Unholy nonsense about food speculation at Glencore
UNHOLY nonsense about food speculation at Glencore. In fact, not just nonsense, but drivel. Glencore has said that as there are droughts and food shortages then this is a good business opportunity for them:
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.
“We will be able to provide the world with solutions… and that should also be good for Glencore.“
Hmm. So, what’s the reaction to this?
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.
“This won’t happen,” she said. “So now is the time to change the rules and regulations about how Glencore and other multinationals such as ADM and Monsanto operate. They know this and have been lobbying heavily around the world to water down and halt any reform.”
Now, stop and think for a moment. What is it that Glencore actually does? It ships food around the world. Buys wheat in one place, sells it in another Archers Daniel Midland does the same with corn. Louis Dreyfus is the largest rice trader. And so on.
And what would we like to happen when some parts of the world don’t have enough food as a result of drought and all the rest? Why, we’d like for there to be some people who buy food where there is food and then ship it to places where there is no food. And what do Glencore, ADM and Dreyfus do? Exactly what we’d like to see being done when there are shortages of food.
So who are these fucking maniacs who are shouting at the people who are solving the damn problem? Err, that would be the UN, the putative world government. Is there any reason at all why we shouldn’t rise up and kill these morons?
Posted: 23rd, August 2012 | In: Money Comment (1) | TrackBack | Permalink
