Strange (not funny) that this information is not readily available in the USA.

Thank you all for making so much available through the internet.

Jim of Olym (USA)

Col Rouge says:

"Capitalism works and allows people the hope to aspire to their potential."

Melody was highlighting one aspect of the failure of capitalism to work.

I suspect the 2.5 bn people who live on less than US$2 a day also might disagree, and those 1 bn who live on less than a dollar a day might vehemently disagree if they could get enough food to give them enough energy to engage in political debate and action.

The food crisis is probably extending those figures by about half a billion, so it is possible now that half the world's population is living on less than US $2 per day. I don't know about you Col Rouge, but I find that criminal. It is the ultimate indictment of capitalism.

I think there are two crises - the long term crisis of capitalism's inability to feed the starving (not through lack of food but through lack of buying power) and the recent crisis which is pushing hundreds of millions of people down into the starving category or the malnourished category.

And don't give me bull dust about how the market will solve the problem. These people are starving not because there isn't enough food (there is) but because they don't have enough money to buy it. Let them eat mud cakes seems to be the new slogan of the capitalist classes. (Yes, people are actually eating mud cakes to stay alive. Some system, hey Col?)

Given the riots around the world, and the 33 countries highlighted as possible hot spots, their ruling classes must be hoping they don't all go the way of Marie Antoinette.

And the gains the "market" made over the last twenty years in pushing some people above the poverty line have been wiped out in the last year by massive food hikes.

Even in the US, which produces more than enough to feed everyone adequately there, the number of people on food stamps has rien from 26 million to 28 million. If that is success, Col Rouge, I fear failure.

Col, wow what an assumption. I live in Laos, a Leninist totalitarian state so am no fan of Marxism. If you read the Labour thriller written by the BBC's Paul Mason (Live Working or Die Fighting) you will see that the trade union movement pre-dated marx by almost a century. Capitalism does not bring prosperity and delight to the 'little brown people' in the Global South. It brings riches to the already rich. I have been living all over Asia for over 20 years and have seen impoverishment enslavement and loss of dignity and culture as well as forced conversion of agricultural lands to industry. I am not condemning capitalism, but it has morphed into corporatism and some of the big bastards are Unilever (mercury poisoning in India) Monsanto (use of small girls to pollinate GM cotton in India and gene theft) have bigger profits than the GDP's of the countries they work in. Other examples are gold Peak battries, Tommy Hilfiger, Levi's/Dockers Puma, Nike, and even our own beloved mining companies (Greenpeace activist shot in Philippines by guard at an Oz owned mining camp while he was trying to collect water samples). In Lao Phu Bia mines (Oz owned)has sulphuric acid and hydrogen peroxide in tankers being driven through villages on crumbling roads with no emergency systems within cooee.

I am not a bleeding heart, just a what is good for the goose is good for the gander exponent. The things that happen here would make endless front page headlines in a gasping Australian media. Australians are concerned about viruses in Thai seafood, not about the documented condition of the workers and their exposure (and therefore yours) to banned additives like formaldehyde and chlorine or the fact that many are imprisoned in the factory and not paid. You get your shrimp and eat them too. try being a good global citizen. I am having a life.. a bigger one than I suspect yours is.