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Africa – Starvation and Speculation

Starvation – the inability to buy the things to sustain life – is still stalking Africa.
 
George Soros is one of the great men of capitalism. He’s the Chairman of Soros Fund Management, a Hedge Fund that is estimated to have assets of approximately $27 billion, and the vehicle that has enabled him to become the 35th richest person in the world. He’s admired in the financial world as the “The Man Who Broke the Bank of England” when he pocketed a reported $1 billion in 1992 from the Black Wednesday UK currency debacle. He’s renowned for his philanthropy and as a supporter of liberal ideas. He has been described as a “distinguished thinker”.

Letters

Nuclear power
 
Dear Editors,
Re Pathfinders in the July issue. Since 1960 all aircraft carriers and since 1955 all submarines in the United States Navy have been nuclear-powered.

Production Values


 
A sideways glance at capitalism through some of its products.  This month: bottled water
 
It may come as a surprise to younger readers to learn that water hasn't always come from the supermarket in plastic bottles. There was apparently a time when you could drink it pretty much for free, straight out of the tap. Just as if it fell out of the sky!

Poverty and famines

Why do famines occur? Because there’s not enough food or because people haven’t enough money to buy it? To many people famines are caused by not enough food being available. This seems reasonable enough: why would people have to starve if there was enough food to feed them? It’s a good question, but it assumes that today food is produced to feed people whereas in fact this is not the case. It should be, but it isn’t. And it isn’t, because we are living in a capitalist society where food is not produced simply to satisfy people’s need for it but - like everything else - to be sold on a market with a view to making a profit. Food is a commodity which, like all commodities, can only be acquired if you have money (or something else) to exchange for it. If you don’t, then you starve. It’s as simple as that.

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