http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2011/05/19/how-goldman-sachs-created-the-food-crisis.aspxFood is becoming more expensive around the world. In fact, world food prices rose to near a record high this April as grain costs continued to increase. The cost of living in the U.S. has been rising at its fastest pace since December 2009, and Chinese consumer prices have been going up at their fastest rate since 2008.
One reason for the rise in food prices is Wall Street greed. In 1991, bankers at Goldman Sachs came up with a new kind of investment product, a derivative that tracked 24 raw materials, including food products, as part of a single mathematical formula they called the Goldman Sachs Commodity Index (GSCI).
The problem came in 1999, when the Commodities Futures Trading Commission deregulated futures markets, and bankers could take as large a position in grains as they liked -- something which had been forbidden to all but those actually involved in food production since the Great Depression.
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Actually NYT, it wasn't 1999 - it was around Dec 15, 2000 just before the Congress's Christmas Break was to begin. Phil Gramm slipped the Commodities Futures Modernization act (well, it was supposed to be called that but Graham couldn't get it out of commitee, because Democrats were suspicious of it and wouldn't vote it out of committee) it in
as a rider to the must pass 11,000 page, Omnibus Funding bill. This was Congresses last chance to pass it to keep the government funded. It was a fool proof move by Phil Gramm.
Nobody even knew the CFMA was in there.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Commodity_Futures_Modernization_Act_of_2000#cite_note-59
By December 2001, however, a different narrative of events emerged that has become widespread. Audio and NPR Transcript for Terry Gross Interview of Frank Partnoy, “Fresh Air,” March 25, 2009 (“Partnoy Fresh Air Interview”) (at 19’30” into the audio Professor Partnoy describes the CFMA by stating “Phil Gramm added the provision in the evening, just hours before the Christmas break. It was never debated in the House. It was never debated in the Senate. It was shoved into an 11,000 page omnibus budget bill.”
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