FOOD SHORTAGES ARE BECOMING INEVITABLE

CREDIT TO CSPANJUNKIE FOR THE LINK: LOTS OF GOOD LINKS ON THIS BLOG. http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2008/11/yet-more-trade-finance-worries-not-for.html Yet More Trade Finance Worries (Not for the Fainthearted) EXCERPT: "If cargo trade stops, a whole lot of supply chain disruption starts.... If cargo trade stops, the wheat doesn’t get exported. If the wheat doesn’t get exported, the mill has nothing to grind into flour. If there is no flour, the bakeries and food processors can’t produce bread and pasta and other foods. If there are no foods shipped from the bakeries and factories, there are no foods in the shops. If there are no foods in the shops, people go hungry. If people go hungry their children go hungry. When children go hungry, people riot and governments fall. Everyone along the supply chain should worry about their children going hungry. When that happens, everyone in governments should worry about the riots. Controlling access to trade finance determines who loses their jobs, whose children go hungry, who riots, which governments fall....Trade finance is rapidly communicating the stress on bank liquidity to the real economy. It presents a systemic risk much more frightening than the collapsing value of bits of paper traded electronically in London and New York. It could collapse the employment, the well being and the political stability of most of the world’s population."