Surging Oil and Food Prices Threaten the World Economy, Finance Ministers Warn

Freedumb, Freedumb, Read All About It! In a world of exploding human population, with its myriad needs, wants and desires, the economy keeps falling, with more and more working people around the world, poorer, lacking basic needs and going hungry. Freakohnomics: The new 21st Century Supply & Demand Economics - absolute greed, absolute power brings on absolute madness - Turns into Freakohnomics gone berserk. Or mafia economics by deliberate Design - the greater the need, the higher the price of all commodities required to sustain Life. The Outcome, economic strangulation and workaholic enslavement of a people was not designed by the lord thy God, nor (for the non-believer) is it a Natural or Nature's Law, nor a Scientific Law

The Deadly Dangers of a Mis-informed, Dis-informed & Un-informed Population, Ultimately to Itself, History Provides Ample Evidence.

The Solution: The Promise of New Energy Systems & Beyond Oil

Evaporates the Problem: The ill designed "Corporism: The Systemic Disease that Destroys Civilization." when lacking a Bill of Rights for Human Life

Mild shock and disbelief barely registered in the nation of the most productive, overworked, underpaid, underinsured, vacation deprived, low paid slave/workers in the world, as they watched their bridges fall down along with their retirement savings in equity & stocks, while their taxes, gas, energy and food costs continued skyrocketing to uncharted realms and many continue to lose their homes and go hungry; as the masses stagnated in unmovable traffic, and government departments threatened to close due to lack of funds - On the bright side, the worldwide corporate 2% greedy guts, individually, had aplenty, more wealth than 30 nations combined, apiece.... irrelevant to who is paying for their errors (as in subprime loans).

As common sense in science is lost with the continued stagnation of our energy base and deep troubling theoretical foundational issues in physics, so too, Civilization's Survival Parameters fly out of sight, out of mind, along with the values and morals inherent within new scientific understanding which new energy systems would reveal. Scientific Stagnation bodes an ill wind to evolution, sustainability, and survival as "cycles of humiliation, dumbing us down, violence, and Unrestrained Corporate Greed prompting resource wars with nuclear finality" join hands with global warming and ecological imbalance to precipitate the historical "rise and fall of civilization" - a Tsunami accelerating toward us with a far more spectacular event than the legends and myths of 'Atlantis and Lemuria"........ had more people known that Energy from Corn (or going backwards to a dimwitted concept of radioactive nuclear power application ) sounded a wee bit kindergartenish and senile for the twenty first century......the Future may have had a chance.




June 15, 2008
Surging Oil and Food Prices Threaten the World Economy, Finance Ministers Warn
By MARTIN FACKLER
OSAKA, Japan — The global economy faces a one-two punch from slowing growth and soaring fuel and food prices, finance ministers from the world’s richest nations warned Saturday, though they stopped short of offering concrete solutions.
Finance ministers from the Group of 8 industrialized nations wrapped up a two-day meeting in Japan that was dominated by talk of rising petroleum prices, which have set off street protests across the world. In a statement, the ministers said higher prices of oil and other commodities threatened the world economy at a time when it was still reeling from the collapse of the housing market in the United States.
The ministers urged oil-rich nations to increase production to help reverse a trend that has pushed up oil prices to nearly $140 a barrel, a record. The ministers also warned that the rising cost of oil and other commodities could spur broader increases of prices and wages.
The specter of fighting inflation as the ministers try to revive their flagging economies would “make our policy choices more complicated,” the statement said. The combination of inflation and low growth, known as stagflation, is difficult to escape because steps to spur economic activity, like lowering interest rates, can also lead to price increases.
“For a long time, the world economy enjoyed a combination of robust growth and low inflation, but it now faces headwinds,” the statement said. “Elevated commodity prices, especially of oil and food, pose a serious challenge to stable growth worldwide.”
The Group of 8 nations — Britain, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Russia and the United States — are many of the world’s largest consumers of oil. But most have little say over production, and over drivers of oil prices like rising demand from China and India.
The ministers also failed to find common ground on whether to take action to curb speculation in oil futures markets, which some have blamed for exacerbating price increases. While Italy called for measures like making futures trading more expensive, this was resisted by the United States and Britain, where big futures markets operate.
“It is sometimes difficult to distinguish between an airline that may hedge its fuel price, which is perfectly sensible planning, and someone who is speculating or even gambling on the price of oil,” said Alistair Darling, Britain’s chancellor of the Exchequer.
The American Treasury secretary, Henry M. Paulson Jr., attributed higher oil prices to changes in supply and demand and a failure by oil-rich nations to build enough wells and refineries.
“At its heart, this run-up in price reflects long-term trends in global supply and demand and strong economic growth coinciding with a period of minimal investment in oil production,” Mr. Paulson told reporters. “This is not something that lends itself to short-term solutions.”
As a compromise, the ministers asked the International Monetary Fund to look into what was driving the recent surge in oil prices. The ministers also called for aid to help developing nations in Africa and elsewhere deal with higher prices of commodities, particularly food ingredients.
The ministers met to help work out the agenda for next month’s summit meeting of Group of 8 heads of state in northern Japan. Speaking to reporters after the meeting, they said they also discussed steps to soothe financial markets and help developing nations fight global warming.
One item not discussed, despite wide expectations that it would be, was currencies, and particularly the possibility of intervention to prop up the slumping United States dollar. Japan’s finance minister, Fukushiro Nukaga, the host of the meeting, said currencies were discussed only on the sidelines.
At a news conference, Mr. Paulson brushed aside questions about intervention.
“A strong dollar is in our nation’s interest,” he said, adding that solid fundamentals in the American economy would eventually help the United States currency recover.