Global food crisis

THE WORLD is experiencing a global food crisis. 73 million people on the planet have to survive on handouts from the United Nations World Food Programme, whose estimated shortfall for this year rose from $500 million to $750 million.

That sounds like a lot. Until you see that Wall Street’s biggest ever pay packet topped $3.7 billion (almost £2 billion) in 2007. This was for John Paulson, hedge fund manager at Paulson & Company, who made a fortune gambling on the mortgage market collapse that has cost millions their homes. Yet he doesn’t even make it into The Sunday Times Rich List of the world’s richest 20 hedge fund managers!

So one man could feed 73 million people with a year’s pay packet! Deaths from hunger clearly have everything to do with this chaotic unplanned capitalist system where the super-rich get super-richer and the poor pay with their lives. It must be transformed!