At the weekend, WDM campaigners headed to central Oxford with our Bankers Anonymous banner. We were asking Saturday shoppers to write to their MP – but why?
Basically, bankers are betting on food. Doesn’t make sense? Nope, but it’s happening all right. People in the banking sector are treating global food prices as a commodity to be gambled on. It’s called food speculation. While a bet on the World Cup is harmless fun, this type of betting actually affects the outcome of the markets being speculated on.
Bankers are flooding food markets with capital, which has the effect of divorcing global food prices from the reality of production or demand. It’s creating wild swings in prices, which means paying more for our weekly shop here in the UK – and misery for people in the Third World.
WDM has responded with the tongue-in-cheek Bankers Anonymous campaign, a “five-step programme” to help bankers give up their addiction to gambling with other people’s lives.
We figure the bankers aren’t going to give up on their own, so we’re going to give them a helping hand with extra regulation. That’s why the Oxford WDM group were wandering around the aptly-named Cornmarket Street, asking people to fill in postcards that sent a message to their MP.
Europe’s finance ministers are meeting soon to tackle food speculation. But our own government, the UK government, is opposing the tough new rules being proposed.
Why is our own government trying to make life even easier for the bankers? And why are we letting them get away with behaviour that has already pushed 44 million more people into poverty?
Perhaps people aren’t screaming and shouting because food speculation is a confusing issue and under-reported in the media. But the basic facts are simple:
Bankers’ greed is messing up global food prices, making eating less affordable for everybody. People are going hungry so that bankers can make millions.
If you’re happy with that, you don’t need to do anything. But if you’re sick of paying for bankers’ bonuses with your weekly food bills, or seeing people in the Third World paying with their lives, it’s time to write to your MP.
Thanks to all the many people who stopped and talked to us on Saturday. It’s great to know the message is getting through and so many people are happy to take action.
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