Sarkozy takes G20 case to Obama as food prices soar … French President Nicolas Sarkozy (left) takes his campaign for greater global food price and currency stability to Washington this week when he seeks Barack Obama's support for France's goals as head of the Group of 20 powers. Soaring food prices and riots in Algeria and elsewhere offer Sarkozy ammunition to press for more coordination among G20 governments to combat wild swings in vital commodity prices as well as exchange rates against the long-dominant U.S. dollar. Sarkozy wants to use his run at the G20 helm in 2011 to start, if not finish, reforms of the monetary system at a time when many countries are tempted to let their currencies drop to promote exports and growth after the worst downturn since World War Two — even if that is at each others' expense. … Paris is also pressing for international efforts to impose greater transparency in commodity market trading and pricing, and for tougher regulation of commodity derivatives trade along the lines pursued for other investment derivatives in the wake of the financial market crisis that began in 2007. – Reuters
Dominant Social Theme: We shall make sure everyone has proper nutrition.
Free-Market Analysis: We have written about how various globalist entities are seeking more authority over the world's food supply. In a recent editorial in the Financial Times, World Bank president Robert Zoellick made the case that the G20 and the World Bank – together – ought to do more to ensure that people around the world do not suffer from food insecurity. He mentioned that Nicolas Sarkozy would be taking up the cause during his presidency of the G20 and now it would appear that Sarkozy has. (See article excerpt above.) Here's the link to the previous article:
www.thedailybell.com/1662/World-Bank-to-Manage-Food-Supplies/
Why are we not surprised? There is nothing in the world at this point that the Anglo-American power elite does not seek to regulate, moderate – or mutilate – in its mad quest for further internationalization. The elite has – purposefully in our view – eroded the value of dollar in order to raise pressure for a global currency.
But having weakened the world's reserve currency, the Anglosphere now wants to ensure that it controls the outcome. In fact, it may be using food-scarcity as a Trojan Horse to increase its control over a variety of markets. Unfortunately for the elite, the underpinnings of the food-scarcity promotion have been eroded by the relative failure of global-warming meme, which has undermined numerous elite promotions.
Food scarcity doubtless does exist but just as certainly the current food-production methodologies are aggravating the problem; we would argue that the scarcity was anticipated, even cultivated, potentially. Global warming was supposed to explain it, but instead it appears without a real justification. Nonetheless, the powers-that-be forge ahead. Here's some more from the article:
"As we sense it, more multilateralism is the best answer to the increased instability in the world," a Sarkozy adviser said of a meeting on Monday in Washington, where Sarkozy will be accompanied by wife Carla Bruni-Sarkozy as well as his finance and defense ministers. "We want to broach this thinking with the Americans and see if they are willing to join in such an approach, whereafter we can produce more precise proposals," said the adviser, who spoke to reporters on condition of anonymity.
No, more multilateralism is NOT the answer to increased instability. The divergence between elite perceptions of what is occurring and the "reality on the ground" continues to grow. In Europe, austerity has given rise to massive unrest throughout Southern Europe. China is supposedly coming up with funds to ensure European stability but we cannot imagine that the unrest will die down much, no matter whether "stability" is enhanced or not. There is a significant level of discontent in America as well, as evidenced by the Tea Party movement.
"Futurist" Gerald Celente, the founder of the Trends Research Institute, in an interview with Russia Today predicted that social unrest will expand in both the European Union and America. The unrest will be carried forward by young people who have the least to lose, he said. Additionally, as the Great Recession continues, people will gradually realize their current conditions are the "new normal," not the palmier times of the mid 2000s.
Celente also made predictions about food shortages in the West. Sarkozy sees the food situation as one that must be "managed" by the G20; but Celente believes that people will take their own "human action" to ensure the food supply. He suggests that people faced with high food prices and the specter of genetically modified food will begin to grow much more of their own food – much as people did during World War II in so-called liberty gardens.
One of Celente's more significant points had to do with recent news about how much money the American Federal Reserve had apparently dispensed worldwide, some US$20 trillion or so. This certainly jibes with numbers the Bell has estimated; in fact, we believe the total cost of the Greater Recession will eventually reach US$100 trillion. The system actually collapsed in 2008.
The system will NOT recover in our view; it has not recovered. But what the elites seemingly fail to understand is that unlike past economic meltdowns, this one has been visible in its entirety on the Internet. As we have pointed many times, if the powers-that-be believe the assignment of tens of trillions to vast, highly leveraged financial institutions has gone unnoticed, they are fooling themselves. What was considered an inevitable system in the 20th century must be seen as a profoundly privileged one in the 2000s. The moral authority has been dissipated.
Practically speaking, there are difficulties as well. Western economies remain highly distorted and even after they are unwound the dollar-reserve system is not going to prove viable in the long term. Something else will have to take its place – an international currency of some sort or a gold standard or perhaps even a free-banking monetary standard if nothing else can be agreed upon. In the era of the Internet, this transition will not be easily managed.
Celente, we were happy to hear, gives full credit to the Internet in his interview with Russia Today for being a transformational tool. It will certainly come under attack – it already has – but people will continue to use it in innovative ways. Whether it is global warming, vaccine programs or food scarcity, elite promotions are the subject of increasing skepticism in the 2000s. People have learned too much and seen too much.
While we have anticipated such a situation, we are frankly surprised at its vehemence and breadth. The elite – as we can see from the article excerpted at the beginning of this article – continues to use its promotions to try to gain more control over the world's economy. But we would argue that because they no longer control the conversation entirely, they can no longer operate with full expectations of success.
Food riots may be of concern to the powers-that-be, but if the response is merely to use the instability as a way to justify yet more elite control over the marketplace, the results may prove unsatisfactory indeed. Creating, or at least compounding problems in order to treat them as strategic opportunities may prove a fundamental misjudgment in the era of the internet.
