free market über alles
by John at 8/05/2005 02:32:00 PM
I know the famine food insecurity in Niger is Somebody Else's Problem, and just another piece of bad news in a world chock-full of bad news. But I was reading about it anyway on Salon.com, and a couple of paragraphs jumped out at me:
Mustn't disrupt "the markets"!
Update: Wow. It really is all about the markets. In part, food speculators have caused a crisis in prices (counting on a locust infestation to drive up regional food demands), and the poorest can no longer afford food. There is food, but just not for them.
Throughout Niger, the hunger crisis is an affliction of the poor. While people in Terbadeen starve, there is food in the markets of the nearest big village, Abalak, four miles away down a winding dirt track. And in the hotels of the capital, Niamey, breakfast coffee comes with seven cubes of white sugar lining the saucer.
...
Aid is beginning to arrive in Niger. But until three weeks ago, it was government policy not to distribute free food to the worst-affected communities because of concern that it would disrupt the markets. That has changed, and the United Nations plans to start the first general distributions of food aid next week, targeting 2.5 million people. Even then, it will take time to reach every affected village in a vast, landlocked country where the aid must be brought hundreds of miles by road.
Mustn't disrupt "the markets"!
Update: Wow. It really is all about the markets. In part, food speculators have caused a crisis in prices (counting on a locust infestation to drive up regional food demands), and the poorest can no longer afford food. There is food, but just not for them.
