. WE are just quibbling over a definition.

[GliderGuider]

33. I think you've been rumbled. nt

[JoeyT]

36. My solution?

Well, the perfect solution would have been not laughing at Jimmy Carter.

I'm not sure where you got "Drill baby drill" from "Climate change is a serious problem". I can't grok that one. Burning oil causes problems, why would burning it faster help?

My solution would be to shift everything we can possibly manage to solar, wind, tidal, and extremely well regulated and inspected nuclear. Then offer huge incentives to buy electric cars. For new cars that aren't electric, I'd like to see BIG increases in efficiency requirements. Ten years ago I had a Metro that got 45+ MPG and I drove like I had a grudge against both the clutch and the transmission. I have a hard time believing they couldn't make more cars that get at least that much.

Yeah, it wouldn't get us off oil totally, but it would slack us off a hell of a lot, especially once we do enough R&D and improve the technology enough to ship freight with electric. It would cost a hell of a lot of money to create the infrastructure to do so, but it would also create an unbelievable amount of jobs laying electric rail and once it was done it would pay off for decades in multiple ways: Cheaper shipping, cleaner shipping, and at least one section of our infrastructure that isn't completely crumbling.

Climate change predicts increasingly unpredictable weather. Every year for the last decade there's been a record breaking X pretty much everywhere. Either a record breaking drought, record breaking heat, record breaking cold, record breaking floods, record breaking winds, etc. No, it isn't as bad as it's going to get, but it's working its way there slowly.

[tama]

52. It's the oil

Industrial agriculture is based on oil and other fossil energy (1 calorie of food on table and in tummy took 10 calories of fossil energy to produce) . And the problem is not in future, it's now. World oil production has already peaked, and e.g. in US gasoline consumption is now back to what it was in 90's. Chindia is taking over most of the downward OECD consumption of oil, but the whole global trend is down. Coal is up very much. What has been Government policy with oil? Carter doctrine and it's expensions by consequent administrations: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carter_Doctrine

Governments all over the world have been for a long time cutting their emergency etc. reserves of food and leaving matters to the hands of market. What about the insane amounts of totally edible food thrown to carbage every day because of government regulations? Subsidising Monsanto monocultures and destruction of top soil and biodiversity?

[nanabugg]

17. Great time for America to go on a diet. Food packaging is the real culprit in addition to other

For the last three decades I have been writing the WH, Congress, and other organization that might listen but without success. All major food companies have downsized their products but kept the same packaging look to fool unknowing consumers who wonder why a can of anything no longer feeds four people. Most cans are now between 10.5-14.5 instead of 16 oz. I haven't been able find a real half gallon of ice cream by any major company...they are all 1.5-1.75 gals now yet in the same shape container with the same covering, just a little smaller. Few orange juices are 64 or 32 oz..they are mostly something about 4oz less then before the scam. Oh, sure, they look the same...but they are not. Bacon, sausage etc. same thing is true, few if any lbs anymore they are 12-14 oz packages. We all know the story about cereals. This is what deregulation gets us. So now they are going raise prices and we will be paying much more for less. And guess what, a lot of those food chains are not even American owned companies. The Dutch and Germany and Canada take a lot of our food profits and bust our unions. Too much to go into here but someday maybe someone will really do a good piece on this and maybe we will one day get a government (Congress and the WH) to protect us from the food corporate polluters greedy bastards.)

[Trillo]

27. So true.

The sad thing is the people who can least afford it are the ones the financial system preys upon. Folks like Romney and some of the rest of the 1% could care less what food costs the average citizen, their food bill is such a small percentage of their disposable incomes. The vast majority have noted exactly what you say, and must always be comparing prices to find the best deal, for us it's a matter of survival.

[nanabugg]

28. You are one of a few people who seem to understand the situation. nt

[Javaman]

19. More feeding on the poor. nt

[GliderGuider]

20. What do we expect, when the entire human experience is being monetized?

Yes, it's morally repugnant, but money has no morals and doesn't care where it came from. When we abstract everything about being human into monetary terms, and then apply a growth motive to it all, this is precisely the outcome. When babysitting becomes no more or less real than writing a computer program or building a locomotive, and they all follow the monetizing rules of the marketplace, it's only natural that the supply and demand for food would follow the same path.

Glencore is just being baldly honest here. Emotions, morality and concepts of intrinsic value have been given no place in that world, and every time we buy something for the lowest price we can find or sell something for the highest price we can get we support that system. It may make us feel uncomfortable, but it is what it is.

[woo me with science]

35. "the entire human experience is being monetized"

I have not heard a better crystallization of what is being done to us.

[Cal Carpenter]

21. And the rich get richer ....

Sick. Capitalism is sick.

[GliderGuider]

22. They were getting richer long before the invention of capitalism.

Try "ever since the invention of interest" or even "ever since the invention of money."

The abstraction of money has let us play games with the concept of value for 5,000 years - those who are good at the game and get a little extra money have always gotten richer.

Capitalism is just the most efficient means we have yet discovered to turn the planet and each other into just two things: money and waste.

[woo me with science]

25. Kick

[Prometheus Bound]

40. I'll bet not a single DUer can be found to defend these parasites.

[Douglas Carpenter]

46. you forgot your sarcasm tag

or maybe you don't think anyone on DU would defend them. But I can think of a few - fortunately only a few - who might

[4th law of robotics]

51. I wonder if using 40% of the US corn crop for ethanol has had any effect

on food prices.

Nah . . .