GNN: Urquhart: Speculate to Annihilate
http://www.gnn.tv/print/3726/Speculate_to_Annihilate
Speculate to Annihilate
The commodities crisis is being fueled by out of control capitalism
By Sam Urquhart
Published: Wednesday June 4th, 2008
Rising demand from both Chinese and Indian consumers has been flagged by many as the driving force behind the commodities surge, or “super-cycle” as economists like to call it yet there are far more powerful forces at work than Indian or Chinese demand. Those two nations together, despite numbering over 2 billion people, account for around 12 percent of global oil consumption. The U.S. alone accounts for 25 percent. Yet it is not U.S. consumers that is driving the destructive commodities super-cycle, it is its dysfunctional financial system.As Forbes online relates in a recent article on global oil prices, “Speculative investment in commodities has been fuelled by the dollar’s decline, with financial players buying into the market in a bid to hedge against the greenback’s fall and global inflation concerns.”