How could the GOP argue against these proposals to fix America's economy & bring back prosperity? http://www.democraticunderground.com/10023302479 How to fix America's economy & create jobs & prosperity again  Cut over $1.3tn a year of Corporate Welfare. Use that money for massive tax cuts for middle earners and below to increase people's disposable incomes and get bottom up spending going again. Use some of the money for tax cuts for small & medium sized businesses. The two above will get recruitment going again. Small and medium sized businesses are the true jobs and wealth creators - not large corporations. Stop bailing out the big banks to the tune of $1.2 tn a year. This is increasing the price of things like food & gas, lowering ordinary people's disposable incomes and thus lowering GDP growth. Break up the Corporate cartels that now operate in each major industry. Reinstate the Rule of Law in America Little guys get long jail terms for minor offenses, while the crimes of Corporate America go unpunished. Scrap Obamacare, which is the worst possible scheme for expanding healthcare coverage and will cost millions of American jobs and make healthcare even less efficient. Healthcare premiums are set to rise by between 30 and 100% with the full implementation of Obamacare (it varies a lot by State). Completely reverse the current policy of sending more and more people to college when they increasingly end up in jobs that do not need a college degree or they have no job at all. It is just loading young people up with debt. Completely reform the current education system so that people learn how to make a decent living. America's Current Death Spiral  Corporate profits are at record levels. So is poverty. Real wages are at record lows and continue to decline. This trend needs a dramatic reversal and soon. Cut Corporate Welfare by over $1.3tn a year.  Use that money for massive tax cuts for middle earners and below. Raising the tax thresh hold from $8,700 to $45,000 would cost $500bn a year. Reversing the payroll tax hike would cost $108bn a year. Making the Corporate tax rate 25% would be slightly more than revenue neutral, by removing all of the subsidies to large corporations. No tax breaks or deductions whatsoever. Make the first $100,000 of profits tax free to give a tax break to small and medium sized businesses (like Singapore does). What do you want to do with the rest of the circa $600bn a year we have just saved? It can be a mixture of things :- Lowering the tax rate for $45,000 to $80,000 of income Lowering the Corporate tax rate further / tax the next $200,000 of profits at half rate (like Singapore does) Deficit reduction Infrastructure improvements - how about repairing some bridges? America's debt spiral By 2023 :- spending will be nearly $6tn a year the deficit will be over $3tn the national debt will be over $40tn See 1. The government is being incredibly stupid. It is allowing the Federal Reserve to be incredibly stupid as well. See 2 Paul Ryan's so called budget plan would cause a major depression Raising military spending even higher, cutting taxes on the rich, taxing the poor more and cutting welfare benefits are EXACTLY the wrong thing to do. To make his numbers work, Ryan assumes growth rates of 6% a year which is plainly ridiculous and to close $750bn of middle class tax loop holes a year by 2022 - which really would put America in a severe depression. The list of items that add up to over $1.3tn a year of cuts to Corporate Welfare http://www.democraticunderground.com/10023293763 The current bank bailouts are killing America The current $1tn+ subsidies to the big banks should all be ended to allow much better run smaller banks to fairly compete. $780bn of annual subsidies to the big banks http://www.democraticunderground.com/10023293726 Plus QE3 and QE to infinity. QE3 is a direct subsidy to the big banks by buying up distressed mortgage backed assets at far more than they are worth at the rate of $480bn a year. Why current Fed policy is making things worse by increasing inflation and unemployment see 2. Reinstate the Rule of Law in America Reinstate deterrent penalties for criminal behavior of Corporate execs. Send senior bankers to jail for 30 years+ for their multiple crimes. Fine the big banks $200bn too. The only thing you can be sure of without deterrent penalties, is more crime. Reinstate civil rights - scrap NSA mass surveillance, NDAA and the Patriot Act etc. Stop sending large numbers of people to jail for non violent drugs offenses, to feed the private business business - it wrecks lives and costs everyone else too. College education policy needs to be completely reversed See 3. Education policy needs to be completely reformed America's education system is now well behind a whole host of other developed countries. America is now in the bottom 3 out of 30, for social mobility as a result. The Corporate cartels that now operate in each major industry need to be broken up :- Banking Arms companies. The top 20 suppliers to the US government are consistently making an average of 10% on sales. Name me another industry that manages that. Oil. The big oil companies have had a decade of record profits, yet still receive sizeable government subsidies. End them. Pharmaceuticals. America pays by far the highest prices for prescription drugs in the world. Lower the price or go generic earlier. Half the large drug companies are foreign owned and making huge profits on the backs of the American taxpayer. Monsanto. The Monsanto protection act has just been passed by Congress - reverse it. Ban all ex Monsanto employees from working at the FDA. Meet Michael R. Taylor https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhzpMarruOiLjya6teu_FJB-b_RGfQeit1hHjydH0sj4m7rHUC-Acib-Nu5bm5vQEKKg6t4GxOAqEIs058NaEvnwoe2sDyDEjxHXLxBnBopWA1mkrNm9SuaFMrbNcFx2FlHPJYmRBSWSLE/s400/March+against+monsanto.jpg Healthcare (soon to be a cartel of a few large companies controlling most of the market with Obamacare). Appendices 1. CBO projections of future GDP growth rates, deficits and the National Debt are pure fantasy  The CBO is taking a very benign and EXTREMELY optimistic view of future US GDP growth rates, which is not borne out by history or by current global economic conditions or by current global debt levels. E.G. the recession that has just started in Europe. E.G. China is reportedly now hitting around 3% GDP growth - officially they say it is still about 7.5%, but the Chinese government have always overstated GDP growth. You can see why China's GDP growth might be at 3% and rapidly slowing, with the slowing of European and American current growth rates. India and Brazil are also rapidly slowing down. Average GDP growth from 1950 to 2000 was 3.3%. These were the boom times. And from circa 1980 onwards, GDP growth was massively fuelled by an exponential increase in the money supply. Money supply has stopped growing since the housing bubble burst in 2007 (despite the Federal Reserve's massive attempts at more printing). Since 2000 GDP growth has averaged just under 2%. The CBO is assuming an average of 3.5% GDP growth from 2014 and ever after. I.E. substantially higher than any lengthy period over the last 100 years. Even the CBO recognises that future GDP growth is substantially reduced by higher levels of debt. The CBO future GDP growth forecasts are pure fantasy. As are their forecasts for future tax revenues which are highly dependent on future GDP growth rates. The deficits are going to be very substantially higher than the CBO are currently predicting. And so is the National Debt. The National Debt is now nearly $17tn. GDP is $15.85tn as at end of 2012. Debt to GDP ratio is now 107% and rapidly rising. Government spending is planned to rise from $3.6tn in 2012 to $6tn in 2023 (with or without the sequester). https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgRm0qlupT_1_qsrm8OlB50ZJRM7VLnX53I02b8EA0KfHFf9Ksf1bnM46wR6HJJ7oWpPKtx8zcXjL3pedZbltyide0ONOAhnhd0ozzwYQMMCSe9kzQSjThlyXqrezw-rTfOlSOIFmVlpl8/s640/Total+Federal+spending+to+2023.jpg The following scenario is much more likely. A sudden spike in rates within a few weeks from around 2% to around 7% as has already happened to some European countries - Greece, Spain and Italy etc. I predict that with current policies (of BOTH parties) the US National Debt will be over $40tn by 2023. The debt to GDP ratio will be about 250%. That assumes the US has not already started defaulting on it's debt and the dollar has not already plunged in value. In which case economic and fiscal conditions in the US will be FAR worse than the predictions above. At some point in time the market WILL realise that America is NEVER going to pay off it's debts. Interest rates will soar past 5%. Interest payments on new borrowings will also soar (as above the Federal budget deficit is expected to be above $3tn in 2023 with current policies). The value of the dollar will plunge and lose it's Global Reserve Currency Status. The Chinese are already planning for that and to take over, with a new Global Reserve "Currency" and a "BRICS bank" to takeover from the Federal Reserve as the largest influencer of global monetary policy. The Chinese think the American government is already bankrupt. (So do the Russians.) The Chinese are expecting a fire sale of US assets in the not too distant future. They have already carried out rough surveys to determine America's net worth - it's natural resources, farmland and water resources. The collapse in the value of the dollar and the rise in interest rates will cause economic carnage in the United States. America is running trade deficits of over $500bn a year. The price of all imports will double in a fairly short space of time, while wages are held down. There will be an even greater over supply of labor. This realisation by the market that the American government will never repay it's debts is still some time away. But it WILL happen if there is not a complete reversal of government policy (by BOTH parties). The official CBO headline deficit charts ignore the cost of debt servicing (the cost of interest payments). According to the CBO's own forecasts elsewhere, interest payments are expected to rise by about $750bn a year to $1tn a year in 2020 (and keep rising). There is a lot of uncertainty over where interest rates will be in a few years. (CBO estimates are that new government debt will be issued at 5% interest in 2020.) The long term historical average for US 10 year government debt is between 5 and 6% (averaged over the last 200 years). Other scenarios are more likely. Some people (and in at least parts of the CBO site) are quoting US National Debt levels of $11.5tn. This is just financial trickery. The National Debt is now nearly $17tn. GDP is $15.85tn as at end of 2012. Debt to GDP ratio is now 107%. Canada uses a similar piece of accounting trickery to the US to reduce their officially reported national debt. No other countries do and most statisticians and real economists ignore the sleight of hand by the US government to reduce the reported National Debt to $11.5tn. (Why all the arguments over the debt ceiling if the National Debt is only $11.5tn? It's just another piece of disinformation by the US government.) CBO headline predictions N.B. Note that these headline charts EXCLUDE the cost of interest payments on the rapidly rising National Debt. The CBO itself predicts that debt servicing will increase by about $750bn a year to $1tn by 2020 and continue to rapidly increase thereafter. (After 2020 the demographic time bomb of more retirees per worker really kicks in.) These charts are therefore pure fantasy. http://www.cbo.gov/sites/default/files/cbofiles/attachments/06-05-Long-Term_Budget_Outlook_2.pdf CBO information on future government spending plans The CBO revised their projections in May with some even more ludicrous assumptions in order to predict that the deficit is going to come down. The CBO assessment of the deficit profile relies on every trick in the book. The assumption is that all of the variables that weigh on the deficit will be improving over the next few years. Tax collections will remain at historically high levels. Government spending will decline as the economy improves. Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac will be kicking $95Bn into the coffers. Social Security will cost less than previously thought, the same favorable result is assumed for both Medicare and Medicaid. And of course, there will be no wars or military incursions that have to be paid for. But, by far, the biggest driver of the reduced deficits will come from the robust economic recovery that they predict to occur (which are totally without foundation and frankly ludicrous). This is the CBO forecast for top line GDP growth: Healthcare spending is set to rise by about $300bn in 2014. Partly as a result of more people having access to free healthcare, but mostly due to the steep rise in Healthcare premiums of between 30% and 100% in 2014 (it varies a lot by State). This additional $300bn will be almost exclusively paid for by the middle class, who will not be able to spend it on everything else. The consumer is already tapped out as demonstrated by the decline in personal credit. The only personal debts that are rising are Student Loans and subsidized auto loans. Other debt, e.g. credit card debt, is going down. The economic indicators have nosedived off a cliff since early April. Recent data issued last week indicates that recession is not that far away - both the NY and Philly Fed data had negative prints indicating recession plus there was the major 16.5% decline in new housing starts. The job numbers are also being dramatically overstated. The aggregate job numbers for 2013 show the Establishment (business) survey reporting a total of 480,000 more jobs than the Household survey so far this year. The reasons are two fold :- 400,000 more people now have a second (or third) poorly paid part time job to keep body and soul together. The BLS Birth/Model is overstating the number of people employed in new business startups by around 100,000 people so far this year. Analysts are currently expecting company earnings growth to be +22% (annualised) for Q2, when earnings growth for the last 12 months has been +0.4% and the latest economic data indicates recession soon. The recent rise in the value of the US Dollar will also not help foreign earnings reported in dollars or exports, if it is maintained. Expect a large number of downgrades to analysts forecasts before Q2 earnings start being reported in July. This will also lead to downward revisions to GDP growth forecasts for 2013. Eventually the CBO will revise their GDP forecasts again. They will need very substantial downward revision. America will be very lucky to see 2% growth a year for the next 10 years (the average rate it has been since 2001). 2. How the government and the Federal Reserve are WRECKING the US economy  Fixing America's current economic ills won't come about by Fed printing - which makes things much WORSE. It will only come about if ordinary people's disposable incomes start rising instead of plummeting as they currently are. Both government and Federal Reserve policy are the EXACT opposite of what is required to improve things. What needs to happen to fix America's economic ills Immediate cuts of over $1tn a year in Corporate Welfare. Immediately raise the personal income tax thresh hold from $8,700 to $45,000. More than reversing the huge $200bn tax hike handed out to the middle class and the working poor in the fiscal Cliff deal. It would be a $500bn TAX BREAK, almost all of it going to middle earners and below. Stop the $1tn a year bailout to the big banks which is increasing food & gas prices. Break up the Corporate cartels that now operate in each major industry. Reinstate the Rule of Law. Jail senior bankers for 30+ years for their white collar crimes. Fine the big banks $200bn for the same. Completely reform Corporation Tax. Current policy is strongly in favor of large multinationals and strongly against small businesses. Set a flat Corporate tax rate of about 25% - no loopholes, no tax breaks whatsoever. Make the first $100,000 tax free to give a huge tax break for small and medium businesses. Nick Leeson and Barings bank vs the Federal Reserve and America The Fed are behaving in exactly the same way as Nick Leeson, who kept doubling down on his bets that the Nikkei would turn around and start rising again in the early 1990's. The Nikkei was way over valued at the time - just like US Treasuries are now. It was a sure fire losing trade. Nick Leeson broke Barings Bank. Barings Bank had been a profitable institution for 230 years - it was founded in 1762. The Federal Reserve private bank is going to do the same thing to the whole of America. America has also been a profitable institution for about 230 years. The Federal Reserve's sure fire losing bet The Fed is currently making healthy profits from it's greatly expanded balance sheet - $96bn for 2012. But just a small rise in interest rates will turn these current profits into losses. The Fed is now doubling and tripling down on a 100% sure fire losing bet (they are exactly akin to the worst kind of rookie trader). They are increasing their balance sheet by $1tn a year ad infinitum, by buying US Treasuries at record high prices and overpaying for impaired mortgage debt in QE3. WHEN (not if) interest rates start rising back towards normal historical levels the Fed will start making losses. The longer the Fed continues with their current policy of buying huge quantities of debt at extremely high prices the greater these future losses will be. Instead of returning a health sum to the US Treasury each year, the Fed will call upon the US Treasury (i.e. taxpayers) to pay for their losses. These future payments by the US Treasury to the Federal Reserve private bank have not been factored into future deficit or National Debt calculations. The Federal Reserve will not be able to escape the path that it is on. There is no way out. The Fed is already buying US debt equivalent to the ENTIRE annual government deficit every year. There is an extreme shortage of other buyers at current rates. The Fed will not be able to reduce their balance sheet at any stage in the future without taking a very substantial loss. Any selling by the Fed in any quantity would lead to a dramatic decrease in the price of US Treasuries (and other US debt held on the Federal Reserve's balance sheet). The Federal Reserve is by far the largest player in the market for US debt - they are greater than all the other Central Banks put together. The market has already priced in that the Fed will be buying $1tn of US debt a year ad infinitum and any change in that policy (even without actually buying or selling anything) would dramatically lower the perceived worth of US debt. The interest rate for 10 year government debt averaged over the last 200 years is between 5 and 6%. An interest rate of between 5 and 6% is the historical norm. Markets ALWAYS revert back to historical norms sooner or later (unless they cease to exist entirely). Source : Société Générale Institutional Research 10 Year US Treasuries currently have an interest rate of 2%. Some estimates put the break even point for the Fed at 4.5% at the end of 2013 (below this and the Fed makes a profit). Some estimates put it as low as 2.5%. There is no doubt it is closer to the latter number. You have to factor in the future losses on the huge amounts of debt the Fed has already bought while the 10 year note has averaged between 2.5% and 3% over the last 4 and a half years ($2.1tn from mid 2008 to January 2013). You have to factor in the $1tn of US debt the Fed will be buying each year while the 10 Year note is paying around 2% interest, as it currently is. The future Federal Reserve bank crisis is already set in stone alongside the US sovereign debt and bank crises. By the end of 2013, if not earlier, the future will of already been set in stone. It is only a question of when these future events happen. It wouldn't be so bad if taking these huge future Fed trading losses was helping now but the current Fed printing is making things MUCH WORSE. It is raising food and gas prices and lowering the disposable incomes of ordinary people. see 4 It is really funny (and extremely sad too) when press articles somehow suggest the Federal Reserve is somehow helping or somehow knows what it is doing when it has repeatedly demonstrated on numerous occasions over many years that it is completely clueless and makes things MUCH WORSE. 3. College education policy The current policy of making people go to college and rack up $10,000's of debts to obtain increasingly worthless degrees should be reversed. It is DRAMATICALLY increasing the cost of college education. If there is more demand for something, prices ALWAYS increase. If something is more prevalent, like the number of people with degrees, the value ALWAYS goes down. One of the items that has increased in price the most over the last decade, is the price of college education. It is increasing in price by about 10% a year. The ONLY beneficiaries of current policy are the colleges. Maybe you should look at the campaign donations to Obama from large colleges. They want the current system to be enhanced and extended. It is in the interests of ALL Americans (except those running the colleges) that current policy be reversed. Most jobs, except things like the sciences, engineering and doctors, don't need a college degree. It would be much better if we returned to the old system, where most people received on the job training, while earning a basic wage - not racking up student debts. About 40% of current college entrants don't even graduate. They still get landed with the student debt that they have incurred. The default rate on student loans has recently started increasing dramatically. The total amount of student loans has just gone past $1tn. It is now larger than the sub prime mortgage scandal. Nearly half of all college graduates don't end up in a job that requires a college degree. Over one third of college graduates now end up in a job that does not even require a High School diploma. 284,000 graduates last year, ended up in a job paying minimum wage. They are still saddled with $10,000's of student loan debt. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/03/31/college-graduates-minimum-wage-jobs_n_2989540.html Under half the people that currently enter college, get any benefit from starting a college course. OVER HALF the people that currently enter college DO NOT get any benefit from a college education. They just get saddled with $10k's of student debt. If you take into account the drop out rates, about 36% of current college entrants end up in a job that needs a college degree. Those who do get a benefit from a college education are paying a much higher price for their college degree than they should be and a much higher price than they used to pay in the past. This doesn't affect the wealthy very much - if you have $10m in the bank paying another $50k for college education isn't an issue. Paying $50k or so more than people should be paying for a college degree is only an issue for the 99%. 53% of recent graduates are jobless or underemployed. Youth unemployment has got worse since this article was written a year ago. N.B. This article does not take into account the drop out rate, which is now 40%. How many of those people are now unemployed or in very low paying jobs? http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2012/04/53-of-recent-college-grads-are-jobless-or-underemployed-how/256237/ The student loan debt crisis in 9 charts http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2013/06/student-loan-debt-charts 4. Why current Fed policy is pushing up inflation and costing jobs. The large banks currently have $1.7tn of "excess" reserves. A large part of the current $1.7tn of excess bank reserves is currently being used for short term speculation by the speculative banks - mostly on the stock and bond markets, but enough is going to buy up commodities, principally oil and food to make a sizeable difference. The oil price is rising against a backdrop of a lowering of future global GDP forecasts. Rising inflation for basic necessities will make the coming economic slowdown much worse. Particularly in developing countries like China, but also for most of the populations of America and Europe - they are going to have less disposable income with higher gas and food prices. Inflation in the developing world and the Brics will eventually follow through in increased prices of their exports, compounding the inflation issue in the developed world. Meanwhile the Fed continues to pump out new money to the big banks at the rate of $1tn a year. Adding to the money the banks have available for speculation and thus increasing inflation. The Fed balance sheet has just gone past $3tn. It will be $4tn by the end of 2013. Current Fed policy LOWERS future global GDP growth. Proportionally more money is spent on basic commodities, there is less money available to buy manufactured goods and manufactured goods will increase in price. This is basically the inflation tax, when the Fed prints too much money. It hurts the poor and the middle class hardest. It will particularly hit people on low wages and fixed incomes, e.g. seniors. The current method of calculating CPI (Consumer Price Index) drastically understates the contribution to inflation by gas & food. The inflation adjustment made to pensions every year is well below the inflation rate experienced by pensioners. The same applies to those on benefits. Those in lower paid employment will also suffer. Basic wages are largely set by reference to CPI. Official CPI numbers are well below the inflation rate actually experienced by those with lower incomes. There will not be raging inflation. Basic wages are being held down by the large global oversupply of labor and high unemployment in the West. The effects of the Feds money supply inflation will not be reported in any news headlines. It's effects will largely be hidden from official statistics, but it will be insidious nonetheless. It WILL be a further acceleration of the steady erosion of the living standards of the poor and the middle class that has happened over the last decade in the West. It WILL make poor people, around the entire world, poorer. Current Fed policy and Goldman Sachs speculation will cause a deeper recession in America in 2013. It will also cause higher unemployment. Adding the Feds extremely poor monetary policy to the current extremely poor economic policies of just about every government, will probably be enough to tip the entire global economy over the edge into global recession. The big banks and the big oil companies don't care though - they are making lots of money out of other people's suffering. Money printing and QE3 amounts to theft from our children Speaking at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Davide Serra, founder of leading hedge fund Algebris, and Nouriel Roubini, the head of Roubini Economics known as Dr Doom for predicting the financial crisis, set out the case against those who think quantitative easing (QE) and low rates are benign policy tools. “When governments borrow, they are taking money from our children. QE is the same – we are lowering returns for future generations. QE creates an inter-generational dilemma,” Mr Serra said. Mr Roubini warned that central bankers need to think about turning off the cheap money tap or risk creating another, possibly even worse, bubble. He argued that policymakers have encouraged markets and individuals to take on crippling levels of debt by leaving asset bubbles unchecked in a boom and coming to borrowers’ rescue in a crisis. "Ten years ago we had the Greenspan put, now we have the Bernanke put. What are the long term economic consequences?" he asked. He said loose monetary policy is creating a system biased to creating bubbles, "that's why we've been moving to more unconventional territories" in policy responses - from low rates to QE to credit easing. "Central bankers have affected the behaviour of the private sector. They have to think about that," he said. "As you do a slow exit out of QE you may create another bubble and make another crisis. “At some point, the consequence of postponing deleveraging is that you end up with zombie banks, zombie companies, zombie households, and zombie governments.” Read more at : http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/financetopics/davos/9822372/Money-printing-amounts-to-theft-from-our-children.html How Goldman Sachs make millions betting on the starvation of others  Johann Hari: How Goldman gambled on starvation Speculators set up a casino where the chips were the stomachs of millions. What does it say about our system that we can so casually inflict so much pain? By now, you probably think your opinion of Goldman Sachs and its swarm of Wall Street allies has rock-bottomed at raw loathing. You're wrong. There's more. It turns out that the most destructive of all their recent acts has barely been discussed at all. Here's the rest. This is the story of how some of the richest people in the world – Goldman, Deutsche Bank, the traders at Merrill Lynch, and more – have caused the starvation of some of the poorest people in the world. It starts with an apparent mystery. At the end of 2006, food prices across the world started to rise, suddenly and stratospherically. Within a year, the price of wheat had shot up by 80 per cent, maize by 90 per cent, rice by 320 per cent. In a global jolt of hunger, 200 million people – mostly children – couldn't afford to get food any more, and sank into malnutrition or starvation. There were riots in more than 30 countries, and at least one government was violently overthrown. Then, in spring 2008, prices just as mysteriously fell back to their previous level. Jean Ziegler, the UN Special Rapporteur on the Right to Food, calls it "a silent mass murder", entirely due to "man-made actions." Earlier this year I was in Ethiopia, one of the worst-hit countries, and people there remember the food crisis as if they had been struck by a tsunami. "My children stopped growing," a woman my age called Abiba Getaneh, told me. "I felt like battery acid had been poured into my stomach as I starved. I took my two daughters out of school and got into debt. If it had gone on much longer, I think my baby would have died." Most of the explanations we were given at the time have turned out to be false. It didn't happen because supply fell: the International Grain Council says global production of wheat actually increased during that period, for example. It isn't because demand grew either: as Professor Jayati Ghosh of the Centre for Economic Studies in New Delhi has shown, demand actually fell by 3 per cent. Other factors – like the rise of biofuels, and the spike in the oil price – made a contribution, but they aren't enough on their own to explain such a violent shift. http://www.independent.co.uk/voices/commentators/johann-hari/johann-hari-how-goldman-gambled-on-starvation-2016088.html Goldman Sachs just announced that it made another $400m in 2012 speculating on Food prices. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/01/22/goldman-sachs-food-prices_n_2525571.html Goldman Sach's food speculation turns Global Hunger into Wall St profit http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2013/01/22-5