2020people co-creating a sustainable world

by: David Moberg, In These Times

How deregulation fuels the global food crisis.

In April, crowds of angry Haitians - reduced to eating mud cakes to staunch hunger - erupted in deadly protests against high food prices, forcing the prime minister to resign. The price of rice, a staple of the Haitian diet, had risen 16 percent on the world market last year, then shot up 141 percent from January to April.

According to Bloomberg's Jonathan Weil: "The Fed doesn't follow normal accounting rules, as promulgated by any of the major standard-setting boards. Rather, the Fed writes its own, in a document called the Financial Accounting Manual for Federal Reserve Banks. If you ever wanted to design an accounting regime to help a bank cook its books, the Fed's would be perfect. "

For the full article follow this link:
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601039&refer=columnist_weil&sid...

Quoted from Myers 1988:6
"Since the development of agriculture some 12,000 years ago, soil erosion is said by some to have ruined 4.3 million km squared of agricultural lands, or an area equivalent to rather more than one-third of today's crop-lands...
...the amount of agricultural land now being lost through soil erosion, in conjunction with other forms of degradation, can already be put at a minimum of 200,000 km squared a year."

As if any further evidence was needed that modern democracy is very broken... The UK's elected representatives yesterday voted for a police state. At 42 days, the UK now has a longer period to detain suspected terrorists without charge than any advanced country including China, if the Bill is ratified by the House of Lords.

It seems that everyone is blaming a rising population for the current global food crisis. We blame the poor for being too numerous. But if the developed world ate less meat there would be enough food to go round, and far less global warming from methane too. Methane from animal slurry is a bigger contributor than Aviation to global warming. But we like to have our stake and eat it.

Research has shown that where women are educated and have economic prospects, and have access to sex education and contraception population drops as in advanced economies.

Democratic elections widely understood to have been won by populer support for opposition parties in Zimbabwe have not been released by Robert Mugabe's ruling ZANU-PF party government 3 weeks after the election. Reports of typical brutality are emerging.

Go to the following Belgian website and click on "soldaten".

http://www.vriendenvantibet.be/foto.html

To paraphrase master Yoda -
Deceit and mistrust is the way of the dark side. Begun the Clone War has.

Senior Economic Advisor to UBS, George Magnus, says the world is perched on the edge of a Minsky moment which he predicts will lead to a Trillion dollar write down from sub-prime et al.

"Hurt not others with that which pains yourself."
(From the Udanavarga 5.18)
Buddhism

“In everything, do to others as you would have them do to you; for this is the law and the prophets.”
(Matthew 7:12 - NRSV)
Christianity

"Do naught to others which if done to thee would cause thee pain."
(From the Mahabharata 5.1517)
Hinduism

“No one of you is a believer until he desires for his brother that which he desires for himself.”
(Sunnab)
Islam

“In happiness and suffering, in joy and grief, we should regard all creatures as we regard our own self.”