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Look what speculation did to the real estate market. Squeezing people out of the market of buying homes because people were "flipping" them as investments and driving up the prices. People who made more money (collectively, two-income trap) as a couple were squeezing out single (average) income buyers. Maybe speculation isn't such an ethical thing to be involved in... Kind of like unregulated usury, eh? Credit card rates that are uncontrolled and sub-prime mortgages for everyone - the consumer doesn't know the difference or how to protect themselves from exploitation. Read the following article released today on the European version of the Business Week website. "Capitalism is literally consuming itself."
Speculators Worsening World Food Crisis?
Biofuels and droughts can't fully explain the recent shortages—hedge funds and small investors bear some responsibility for global hunger
by Beat Balzli and Frank Hornig
Not long ago, Dwight Anderson welcomed reporters with open arms. He liked to entertain them with stories from the world of big money. Anderson is a New York hedge fund manager, and as recently as last October he would talk with enthusiasm about his visits to Malaysian palm-oil plantations and Brazilian grain farms. "You could clearly see how supply was getting tight," he said.
In mid-2006 Anderson was touting the "extraordinary profitability" of field crops from corn to soybeans. He was convinced that rising worldwide hunger would be synonymous with highly profitable—and dead-certain—investment bargains.
In search of new investments, Anderson sends dozens of his employees to visit agricultural regions around the world. Back in New York, at his company's headquarters on the 27th floor of an office building high above Park Avenue, they bet on agricultural markets from Peru to Vietnam.
But in the towers above Manhattan's urban canyons, it's easy to lose touch with the ground. Hedge fund manager John Paulson was recently celebrated for achieving a record annual profit of $3.7 billion (€2.3 billion). Those who work in this environment have only one rule: Don't disappoint profit-hungry investors.
"I'm constantly wired," Anderson used to say, back when he talked to journalists. His nickname in the industry is the "Commodities King," and his Ospraie hedge fund is the world's largest. These days, though, Anderson avoids the media. He's even kept his face out of the media by buying up rights to all photos of himself on the market. His spokesman is now paid, mainly, to say nothing.
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I disagree with Rogers, mainly because there are a limited amount of fertile fields out there and eventually they'd be used up, neh? At least with crops as they are now (type and genetics) and the potentially skyrocketing input prices for those things Rogers mentions - fuel and fertilizer (assumed to be petroleum based).
Speculators Worsening World Food Crisis?
Biofuels and droughts can't fully explain the recent shortages—hedge funds and small investors bear some responsibility for global hunger
by Beat Balzli and Frank Hornig
Not long ago, Dwight Anderson welcomed reporters with open arms. He liked to entertain them with stories from the world of big money. Anderson is a New York hedge fund manager, and as recently as last October he would talk with enthusiasm about his visits to Malaysian palm-oil plantations and Brazilian grain farms. "You could clearly see how supply was getting tight," he said.
In mid-2006 Anderson was touting the "extraordinary profitability" of field crops from corn to soybeans. He was convinced that rising worldwide hunger would be synonymous with highly profitable—and dead-certain—investment bargains.
In search of new investments, Anderson sends dozens of his employees to visit agricultural regions around the world. Back in New York, at his company's headquarters on the 27th floor of an office building high above Park Avenue, they bet on agricultural markets from Peru to Vietnam.
But in the towers above Manhattan's urban canyons, it's easy to lose touch with the ground. Hedge fund manager John Paulson was recently celebrated for achieving a record annual profit of $3.7 billion (€2.3 billion). Those who work in this environment have only one rule: Don't disappoint profit-hungry investors.
"I'm constantly wired," Anderson used to say, back when he talked to journalists. His nickname in the industry is the "Commodities King," and his Ospraie hedge fund is the world's largest. These days, though, Anderson avoids the media. He's even kept his face out of the media by buying up rights to all photos of himself on the market. His spokesman is now paid, mainly, to say nothing.
( Read more... )-----------------------------------------------------------------
I disagree with Rogers, mainly because there are a limited amount of fertile fields out there and eventually they'd be used up, neh? At least with crops as they are now (type and genetics) and the potentially skyrocketing input prices for those things Rogers mentions - fuel and fertilizer (assumed to be petroleum based).
