This is a huge part of the reason that agrofuels are deeply immoral -- making hungry people compete with gas tanks for crops is evil of the blackest kind.

To those thank think the article is far-fetched, do a little research into the ending of the cold war. For those old enough, remember how involved the CIA was with Soviet grain forecasts, the government loaning money to Communist countries, and how the price of wheat had so much government support? It wasn't until I got to know a former employee of "the company" that I learned why so much of the agency is involved with tracking the worlds resources and farm and industrial output (The World Factbook). Going back to its formation by wealthy financiers and industrialists does the true picture become clear. The cold war wasn't won by military might or race, that was just a diversion of soviet resources until people started starving (see also North Korea).
Remember the USA is Capitalism - that is a business term!

If SamRandia keeps strolling into that sucker's play of a soccer stadium "deal" with L'il Lord Paulson (& Pops) -- CoP better start growing potatoes and mushrooms on those "green roofs" and "bio-swales." Go by roach coach!

I think the recent issue of Harper's magazine has an article on this.

This is actually not one of the better schemes the world bankers are running. Sure, there's a power rush from knowing decisions you made got people killed. But if the starvation doesn't lead to enhanced control in a secondary move, then what's the point? Who cares if there's a mass killing of poor people because of some derivative scam? The European bankers who own our Federal Reserve sure don't. Wall Street couldn't care less.

Have you been following Greece? That's the way it's done. You hook up a country with your exotic financial instruments, then you bankrupt it as your profits soar. Finally, you swoop in to increase your control during the crisis.

Did you know Greece is selling off islands in a desperate attempt to survive? Remember that if Sam and Randy get that anguished look and start selling pieces of Portland.

The only surprise is that this article is even in the media. The last thing the global elite wants is for the People to educate themselves on what's going on. They don't want us pondering the banking families who don't appear on the list of the wealthiest people in the world - even though they are.

This is the type of stories that requires a giant new diversion to refocus the public's attention. If the Bilderberg Group leaks are true - this is the year for attacking Iran. War is the ultimate diversion. The only problem is our last 2 wars never ended, so the shock and awe part won't be as effective this time. 2 wars, 3. You lose count after a while.
Maybe they'll need another False Flag Operation to get us into it.

There has to be something while the main plan goes on.
So what's the main plan?

We are witnessing an attempt by bankers - foreign and domestic - to destroy America and then swoop down and buy up the pieces - just as they did to Greece.
If I read these words 3 or 4 years okay, I'd say, "What a fringe nutcase." But I get it now. It's about control- financial control of huge chunks of the planet. There's a reason we're 13 trillion dollars in debt even though we're supposed to have the best economic system in history. It was deliberate. Crisis by design.

The New World Order is real, America is in the way, and it's going to be a long hot summer.

So what are we to do?

Tomorrow is Independence Day!

It isn't about hot dogs and ice cream and fireworks!

For me it is about becoming independent once again, this time from Corporations, Corporatists or whatever insidious name one can call it, and the stranglehold they are having on peoples throughout the world. This should not be a chess game, it is about people's lives, we are in it too whether we like it or not now.

Mario Savio
"Bodies upon the gears" speech
"There's a time when the operation of the machine becomes so odious—makes you so sick at heart—that you can't take part. You can't even passively take part. And you've got to put your bodies upon the gears and upon the wheels, upon the levers, upon all the apparatus, and you've got to make it stop. And you've got to indicate to the people who run it, to the people who own it that unless you're free, the machine will be prevented from working at all." – Sproul Hall Steps, December 2, 1964

From Goldman Sachs: "nothing to see here, keep moving folks".
or:
"Solient Green is PEOPLE!!!"

Bill McD. is onto something -- as usual. Bear in mind this "Independence Day" that "Great Britain" never settled with losing that contest (remember 1812 -- they burned D.C.) and decided long ago to get it back via banking.

And as much as the right-wingers and other cementheads like to ridicule France ("freedom fires" - ick), if it weren't for French financial and military/naval backing (and the help of Layfayette, and others such as Polaski) there would've been no U.S.A.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gilbert_du_Motier,_marquis_de_Lafayette

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Casimir_Pulaski

P.S. -- Hey Queenie (and caudre), get your assets ready for fork over to cover British Petroleum's breakage.

Mojo, the French contribution was much greater than Lafayette; consider, for example, on this day for recalling independence, Rochambeau, without whom Yorktown would never have meant the end for Cornwallis:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jean-Baptiste_Donatien_de_Vimeur,_comte_de_Rochambeau

That is, if the mouth-breathing denizens of this frontier town that's still in search of a democratic form of government do not drive you to distraction with their illegal bombardments. (Locate a CD of Rzewski's "The People United Will Never Be Defeated" and play it as loudly as needed.)

One will never hear a peep, for example, from GS frat boy Cramer on CNBC about the consequences of how GS, JPM, et al, make their money. Nor amidst the sponsor-sensitive prattle on PBS's somnolent Nightly Business Report. But in the WaMu bankruptcy proceedings in a DE courtroom, much is being revealed about the exercise of extreme financial power by JPM, GS, and elements of the federal government on behalf of the very few at the expense of the very many. Another critical hearing is scheduled for this Thursday, the 8th.

I would just point out a couple of things. 1) People have been malnourished and/or starving to death in Ethiopia and elsewhere for decades. 2) The idea that food demand dropped by 3 percent while population continued to increase during the time this article references is a little hard to believe.

John Fairplay:1) People have been malnourished and/or starving to death in Ethiopia and elsewhere for decades.

It is one thing for people to starve or be malnourished due to famines or horrible regimes that didn't care.

Is is acceptable that out of this country Goldman Sachs and such others like them would play this game to make a killing?

Bill McDonald: . . . We are witnessing an attempt by bankers - foreign and domestic - to destroy America and then swoop down and buy up the pieces - just as they did to Greece. . .

They already have.
Foreign investors may come in and buy anything and everything to clean us out.
http://www.topnews.in/dubai-buys-new-yorks-landmark-chrysler-building-252146

They also own toll roads, and who knows what else. This takes an investigative reporter to look into what may be left in our country that has not been sold. What next, the Golden Gate Bridge?
http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2006-07-15-u.s.-highways_x.htm

This is what allowed the nightmare of National Socialism in Germany to take root and flower.

After WW1, due to the vindictive and totally unrealistic war reparations imposed upon Germany, the country plunged into a decade of extreme instability, currency implosion, and high unemployment. The greedy international scavengers rushed in to buy everything, and when the poor Germans ran out of things to sell, they sold their bodies, and their childrens bodies. By the mid to late 1920s, Berlin was the sex tourism capital of the world, somewhat like Bangkok is today.

It was very easy for those people to turn to Hitler and his gang by then. The old joke is about the "trains running on time," but that is such a cruel, tasteless and ignorant thing to joke about, when the reality of the Weimar Republic was people like Fritz Haarman were selling butchered children for sausage in his shop, and you could buy two pre-teen girls and their mother for a romp in the sack for a handful of pennies.

That's what scares the hell out of me. If things get that bad in America, what will happen if some demagogue with a silver tongue and a nasty, nasty agenda comes forward ? Who will be his scapegoat this time around ?

Germans LOVED Hitler. If you read contemporary accounts and interviews, most of them viewed him as the savior of their wrecked and devastated nation.

I happen to be an atheist, but hey, God help us all.

Who raised these monsters supposedly in a civilized country or countries?

It is never enough for these kinds of people!

I suggest we look at a "10th Victim" scenario to keep these people at bay from the rest of us who would like to have some peace.
(See the Carlo Ponti prodution with Marcello Mastroianni and Ursula Andress, directed by Elio Petri)

Wyoming threatens to sell prime Grand Teton land
By MEAD GRUVER
Associated Press Writer
MOOSE, Wyo. (AP) -- For Sale: Two square miles of Grand Teton National Park.

Majestic views of the Teton Range. Prime location for luxury resort, home development. Pristine habitat for moose, elk, wolves, grizzlies.

Price: $125 million. Call: Gov. Dave Freudenthal.

Random thoughts.. Bastille Day is coming soon .. let's party for our French friends...

As for the fall of Weimar. That is a very complex set of circumstances. I have some suggested reading for you ex-cabbie that will put it into context beyond economics...

Erich Fromm's Escape from Freedom
Franz Neumann's Behemoth
Hannah Arendt's The Origin's of Totalitarianism

These speak to the human psychological conditions that allow someone like Hitler to exit.

And finally I would make a point about a potlical situation that was highly fragmented. It's no mistake that Germany's current constitution tries to limit the number of viable political parties as that played a role in what happened as well.

"And finally I would make a point about a potlical situation that was highly fragmented. It's no mistake that Germany's current constitution tries to limit the number of viable political parties as that played a role in what happened as well."

Weird comment -- Germany uses a mixed-member proportional system, which gives them what would seem to us a plethora of healthy parties. Germany's proportional system is why they remain so stable -- countries that use proportional representation systems are where small shifts in votes only produce small shifts in winners; whereas in the American system, a few thousand votes here and there and you wind up with Mitch McConnell instead of Harry Reid.

GAS... I suggest you study the degree of fragmentation of the legislative body during Weimar and contrast it with what would be possible under the constitution installed in Germany immediately after WWII.

LucsAdvo:

As I grew up in the house of guy with a PhD in Psychology and around the Psychology departments of several large universities, I would add to the books you listed, regarding the psychological and social components of the rise of Fascism, some other works, particularly those by Wilhelm Reich. Character Analysis, The Mass Psychology of Fascism, Listen, Little Man !, The Invasion of Compulsory Sex-Morality, and so forth. Sure, he went plenty nuts later in his life but the early stuff is essential reading.

Another great book dealing with the political violence of the Weimar Era, and written immediately after it, is Out of the Night by Jan Valtin aka Richard Krebs. Valtin was a triple agent who knew the Comintern from the inside, and was tortured in Nazi jails. Commies trash his name to this very day because he finally realized that Stalin's empire was every bit as evil as Hitler's.

Still, there is a very strong case that, more than any other factor, more than the political chaos of Germany in the 20s with the numerous political parties competing for power, more than the rapid social changes from the 19th century into the 20th, that the aforementioned economic problems were the primary tragedy that allowed the NSDAP to seize power as it did.

Also, regarding the sex tourism stuff I mentioned, a great resource with tons of pictures is Voluptous Panic: The Erotic World of Weimar Berlin by Mel Gordon. In my opinion, Gordon goes too far, even glorifying some of the sicker things that went on, but it's still full of fascinating imagery from the time. It's still in print:

http://www.amazon.com/Voluptuous-Panic-Erotic-Weimar-Berlin/dp/092291558X

Another neat book that touches on the Weimar Era is The Secret Lives of Trebitsch Lincoln by Bernard Wasserstein. Of course, Hitler wasn't the only one to attempt a "Putsch" in the 20s, but Lincoln's life was so utterly bizarre and crazy...I mean, I don't want to ruin it, just read that book !