Outrage as bank revealed to be major speculator while millions face starvation
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.
Last week the trading giant Glencore was attacked for describing the global food crisis and price rises as a "good" business opportunity.
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. Full story...
Related posts:
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.
Last week the trading giant Glencore was attacked for describing the global food crisis and price rises as a "good" business opportunity.
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. Full story...
Related posts:
- We'll make a killing out of food crisis, Glencore trading boss boasts...
- Disgraced Barclays "Libor" chief Jerry del Missier awarded £9million bonus...
- Squeezing Africa dry: behind every land grab is a water grab...
- "Chicken crisis" in Iran becomes simmering political issue...
- G8 leaders sit down to 18-course dinner, as they discuss world food crisis...
- How Goldman Sachs gambled on starving the world's poor - and won!
- When food is used as a weapon to reduce world population...
- Churchill deliberately let millions of Indians starve to death...
- Each person in Germany throws out 82 kilos of food a year...
No comments:
Post a Comment