Barclays makes £500m betting on food crisis

[Newsjock]

Source: The Independent (UK)

Barclays has made as much as half a billion pounds in two years from speculating on food staples such as wheat and soya, prompting allegations that banks are profiting handsomely from the global food crisis.

Barclays is the UK bank with the greatest involvement in food commodity trading and is one of the three biggest global players, along with the US banking giants Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley, research from the World Development Movement points out.

... The extent of Barclays' involvement in food speculation comes to light as new figures from the World Bank show that global food prices hit an all-time high in July, with poor harvests in the US and Russia pushing up the average worldwide cost of staples by an unprecedented 10 per cent in a month.

The extent of just one bank's involvement in agricultural markets will add to concerns that food speculation could help push basic prices so high that they trigger a wave of riots in the world's poorest countries, as staples drift out of their populations' reach.

Read more: http://www.independent.co.uk/news/business/news/barclays-makes-500m-betting-on-food-crisis-8100011.html

[Cerridwen]

1. "It's just business. Nothing personal" n/t

[Rosa Luxemburg]

2. Barclays is more evil than we thought

[a geek named Bob]

3. THe USA (at the least) has been fighting Barclay's for hundreds of years

Somebody ought to put a spike through this vampire organization.

[a geek named Bob]

6. There seems to be

a strange cycle of Speculation->Crash->financially ruined people either have a war, or they go somewhere else.

[oldsarge54]

4. Anybody Really Good at History

Can any tell me where speculators have done much good in the end for any boom. I can't think of several that hurt the general populace, but the speculators had already pulled their rings on their parachutes. Gas, Daffodils, stocks, houses, gold, silver. All subject to speculation, and small investors ruined when the big speculators quit.

[cstanleytech]

10. Its not evil, to be evil it would have to be a person.

Its the people who work there that are the problem.

[Rosa Luxemburg]

11. but companies are people?

according to the Supreme court

[cstanleytech]

13. Even they make errors in rulings such as Dred Scott v. Sandford. nt

[nanabugg]

5. Makes one wonder how much is food crisis vs how much is speculation. Just like oil. nt

[Fire Walk With Me]

7. Thanks for this; forwarded it around a bit.

[dougolat]

8. Aren't the same kind of financial games affecting gas, here?

[sakabatou]

9. Disgusting

[dipsydoodle]

12. Banks get away only with what our governments allow them to do.

The actual issue is our governments.