[OPE] Reuters articles on food crisis

Reuters has some informative articles on the food crisis:

http://blogs.reuters.com/great-debate/2009/11/24/a-paradox-of-plenty-hunger-in-america/
http://www.reuters.com/article/domesticNews/idUSTRE5A909H20091110
http://blogs.reuters.com/route-to-recovery/tag/food-bank/
http://blogs.reuters.com/commodity-corner/2009/11/12/michael-pollan-whats-in-the-beef/

Never in world history has the Lord's Prayer had such an actuality: "give us
today our daily bread". More than prayers is obviously necessary, however.

The most spectacular thing about modern capitalism is that, despite endless
odes to equilibrium theory and wondrous technologies, it fails to provide
more than a billion people with an adequate supply of the most basic
requirements of human life: food, proper sanitation and clean drinking
water. Of course, that argument easily gets turned around: the reason for
this lack, it is argued, is that "there is not enough capitalism". That
argument is not all that convincing however, since "risk-averse" market
economies, obsessed with shortterm profit, fail to invest even the minimum
amount necessary in these areas. But that means a massive and indeed lethal
risk for hundreds of millions of people. Could it be, that previous "risk
management" philosophies have in reality been highly biased in their risk
assessment?

Risk for whom? Risk of what? Those is the questions one ought to ask.

J.

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Received on Tue Nov 24 17:46:07 2009